NOTES ON 2/18/1997 MU-Web Guild Meeting compiled by David Eisenstein, email: c438421@showme.missouri.edu ============================================================================== The meeting, held in 313 Psychology bldg, started at 1:00pm. [Please note that all comments in [] brackets are my own personal takes or opinions. - D. Eisenstein] There were two presentations: (1) a presentation by Michael Stoner, the consultant hired last August or so by the Chancellor for the Web Task Force, whose concern was the development of the web at the Mizzou campus; and (2) a presentation by Christian Basi, an Information Specialist with the Campus News Bureau, about tools he utilizes in his work of overseeing and creating press releases for the University for publishing on the Web. PRESENTATION #1, by Michael Stoner. ----------------------------------- GENERIC INTRODUCTION His focus seemed to center around the image presented of the University by its webpages to an outsider, and the needs for promoting certain kinds of publication-like standards for webpages created by official organs of the University (such as Departmental webpages); the need for continuity and at least some levels of consistency among many of the publically-visible webpages; and especially the need for good nagivational tools and referbacks to the main Mizzou page on many of the the more formally-maintained pages. He explicitly said that his focus was NOT the internal use of the web (an "intranet" web use) for more effective business. He indicated that his mandate was to help senior staff of the University know and acknowledge how important the web is, especially for attracting potiential students, faculty members, and the image that webpages give to the news media and the general public. He pointed out that, as of Dec., 1996, there were currently 18.1 million consumer Internet subscribers or so, and that there were new people being added to the Internet at a rate of 33,000 people per DAY! It is estimated that there will be 30 Million home subscribers to the internet by 1998. HIS MAIN POINTS I. Need for Quality: A. The web needs to be organized for the outside user (who is unfamiliar with the University) rather than for the inside user. B. Identified a need for a new professional position (more about that later). C. Need for good training of people designing and implementing web pages D. The necessity to encourage and reward TEAMWORK, and that such encouragement and rewards needs to be institutionalized. [The idea was at least implied that good web-page development is best done as a multidisciplinary effort.] E. The fact of limited financial resources at the University can also encourage different areas to work together, pooling resources. II. The Main issues A. There is an inconsistency in design among the current webpages representing official parts of the University. (1) Sometimes a user can find him/herself on pages in which it is not readily apparent the user is still on a Mizzou web- page. (2) There exist some Graphical Identity Guidelines, ostensibly created and maintained by University Publications, that he recommends extending (or perhaps revising?) for the Web. [Does anyone know if those guidelines are electronically available? -dde] (3) Issues about graphical quality (4) "It just doesn't look good or consistent to the outside user." B. Search Capabilities (1) There appear to be no campus-wide search engines. [Note: I believe Guy Wilson, campus Webmaster, indicated at that point that a webcrawler (called a "spider"?) is in process of being implemented on the current SHOWME AIX environment at this time, facilitating the creation of indices towards the implementa- tion of a campus-wide search engine.] (2) Material is inconsistently updated. C. Departments have difficulty maintaining webpages. (1) Main reason claimed: lack of funding. (2) Another reason: there is not the urgency to maintain email addresses within departments in which people promptly render responses to queries. Incentives that exist for phone calls do not exist for email. [This seems a management issue. Is this also perhaps a Campus Telecom training issue?] (3) Many departments depend upon student workers for the creation/ maintenance of webpages, but he asserted, "Students need adult supervision." D. Training - main issue here seems to be that students who do webpages need to have instilled in them an institutional sense of web page development. [I believe there was some discussion about departmental needs for license/creativity, and that the institu- tional standards need not become some kind of straight-jacket hindering either a department's unique vision and educational oppor- tunities, nor the artistic talent of student collaboration on web- page design.] [And if there wasn't, there should have been. :-)] III. His Recommendations (evolving from the issues), therefore are: A. The University should work with an outside firm to design and im- plement the main Mizzou home-page. Some discussion about modifying pages for template usage. [Didn't understand this.] B. Switch the current homepages (mentioned above). The URL: http://www.missouri.edu/ seems to be built more for internal University users, and the URL: http://www.missouri.edu/mu/ seems to be geared to outsiders. He recommended that those URL's be switched. C. Site Indices should be created, both: (1) In graphical (iconized?) format, and (2) In textual format D. A calendarizing system may be (or is being?) implemented for the web. [I believe Guy Wilson indicated some knowledge about this.] E. Staffing. (1) There needs to be a position created in University Affairs called "Web Editor." [I was given understanding that the description for job position is being formulated at this time.] (2) This Web Editor (or other people he hires?) may have some of the following responsibilities, for: (a) Creating, promulgating, (and enforcing?) web standards. (b) Developing web-designing expertise among ... [who? present staff and students workers?] (c) Training student workers in WWW design. (3) Some pre-qualification of external vendors may be allowed or promoted. A question arose about easing the formal contracting process for external vendors