July 2006 Archives
I took a few days off from the Athletics migration this week in order to upgrade the University's Movable Type blogging software from version 3.2 to version 3.3. This was in preparation for the fall semester's blogging and in anticipation of possible expansion of academic blogging.
The blog you're reading right now is using this new version. You'll notice that some of the entries are now "tagged", a new feature of 3.3 that allows an alternative to categories for organizing posts. Notice the "tag cloud" in the right side bar that shows the frequency of the tags used based on the weight and size of the font.
I've also installed some plug-ins that have improved the posting and editing of entries using a WYSIWYG editor.
And with version 3.3, we're also now using a mySQL database and some other back-end features that should improve the performance of our blogs.
I recently purchased a site license for a report on e-mail newsletter usability. This report is now available for anyone within Taylor to view, print and use.
It's long -- 500+ pages! -- but if you're currently writing e-mail newsletters or are thinking about doing so in the future, please take the time to look over the article.
Integrating nTreePoint with LDAP has been completed due to some diligent work by IT and Unidigm (the company that produces nTreePoint). This means that individuals can log into nTreePoint using their normal username and password. Permissions still need to be set up from within nTreePoint, but this should make it much easier on both OC and everyone who uses the product. Just one less password you'll have to remember!
With this in place, we're very close to rolling out the product to departments to use for forms. We plan on doing so in conjunction with the LCMS v3 roll out.
Use of nTreePoint for surveys is still up in the air due to concerns with over-sampling of internal audiences.
Progress continues on several fronts with Taylor Online and the Portal.
Over the past several weeks, Online Communications, Information Technology and several other departments have been homing in on a solution for moving distribution of promotional announcements from e-mail to a channel in the portal. A prototype has been developed and approved. Once we work through a few remaining issues and setup the organizational structure, we should be able to begin using it in time for the fall semester. This solution will allow mostly free form Web pages in order to display graphics and other design elements. It will also resolve the hosting and accessibility of attachments.
While awaiting finalization of the athletics templates, we were able to migrate the following departments:
Additionally, we were able to add the Master of Arts in Relgious Studies program to the site. The MES degree will be migrated later since an area other than my own currently maintains that content.
At this stage we have just over 30% of the site migrated. When we complete Athletics, we believe we will have just over 50% of the site completed and hope to be able to provide an estimated timeframe for completion.
We will start Athletics next week and hope to have it complete by the end of the second week in August. Progress will once again be slowed due to vacations during the first week of August.
At the request of the University, my team took on a critical project to create an internal Web site for the Offices of Institutional Research and Academic Assessment in order to fulfill an AQIP action plan.
The project was successful (see http://online.tayloru.edu/admin/aqip/) and very well received by those involved with AQIP; however, it consumed two weeks of effort. As a result, work did not begin on Athletics as planned.
