WEBFORUM

1
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002
2
Revamping UCLs Web Structure

• Professor Roland Rosner
• Director of EISD

3
Information Strategy organisation
Information Strategy Committee
Steering Groups
Infrastructure
Software Standards
Academic Systems
Administrative Systems
Web Intranet
Working Group on Web Structure
4
Working Party on Web Structure- terms of
reference

• To further the Web and Intranet Steering Group's
  exploration of the structure of UCL domains and
  graphical mapping thereof
• To consider the revision of the structure of UCL
  domains
• To submit a final report and recommendations to
  the meeting of the Web and Intranet Steering
  Group in early Spring 2002

5
Membership

• Professor Roland Rosner (EISD)
• Jeremy Speller (Registry)
• Anthony Peacock (CHIME)
• Marco Federighi (Engineering Sciences)
• Professor Susan Hockey (SLAIS)
• Nicholas Tyndale (Development Office)
• Rachel Port (Secretary)

6
Mode of operation

• Short monthly meetings - from Dec 2001
• Early decisions
• restructuring of top levels
• target audiences
• information about
• content management
• pilots
• Subgroups
• design
• content management
• Budgetary constraints

7
Conclusions

• Design
• New look and structure
• Open source software for CMS
• Zope
• Provision of CMS server
• IS - Web Unit responsibilities
• Pilots
• Registry, Bartlett, Engineering Sciences
• XML group
• preparation for portals and MLE!
• Launch!

8
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002
9
Introduction to the new look and the new structure
UCLONLINE

• Why now?
• WPWS Report
• What does it mean for Departments/Divisions?
• Timetable
• Examples

10
Introduction to the new look and the new structure
UCLONLINE

• Why now?
• Ingram Initiative
• Legislation
• WPWS Report
• Need to address target audiences
• Need for consistent style and menuing
• Visual Production Design Project Group
• What does it mean for Departments/Divisions?
• Central Divisions / Faculties will be strongly
  encouraged to work with us to adopt the new
  framework
• Departments will be encouraged and helped if they
  wish to adopt the new framework
• Guidelines / templates / support will be provided
  AFTER the central site has settled down

11
Introduction to the new look and the new structure
UCLONLINE

• Timetable
• Merger delay
• Existing examples
• www.ucl.ac.uk/Registry
• www.ucl.ac.uk/proposedmerger
• www.chime.ucl.ac.uk
• www.ucl.ac.uk/WebForum
• Development site - wu4.reg.ucl.ac.uk/build2
• Launch
• Examples

12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002
18
UCLONLINE
Web Standards
Neil Martin Web Support Officer (Production
Design)
19
UCLONLINE
Summary

• Nature of web standards
• XHTML and CSS
• Web Accessibility
• Context of new design

20
UCLONLINE
What are Web Standards?

• Web technologies developed by the W3C
• E.g. XHTML, CSS, XML, DOM
• Separation of Style and Content

21
UCLONLINE
Advantages of web standards?

• Inclusive design
• Device independence repurposing content
• Better control over style - layout, colours
• Reduction of costs/time consumption
• Long-term viability of content
• New versions of browsers are implementing web
  standards
• Its the future - XML, etc

22
UCLONLINE
Standards Used In the New Design

• XHTML
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS1,CSS2)
• Web Accessibility Standard (WCAG)

23
UCLONLINE
XHTML

• Latest version XHTML 1.1
• Highly structured - headers, paragraphs, lists,
  etc
• Ensure that all tags are closed (well formed) and
  properly nested
• HTML as an application of XML

24
UCLONLINE
XHTML

• Latest version XHTML 1.1
• Highly structured - headers, paragraphs, lists,
  etc
• Ensure that all tags are closed and properly
  nested.
• HTML as an application of XML

• ltpgtcontentlt/pgt NOT ltpgtcontent
• ltpgtltemgtcontentlt/emgtlt/pgt
• NOT
• ltemgtltpgtcontentlt/emgtlt/pgt
• 3.ltbrgt becomes ltbr /gt