providing web expertise or ser- vices. For example, if there are people out there that you know you can depend on to do a good job, does there need to be the rigamarole of going through the formal contracting phase every time a project of yours needs to be delegated to some outside developer? (4) There were funding issues alluded to. Don't know what those issues are, but they are being worked with by the Chancellor's office. F. Training (see paragraph II (D), above.) People need to learn - HTML - CGI - institutional standards and expectations (whenever they're formulated) for page layout/design. - Training Classes might best be scheduled on evenings and weekends. IV. Question/Answer session (I didn't get all of them): A. Some question was raised about the potential of having Company Sponsors for departmental webpages. It was noted that MoreNet has relaxed some of the non-commercial restrictions that they used to have in place; no details were given about either these restric- tions nor their relaxation. [Anyone have an URL for these poli- cies?] Someone asked, however, "Does anyone really want a McDonald's commercial on a University Department webpage??" [Personally, I find this institution sacrifices too much to current business interests anyway by the nature and especially funding of some research that happens at this state-supported Research University. I find that the purpose of Universities as being places of independent and productive research (as well as places for good teaching and learning to take place) can be and is sabotaged to some degree by becoming overly dependent on corporate dollars, therefore reflecting corporate agendae; the University's mission then increasingly becomes the mission of satisfying the desires of Corporate America and Chambers of Commerce, which may not be in congruence with what is best for society as a whole. I therefore find the idea of corporate sponsorship of departmental webpages repulsive, to say the least. End of editorial. -dde] B. Another question was raised about how the University planned to use their webpages for the purpose of furthering the educational mission of the University. Mr. Stoner answered by saying that that specific question was not one of his mandates in being hired as a consultant, and that he had no answer to that question. PRESENTATION #2, by Christian Basi. ------------------------------------ (email: Christian_Basi@muccmail.missouri.edu) The main thrust of this presentation was about how to begin a world- wide-web page, and the tools he has used, first as a bare-bones beginner in the Journalism School as a student there, and now as an professional Information Specialist for Mizzou's News Bureau. He gave a handout with many suggestions. [I am given to understand that an electronic version of this handout is to be made available on the Web Author's Guild presentation page, in some webpage URL under: "http://www.missouri.edu/~muwww/"] Some of his main points were: 1) Get an idea of what you like that's already out there on the web by doing some surfing. 2) Utilize tutorials that are online: - Netscape: - Yahoo: [I found 8 category and 667 site matches in Yahoo for the search of "Web Authoring"] - Buy books. [Do they have a "Big Dummies Guide" to webpage authoring in print yet? ] 3) Don't be afraid nor too proud to ASK others for help. 4) Just Do It! (learn basics, experiment, and ASK) A point raised which can be very helpful in learning HTML was that when you see a page you like, you can (under Netscape) use the "View - Document Source" menu option from Netscape's menu bar. Not only then can you see the rendered page, but you can then see the HTML source -- how it is done. If you like it, there's little harm in saving the HTML source somewhere so you can get ideas from it, or cutting and pasting from the Document Source View window (Use Netscape's "File - Save As" menu option to save an entire page in source HTML format.) There was much discussion about the use of search engines. Two which Christian uses were discussed: 1) A "Swish-file" search engine, which can garner results from an entire site. 2) The use of Filemaker Pro to export tab-delimited database to SHOWME, then to use an pre-existing search engine on SHOWME for quick results on a search of that file. An example application of this principle is the Experts Guide, maintained by the News Bureau. To play with it, try URL: "http://www.missouri.edu/~newsbwww/" and then click on "Experts" His summary was (from his handout): * Don't use too many bells/whistles (animation is good, but like anything, it can be overdone) * KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE [write and plan your page accordingly] * Use only technology which will help your viewers * When using search engines or webmaps, make sure it doesn't slow down [the access or the user] or create problems * You don't have to know everything; you just have to know who to ask or where to find it. * Don't overload and take it one step at a time. Questions/Answers ff. Christian's presentation ---------------------------------------------- 1) Someone asked about how to get feedback for a webpage one creates. Christian's top answer was to ALWAYS put an email address at the bottom of a webpage. Guy Wilson (or one of the CC people) also noted that they have received some very good comments from users utilizing those email addresses at the bottom of Campus-Computing- maintained webpages. 2) Another question: How do you *market* your website so people know about it? His answer: Make sure to put the site name EVERYWHERE on your pages. His particular webpages have the advantage of the connec- tions that the News Bureau already has with the news media. Incidentally, he noted that 98.8% of his webpage hits come from the Netscape Navigator, so that's the Web browser he optimizes for. [If you want to make sure your web-page looks good on most browsers, you need to test your pages on them.] 3) He recommended that there is no need to buy special web-page editing tools; that there are many freeware and shareware programs available for that. [Also, I think later versions of WordPerfect or Microsoft Word have tools built in to them that assist in web authoring.]