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Web Operational Management Group

Minutes of the Meeting of January 11, 2012
Dana Porter Library, Lib 428

Present : Nancy Collins (recorder), Marian Davies, Graham Faulkner, Chris Gray, Esther Millar, Doug Morton, Steve Weber, Charles Woods

Absent: Annie Bélanger, Pascal Calarco

  1. Approval of WebOps Minutes of November 23
    Approved with minor corrections.

  2. Committee Housekeeping

    New Systems Employees - The group welcomed Systems' new contract employees Graham Faulkner (Web Developer/Programmer) and Steve Weber (Web Developer/Systems Administrator). Graham and Steve have already started working on LibQuest and LibWork. Their future projects will be determined shortly.

    Request Tracker - Systems will be implementing Request Tracker (RT) to streamline and centralize support requests. RT will enable Systems to prioritize projects and manage them with greater transparency.

    DSpace Development - The tech company @mire will be updating our instance of DSpace. New DSpace features will improve users' workflow, make the submission process easier, and provide an automatic mechanism for supporting eTheses submissions that have specific requirements relating to copyright and patents.

    Open Journal Systems (OJS) - The Library will be taking over hosting the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies from Simon Fraser University (SFU). SFU will navigate the journal.

    Annie - Annie will be away from WebOps for a couple of months to focus her efforts on the University Map Library relocation. Charles will chair the committee in the interim and the group will go into "stasis mode" with regards to strategic web planning.

  3. Business Arising from the Minutes of November 23

    2.4. Popular Choices menu
    Re: adding JSTOR to the Popular Choices menu.
    Action: Chris will add JSTOR to the menu.

    Musagetes Study Room Booking
    Users are booking the study room in Musagetes without realizing that it's located in Cambridge.
    Action: Chris will change the entry in the drop-down menu to include "Cambridge."

    Guide to Extended Learning
    Action: Charles will follow up with Annie to see if she has spoken with the people involved.

    Circulation Pages on Sharepoint
    Following up on the group's concern about the move of Circulation pages from the staff web to Sharepoint and the potential loss of use statistics and indexing:

    • Charles spoke to Stephen Markan who confirmed that there is a way to Google Analytics-enable Sharepoint. Action: Charles will follow up with Stephen to see how we can do this.

    • Charles reported that Urchin is not a desirable statistical package. In conversation with Randy Oldham from the University of Guelph, Randy indicated that the Urchin software has not been updated and is not compatible with apache. The counts seem to be inaccurate. Action: Charles will confirm with Pascal that we are abandoning Urchin as a possibility.

    • Concerns were raised again about the general trend in the Library toward using Sharepoint. The group agreed to devote time at a future meeting where Annie, Pascal, and the Library's Sharepoint administrators are present to discuss strategies and best practices for using Sharepoint.

    • Action: Charles will invite Chris Halonen to speak to us and other interested staff about archiving of web material.

  4. Governance: Next Steps
    The group decided to defer governance work for at least two months, until Annie returns to the committee.

  5. Report from Web Advisory Committee
    Chris provided the group with an update from the campus-wide Web Advisory Committee. Highlights included:
    • IST has purchased the uwaterloo.xxx domain to prevent use by other parties.
    • Content types that will be added to Drupal include web forms, photos, events, archiving (unpublished drafts?).
    • WCMS has launched a web resources site to provide information about technical support, resources on other websites (e.g.web-accessibility tools), and training opportunities.
    • The Library can request WCMS to create a separate Drupal site for testing purposes. This site can include admin privileges.
    • AODA requires that
      • By January 1, 2014, all websites created or modified after January 1, 2012 must conform to WCAG 2.0 Level A.
      • By January 1, 2021, all websites must conform to WCAG 2.0 Level AA.


  6. Training Requirements for Web Creators
    The group discussed training requirements for web creators.
    • Action: Chris will propose a means of proceding on AODA issues
    • Action: All group members will think of other training requirements that staff might require (1-2 points / each)

  7. Around the Table
    • Nancy: Communications and Public Affairs has been working on an editorial calendar to focus the university’s efforts in web features and media relations to concentrate on the university’s research priorities. The hope is to plan and cluster stories under monthly research themes to gain greater media attention. The editorial calendar is currently being planned alongside the launch for the university’s new homepage.

  8. Next Meeting: Wednesday, February 8, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, Dana Porter Library, LIB 428
    Recorder: Marian


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February 1, 2013