25
UCLONLINE
CSS

• Presentation of HTML content
• Control of fonts, colour, positioning and layout
• Style sheets for different media and output
  devices
• Can make global changes to style of a web site
  thus dramatically reducing workload
• Users may override your style sheet with their own

26
UCLONLINE
Web Accessibility

• Legal Obligations - DDA,SENDA
• W3C, WAI, WCAG
• Levels of conformance to guidelines
• Ongoing project to improve practice within UCL
• See www.w3c.org/wai

27
UCLONLINE
Validation Tools

• Dreamweaver MX
• W3C Markup Validation Service http//validator.w3.
  org
• W3C CSS Validator
• http//jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
• Bobby (Bobby Worldwide)
• http//bobby.watchfire.com/

28
UCLONLINE
Does the new design validate to all the standards?

• Not quite
• Designing for Netscape 4.0 - poor support for CSS
  in certain areas
• Limitations of using Dreamweaver (and advantages
  of a Content Management System)
• Production of guidelines and support from Web
  Unit (dissemination of good practice)

29
UCLONLINE
Useful Links

• www.webstandards.org
• www.alistapart.com/
• www.w3.org/wai
• www.techdis.ac.uk
• www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,55675,00.html

30
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002
31
Introduction to Content Management at UCL
UCLCMS

• Information strategy requires efficient access to
  accurate and timely information
• The web is a common, readily available access
  mechanism
• Current web development methods require a large
  amount of dedicated effort
• A content management system can provide a
  flexible development framework that enables
  information integration, dynamic web views and
  delegation of responsibility for content

Anthony Peacock 11 December 2002
32
Introduction to Content Management at UCL
UCLCMS
The process

• Content Management Systems Working Group (CMSWG)
• Three pilot projects
• Bartlett
• Engineering
• Registry
• Attendance at international conferences
• Consulted with experts

Anthony Peacock 11 December 2002
33
Introduction to Content Management at UCL
UCLCMS
The outcome

• Zope
• UCL supported server
• Test server being installed now
• Development and production servers being
  specified and ordered
• Use of server for UCL core pages
• Development of service for other users

Anthony Peacock 11 December 2002
34
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002
35
Engineering Sciences CMS talk outline
UCLCMS

• Background and boundaries
• Content
• Management
• Site design
• Why Zope/Plone?
• Functionality
• Whats missing
• Conclusions

36
Background and Boundaries
UCLCMS

• 1997 online registration (EE)
• 1998 online exam results (EE)
• 2000 - 2001 paperless office (ENG)
• 2001 - 2002 admissions (UCL)
• early 2002 UCL website CMS
• 2002 - 2003 student records (UCL)

37
Content
UCLCMS

• Student records
• Course records
• Dept information (teaching, research)
• Projects
• Admin (committees)
• Audit trail, statistics
• Events

38
Management
UCLCMS

• Departments
• Faculty
• Central College
• Committees
• External agencies (QAA, .)

39
Site design
UCLCMS

• Departments
• programmes and modules
• research
• Faculty
• committees
• projects
• news
• events

40
Why Zope/Plone?
UCLCMS

• remote authoring via browser
• workflow and version control
• open source, platform independent
• Zope transactional object database
• Plone useful tools (form handling, searching.)
• tailored for large organisations

41
Functionality
UCLCMS

• Structured documents
• Discussions BB and comments
• News
• Events
• deadlines
• room bookings
• Topics

42
Whats missing?
UCLCMS

• Structured documents
• Workflow
• Audit trail (versions)
• Reports

43
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002
44
UCLONLINE UCLCMS
Bringing it all together

• Separation of content and design
• Multi-purposing of content
• Re-usability of content
• Distributed authoring and workflow
• UCL ONLINE and Zope
• Flexibility
• Zope and Dreamweaver
• Content provider interface
• When?

45
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002