WEBFORUM11 December 2002

Revamping UCL’s Web Structure

Professor Roland Rosner

Director of EISD

Infrastructure

Information Strategy organisation

Software &

Standards

Information Strategy Committee

Academic Systems

Administrative Systems

Web & Intranet

Working Group on Web Structure

Steering Groups

Working Party on Web Structure- terms of reference

• To further the Web and Intranet Steering Group's exploration of the structure of UCL domains and graphical mapping thereof

• To consider the revision of the structure of UCL domains

• To submit a final report and recommendations to the meeting of the Web and Intranet Steering Group in early Spring 2002

Membership

• Professor Roland Rosner (EISD)

• Jeremy Speller (Registry)

• Anthony Peacock (CHIME)

• Marco Federighi (Engineering Sciences)

• Professor Susan Hockey (SLAIS)

• Nicholas Tyndale (Development Office)

• Rachel Port (Secretary)

Mode of operation• Short monthly meetings - from Dec 2001

• Early decisions– restructuring of top levels

• target audiences• information about…

– content management– pilots

• Subgroups– design– content management

• Budgetary constraints

Conclusions• Design

– New look and structure

• Open source software for CMS– Zope

• Provision of CMS server– IS - Web Unit responsibilities

• Pilots– Registry, Bartlett, Engineering Sciences

• XML group– preparation for portals and MLE!

• Launch!

WEBFORUM11 December 2002

Introduction to the new look and the new structure

• Why now?• WPWS Report• What does it mean for Departments/Divisions?• Timetable• Examples

UCLONLINE

Introduction to the new look and the new structure

• Why now?– Ingram Initiative

– Legislation

• WPWS Report– Need to address target audiences

– Need for consistent style and menuing

– Visual & Production Design Project Group

• What does it mean for Departments/Divisions?– Central Divisions / Faculties will be strongly encouraged to work with us to

adopt the new framework

– Departments will be encouraged and helped if they wish to adopt the new framework

– Guidelines / templates / support will be provided AFTER the central site has settled down

UCLONLINE

Introduction to the new look and the new structure

• Timetable– Merger delay– Existing examples

• www.ucl.ac.uk/Registry• www.ucl.ac.uk/proposedmerger• www.chime.ucl.ac.uk• www.ucl.ac.uk/WebForum

– Development site - wu4.reg.ucl.ac.uk/build2– Launch

• Examples

UCLONLINE

WEBFORUM11 December 2002

UCLONLINE

Web Standards

Neil Martin

Web Support Officer (Production Design)

UCLONLINE

Summary

•Nature of web standards

•XHTML and CSS

•Web Accessibility

•Context of new design

UCLONLINE

What are Web Standards?

• Web technologies developed by the W3C

• E.g. XHTML, CSS, XML, DOM

• Separation of Style and Content

UCLONLINE

Advantages of web standards?

• Inclusive design• Device independence & repurposing content • Better control over style - layout, colours • Reduction of costs/time consumption• Long-term viability of content• New versions of browsers are implementing

web standards • It’s the future - XML, etc

UCLONLINE

Standards Used In the New Design• XHTML

• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS1,CSS2)

• Web Accessibility Standard (WCAG)

UCLONLINE

XHTML

•Latest version XHTML 1.1

•Highly structured - headers, paragraphs, lists, etc

•Ensure that all tags are closed (well formed) and properly nested

• HTML as an application of XML

UCLONLINE

XHTML

•Latest version XHTML 1.1

•Highly structured - headers, paragraphs, lists, etc

•Ensure that all tags are closed and properly nested.

• HTML as an application of XML

1.<p>content</p> NOT <p>content

2.<p><em>content</em></p>

NOT

<em><p>content</em></p>

3.<br> becomes <br />

UCLONLINE

CSS

•Presentation of HTML content•Control of fonts, colour, positioning and layout•Style sheets for different media and output devices•Can make global changes to style of a web site thus dramatically reducing workload•Users may override your style sheet with their own

UCLONLINE

Web Accessibility

•Legal Obligations - DDA,SENDA

•W3C, WAI, WCAG

•Levels of conformance to guidelines

•Ongoing project to improve practice within UCL

•See www.w3c.org/wai

UCLONLINE

Validation Tools

•Dreamweaver MX

•W3C Markup Validation Service http://validator.w3.org

•W3C CSS Validator

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

•Bobby (Bobby Worldwide)

http://bobby.watchfire.com/

UCLONLINE

Does the new design validate to all the standards?•Not quite•Designing for Netscape 4.0 - poor support for CSS in certain areas•Limitations of using Dreamweaver (and advantages of a Content Management System)•Production of guidelines and support from Web Unit (dissemination of good practice)

UCLONLINE

Useful Links

•www.webstandards.org

•www.alistapart.com/

•www.w3.org/wai

•www.techdis.ac.uk

•www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,55675,00.html

WEBFORUM11 December 2002

Introduction to Content Management at UCL

• Information strategy requires efficient access to accurate and timely information

• The web is a common, readily available access mechanism• Current web development methods require a large amount of

dedicated effort• A content management system can provide a flexible development

framework that enables information integration, dynamic web views and delegation of responsibility for content

UCLCMS

Anthony Peacock 11 December 2002

Introduction to Content Management at UCL

• Content Management Systems Working Group (CMSWG)• Three pilot projects

– Bartlett– Engineering– Registry

• Attendance at international conferences• Consulted with experts

UCLCMS

Anthony Peacock 11 December 2002

The process

Introduction to Content Management at UCL

• Zope• UCL supported server

– Test server being installed now– Development and production servers being specified and ordered

• Use of server for UCL ‘core’ pages• Development of service for other users

UCLCMS

Anthony Peacock 11 December 2002

The outcome

WEBFORUM11 December 2002

Engineering Sciences CMS: talk outline

• Background and boundaries• Content• Management• Site design• Why Zope/Plone?• Functionality• What’s missing• Conclusions

UCLCMS

Background and Boundaries

• 1997: online registration (EE)• 1998: online exam results (EE)• 2000 - 2001: paperless office (ENG)• 2001 - 2002: admissions (UCL)• early 2002: UCL website CMS• 2002 - 2003: student records (UCL)

UCLCMS

Content

• Student records

• Course records

• Dept information (teaching, research)

• Projects

• Admin (committees……)

• Audit trail, statistics

• Events

UCLCMS

Management

• Departments

• Faculty

• Central College

• Committees

• External agencies (QAA, ….)

UCLCMS

Site design

• Departments– programmes and modules– research

• Faculty– committees– projects– news– events

UCLCMS

Why Zope/Plone?

• remote authoring via browser

• workflow and version control

• open source, platform independent

• Zope: transactional object database

• Plone: useful tools (form handling, searching….)

• tailored for large organisations

UCLCMS

Functionality

• Structured documents

• Discussions: BB and comments

• News

• Events– deadlines– room bookings

• Topics

UCLCMS

What’s missing?

• Structured documents

• Workflow

• Audit trail (versions)

• Reports

UCLCMS

WEBFORUM11 December 2002

Bringing it all together

• Separation of content and design– Multi-purposing of content– Re-usability of content– Distributed authoring and workflow

• UCL ONLINE and Zope– Flexibility– Zope and Dreamweaver– Content provider interface– When?

UCLONLINE & UCLCMS

WEBFORUM11 December 2002