Something big is happening to the university Events Calendar.

A little bit ago Rob Vrabel mentioned we were working on the events calendar and I would like to confirm that we are and we have some great things in store.

We will be running down all the new features in detail closer to launch but here are just a few things to look forward to:

• Completely new interface
• Better listing and search for events by interests and audiences
• Upcoming Deadlines and Reminders are broken out from main calendar
• Images now supported for event promotion
• Image and video gallery available for every event
• RSVP’s to be created and managed by anyone
• Ability to show interest or say you are attending an event even if there is no RSVP
• Calendars will be better organized in the left menu
• Featured event promotion
• Addresses for location of off campus event
• Subscribe by RSS to a category or audience
• Email subscription for upcoming featured events each week

You can view the current calendar at: http://events.wayne.edu/

Last week I gave a presentation to our small group of communicators, it shows the past, present and future goals for the wayne.edu Web site architecture. I didn’t have time to officially mind map the entire process so I just drew it up on the white board and took photos so bear with me.

The Past

Five years ago when I started in the Web Communications department the web environment was completely decentralized and every site was on their own server with their own content managers, designers and developers. An end user would be bouncing from site to site with no visual or information consistency. It made a lot of sense from a department standpoint because they could control their own environment.

The Present

Over the past five years we have begun to centralize the thousands of sites into a central server environment and identity manual. So far we have 350+ sites in a central look with completely new navigation which focuses on the end user. This is great that each site works well and from a first time visitor they know they are at Wayne State University.

The Future

In the next five years our plan is to improve the users experience even more. Right now the sites are still very separate which means the user has to relearn the navigation each time they bounce to a new site. We have identified some key paths our primary audiences need to take to be successful, our goal is to make those paths usable.  This means creating some central repositories to pull information into the main Web site and to disburse to the department site.

Some other added benefits would be greater integration of information and up to date content. A key facts database that can dynamically be updated across the web and reminds when they need to be updated. A central degree and requirements list. Press releases and news will all be housed in the same spot to pull from and reference. And last but not least a central faculty profile system, opening it up to all faculty, not just the ones in it now. This will allow each of the departments be promote information broader and for users who are not failure with our university structure to find information easily.

Execution

This is just a plan and there are many steps that would need to happen before parts of this are actually implemented. On the other hand there are a few things we can start doing pretty soon and we will be getting those in the queue over the next few months.

We are testing a service called Tender Support to handle keeping track of updates and issues.

A single point of contact

It was important to us to keep the single email address we currently have. We wanted to stay far away from a “form” ticket system because people hate filling out forms and we did not want to add potential complication to update a web site.

Multiple support staff working on a single issue

In the past emails went out to everyone in the web department, it was setup this way so everyone knew what was going on. The issue was someone might start working a the task that someone else may have already started on. There was no way to tell everyone who was handling what without emailing everyone. Tender allows someone to add tasks right to their queue and/or someone else’s queue who will be assisting.

Clear and easy to use interface

The interface of Tender is great. It allows us to see at a glance how many open and new issues there are. It is easy to see who replied and even allows for private replies for us to keep notes or talk without the client being notified.

The only downside we have experienced is it would be great if the dashboard refreshed automatically in case we do not have our email open.

30 day trial period

We are just testing the system to see if it will work for our department, it is software as service so it does have a charge and we want to make sure it is actually making the web update process easier before we invest any money.

Feedback

We are looking for your feedback, if you work @waynestate and use us for your web services let us know how response time is and if you like the structure of the automated emails.

If you are not part of the university feel free to comment about your experience with ticket systems and/or support software. Have a suggestion or some tips for using Tender? We would love to hear about them.

About 20 communicators from across campus attended the meetup. We had salad, pizza and pop to offer and a few topics to get the discussion started and get feedback on. I took detailed notes and summed them up below. Unfortunately the raw notes and results are only available to the Wayne State communicators but I did list out some of the broad topics we talked about.

Topic’s and Notes from the Meeting:

• Promoting faculty research/accomplishments
• Media report created by PR
• Quote “At the end of the day all of the University’s research impacts our lives in some way”
• Idea: Weekly News Reel
• Discussion: Current state of the university’s culture
• Thought: People seem to be responding well to the Wellness Warriors program
• