Web Team: Resources: Summary of Work
Plan for the Redesign and Restructure of the CAES Web Presence
The Vision
"We envision the World Wide Web presence of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences will be wholly demonstrative of unity, accessibility, objectivity, dependability and professionalism. Our college will increasingly rely upon the World Wide Web as an invaluable conduit for the focused dissemination of both raw information and expert knowledge to our diverse client base as well as to our many vested stakeholders."
Characteristics of the Vision
Identity
Establish a cohesive CAES identity and propagate that identity
throughout the college's entire Web presence making all organizational
units, information products and other resources immediately
recognizable.
[more >>]
Security
Protect sensitive data about the college's personnel and
clientele by securing connections to college-maintained servers.
Move internal Web-based communications into a secured intranet
with single sign-on.
[more >>]
Usability
Reorganize the college's online resources to facilitate
the tasks users want to perform — i.e. an intranet for internal
communications and an extranet designed explicitly to disseminate
information products to clientele and stakeholders.
[more
>>]
Accessibility
Extend the availability of the college's online resources
to all the citizens of Georgia, including persons with disabilities.
Establish and adopt an organization-wide standard for meeting
Section 508 requirements.
[more
>>]
Accountability
Measure and assess the effectiveness of the college's programming
using a single comprehensive management information system
that addresses the college's accountability reporting needs
and online information delivery techniques.
[more >>]
Interoperability
Centralize the college's data and knowledge resources into
a common data store, resulting in the reduction in duplication
of key data, increased security and reliability of data,
as well as the potential emergence of data mining opportunities.
[more >>]
Manageability
Establish and adopt a standard Web publishing management
platform for the delivery of the college's online products
that would facilitate the rapid dissemination of information
without requiring substantial technical understanding by
faculty and/or support staff.
[more >>]
Supportability
Provide in-depth support and training not previously available to system
administrators and content contributors.
[more >>]
Sustainability
Develop specific criteria and standards to meet today's
needs without compromising the ability to adapt to changing
conditions in the long-term future. Empower the college's
communication and technology experts to provide guidelines
and establish methodology for Web content delivery.
[more
>>]
Addressing the Critical Issues
Identity
In "Looking Farther: The Vision We Share 2.0," the "need to enhance the college's image and redefine its mission for the public through effective marketing" is expressed as a critical issue for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. The college's World Wide Web presence is undeniably tied to the public's perception of the college, its faculty and staff, and its information products. Therefore, the college must leverage its online resources as a major component of any marketing strategy by utilizing the marketing concept of "product positioning" to differentiate the college's "unbiased, research-based programs" and the use of effective "branding" techniques to evoke positive feelings of trust, confidence, reliability and security. To that end, it is important that the college present itself and its information resources in a consistent manner. This would involve the establishment of a cohesive identity and the propagation of that identity throughout the college's entire World Wide Web presence making all organizational units, information products and other resources immediately recognizable.
The CAES Identity Program and Standards Policy Committee has developed guidelines to assist all departments, units, etc., in projecting a single, unified identity to every constituency, reflecting the efforts to consolidate programs and services under the umbrella of the CAES. The College Web Team is assessing the Web presence and navigation for the college Web site. The Web team is also developing a Web style guide to define a set of minimum qualifications that must be met, offer specific CAES templates that follow these guidelines, provide guidance on larger Web design issues, and point to valuable resources within the college and larger academic community.
Once identity and Web style standards are approved and mandated, the critical issue of a unified, consistent Web presence can be propagated by the College Web Team and CAES personnel.
Security
Federal and state law, as well as University policy, now requires that the college's responsibility of stewardship include vigilant protection of its informational assets. This, particularly, includes what may be considered sensitive data about the college's personnel and clientele that we may process and/or store within our information systems. The college should move all of its internal World Wide Web-based communications into a secured intranet and technology should be deployed to facilitate the creation of a "single sign-on" environment through which faculty and staff can reach the appropriate information, tools, applications and other online resources using a single, consistent username-password combination. Additionally, the connection to college-maintained servers and the transmission of data to these servers should only occur through secured communication channels. The establishment and implementation of standards for the transmission of data and for facilitating direct connections to servers will, to a large degree, mitigate the risk of sensitive data being compromised.
Usability
The term "usable" is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as "convenient and practicable for use." This definition does not describe the current state of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences' World Wide Web presence. The college's online resources have evolved as independent "silos" of information with disparate identities and with very little linkage connecting one to another. This situation is both the result of and the cause for continued, uncoordinated growth. In his book "Designing Web Usability," Jacob Nielson states that one of the most important rules for designing a World Wide Web site's structure is that it reflects "the user's view of the site and its information or services." It is imperative that all of the college's online resources be organized in such a way as to facilitate the tasks that users want to perform and that the user is able to do so without having to be familiar with the organizational structure of or the division of responsibilities within the college. In "Looking Farther: The Vision We Share 2.0," this approach is given credence among the action items listed for addressing the issues of "Changing Demographics" and "Enhancing Outreach through the Extension Delivery System." The concept of segregating the college's online resources into meaningful topical areas should extend to the point where all content is reorganized — an intranet facilitating internal communication and an extranet designed explicitly to disseminate information products to clientele and stakeholders.
In order to accomplish the critical issue of Usability, a series of events must take place. An inventory of all CAES Web content will be compiled, providing the basis for determining what needs to be migrated, who is responsible for migrating it, and how it will be migrated. A comprehensive directory structure, site and template set for all CAES content will be created. Content will be migrated from the old to new system by the responsible parties following provided guidelines and procedures. Detailed tracking of migration progress will be expected and tools will be provided. Migrated content must meet outlined standards, including functionality. Site will be launched. Maximum searching capabilities will be explored and incorporated during migration. Mechanisms for user feedback will be deployed.
Accessibility
When discussing the "accessibility" of content delivered via the World Wide Web, there are numerous denotations of the word and each one should be explored. Traditionally, accessibility has referred to the availability of a resource. By its very nature, the World Wide Web extends the availability of the college's information resources and, given the proper approach, satisfies the goal expressed in "Looking Farther: The Vision We Share 2.0" of being "accessible '24/7' to the public...through connectivity using advanced communication technology." Additionally, accessibility is often used to describe the openness, approachability or responsiveness of an individual or an organization. Again, the World Wide Web can be leveraged as an indispensable tool through which the college can achieve another of its goals — to become "engaged with all citizens of Georgia from diverse communities and committed to serve the public by making sharing, reciprocity and life-long learning the building blocks of its outreach programs." In addition, accessibility refers to the guidelines as set forth in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998, which requires that access to and use of information and data be comparable for persons with and without disabilities. The college has both moral and legal obligations in regards to accessibility. In prior lawsuits, courts have held that a public entity violates its obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act when it responds to accessibility requirements on an as-needed basis instead of being prepared in advance for these concerns (Tyler vs. City of Manhattan, 1994). This requires the establishment and adoption of an organization-wide standard for meeting Section 508 requirements and the adoption of appropriate technological tools and accompanying procedures to assess and ensure compliance.
There are two issues to accessibility — the 24/7 Datacenter and accessibility as it pertains to persons with disabilities. To address the first issue, OIT needs to establish a redundant, highly-available Datacenter that provides 24/7 access to the World Wide Web by the public.
The second issue concerns providing comparable access to the World Wide Web by persons with disabilities. To do so, we must first familiarize CAES personnel with Section 508 guidelines as well as UGA and Board of Regents policies regarding accessibility. We also need to establish organization-wide standards and tools for meeting Section 508 guidelines. CAES will also use these guidelines and tools in all Web site development.
Accountability
One of the core values held by the college's faculty and staff and expressed in "Looking Farther: The Vision We Share 2.0" is that of stewardship. "We value the resources we receive from governmental and private sources. We seek to provide returns in education, research and service that multiply this investment." It is also understood that "our ultimate success will be the impact we have on the quality of life of those we serve." These values reinforce the idea that the college is indeed accountable to both its clientele and its stakeholders. The key to effective resource management lies in the ability to measure and assess the effectiveness of the college's programming. Toward this end, the college has begun to leverage information technologies to capture and utilize accountability data. The next step is to further develop these existing applications into a single, comprehensive management information system that addresses the college's accountability reporting and assessment needs. In addition, as the World Wide Web is more fully engaged as a delivery mechanism of choice by the college, information technologies such as NetIQ's WebTrends Reporting Center should be used to measure and assess the success of the college's online information delivery techniques and pathways.
Accountability pertains to showing the activities of CAES personnel as well as the activity/use of the college's Datacenter and its resident applications and content. The types of college Datacenter data to be made available will be site traffic, college Datacenter uptime, amount of data transferred, etc. WebTrends must be installed, setup, and users trained and supported. Reporting applications will be rolled into a single location accessible via a single, individual sign-on and will have a common look and feel. A "Report Central" will need to be created to provide a single source for all administrative, organizational and activity-based reporting.
Interoperability
In "Looking Farther: The Vision We Share 2.0," the need for the college to be "unified with the University and seamlessly bringing together other units of the University to build a shared culture of thinking and behavior" is expressed as a characteristic of the college's strategic goals. Effective communication, regardless of method, is an essential foundation for the evolution and sustainability of unity — both internal and external. When the communication method involves the use of information technologies, the degree to which it is truly effectual is greatly dependent upon the establishment of standard platforms and technologies through which information is to be created, shared, stored and presented. When considering the publication of information products to the World Wide Web, the use of a standard publishing platform allows for fluidity of change and consistency of quality. The deployment of such a "universal" publishing tool would satisfy the college's expressed goal, as far as its World Wide Web presence is concerned, of being adaptive to change "for rapid response to changing opportunities." Therefore, the ownership of and responsibility for online information resources could change without the potential impediment of technological barriers. Also, the centralization of the college's data and other knowledge resources into a common data store should be of the utmost priority. The reduction in the duplication of key data, which results in the need for periodic reconciliation, is alone an important motivating factor. In addition, the move toward a common data store has important ramifications for the college in terms of increased security and reliability of data, as well as the potential emergence of data mining opportunities. The increasing importance of interconnecting the college's data, both internally and externally (with the University's financial, administrative, student, and personnel data stores), is evident when examining current campus-wide initiatives toward comprehensive identity management, data integration and access, and information security.
In order to accomplish the critical issue of Interoperability, the college should adopt Macromedia Contribute and DreamWeaver as the standard Web publishing platform. In order to do this, team members must learn Contribute to create templates, designate user access and provide training to faculty and staff. Standards for the Web publishing process need to be developed and implemented. These standards include hosting requests, production timelines, implementation of sites, revisions and recommendations. Templates for various client groups will be produced and made available for Contribute-trained clients.
Manageability
Within "Looking Farther: The Vision We Share 2.0" the need for the college to address the "delivery, use and support of Internet-based technologies to enhance educational efforts" is recognized. The most effective and efficient way of accomplishing this goal is through the establishment and adoption of a standard platform for the delivery of the college's information products. Ideally, such a platform would put the power of publishing informational content to the World Wide Web directly into the hands of those who have a mastery of that information. At the same time, this platform should provide such functionality through an intuitive interface that facilitates the rapid dissemination of information without requiring a substantial technical understanding of the platform itself. The Macromedia Contribute Web Publishing System should be acquired and, with careful planning, deployed as the standard, comprehensive content management platform for the college's entire World Wide Web presence. With this foundation in place, the appropriate knowledge workers would have the ability to directly manage the college's online information resources while allowing support staff to systematically maintain the aesthetic appeal and technical integrity of the organization's overall World Wide Web presence.
Contribute has been chosen to facilitate the management of CAES Web content. The Publishing System will need to be installed/setup, media distributed, training done, beginning with a Pilot program and ending with full deployment across CAES. Rules, policies and procedures must be developed for the system.
User management/security will be handled as outlined in the Security portion.
Supportability
The adoption and deployment of Macromedia Contribute as the college's standard World Wide Web content publishing management platform presents inherent benefits for the college beyond those already discussed. Primarily, college personnel charged with supporting the World Wide Web publishing efforts of faculty and staff would be better able to focus their energies and expertise toward providing more in-depth support and training efforts than have previously been possible when working in a multi-platform, heterogeneous publishing environment. Significantly, the Macromedia Corporation itself provides customers with established curriculum designed specifically for training both support staff as system administrators and faculty and staff as content contributors. The adoption of other technologies in combination with this standard platform would allow support personnel to more efficiently manage stylistic aspects of the college's World Wide Web presence.
In order to accomplish the critical issue of Supportability, the College Web Team requires training on the Contribute publishing software, maximizing DreamWeaver capabilities in the context of a Contribute environment, and training on Web technologies, such as CSS. The Web team will be responsible for producing training, training materials and documentation for clients, with a focus on Contribute publishing tools and CAES Web standards. Contribute publishing software will be supported by the Web team via an established support network and dedicated Web helpdesk.
Sustainability
The concept of sustainability, as related to the college's World Wide Web presence, is to develop a healthy, resilient plan for today that will meet current needs without compromising the ability to adapt to changing conditions over time. In essence, today's decisions must be made with a consideration of sustaining our activities into the long-term future. Choosing the option that is least expensive or quickest to implement often means choosing the one that is most expensive to alter and maintain in the future. Therefore, budgeting for sustainability should carefully assess both the cost of initial development as well as long-term requirements. Additionally, specific criteria and standards must be developed to help ensure the ongoing sustainability of our initiative and to ensure that it does not become unmanageable with future growth. By empowering the college's communication and technology experts to provide guidelines, which in turn become policies, and assume responsibility for the method in which content is delivered via the World Wide Web, the sustainability strategy can be fully implemented.
Plans and budgets need to be created and approved, for set future periods, for the college datacenter including Direct Client Support, introduction of new services, and maintenance of the datacenter. We recommend two committees be set up. One to oversee the implementation of this plan and help plan the CAES Web presence; the other a Client Committee to provide feedback and evaluation of current and future Web content on a regular basis.