INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE MEETING NOTES
January 28, 2004
I. Welcome and Introductions
§ Members Present: Larry Merkley, Phillip Stark, Charlie McDowell, Pat LeCuyer, Bob White, Max Ritchie, Mark Cianca, Peter Bergstrom
§ Guests Present: Matthew Kalastro, Beth Guislin, Davi Ottenheimer, Robin Ove, Jim Burns, Susan Willats
II. Web and Portal Readiness Committee
Beth Guislin, chair of the Web and Portal Readiness Committee (WAPR), led today’s presentation. She distributed an executive summary of the reports that would be covered, including WAPR’s recommendations for: improving and sustaining academic department web sites, ensuring that web sites are accessible and usable for all, and adopting web application development and integration standards.
Davi Ottenheimer distributed Web Application Development and Integration Standards (WADIS), and led the group through a power point presentation.
ITC recommended that the Enterprise Applications Team thoroughly review the WADIS document. After the document has been reviewed, the team will present their findings to ITC later in the spring.
Robin Ove led the next part of the discussion on academic department websites. She provided many background documents for review including: Academic Department We Sites Assessment, Web site evaluation, Web site evaluation criteria, and screen shots of each department's web page.
No academic department’s web site passed all of the criteria that were examined in the assessment. However, some departments weren’t far from passing. WAPR recommends that one or two web developer/web support positions be funded in FITC for one or two years, and that the appropriate governing bodies establish content guidelines and define additional, specific goals for academic department web sites. A more detailed proposal for the additional FTE was requested, including a timeline and an expected yield of output.
FITC has been working with PIO to produce a template for departmental websites. Community Studies served as the example. A comprehensive evaluation of their site was done, and the ITC was presented with a view of the new site as it currently stands.
ITC members were pleased with the template, and think that it serves as a good intermediary step between where academic websites currently stand on campus, and the longer range vision of departmental sites that are database driven portals.
The Community Studies site is database driven and took approximately 60 hours to complete. It was noted that a great deal of time was also spent on the department side to generate all the content. ITC members would like to standardize the broader information sources such as course catalog, to streamline the process as more departments reconfigure their sites.
Time did not permit Susan Willat’s presentation on accessibility. That will be discussed at the next meeting.
III. Next Meeting: February 11, 2004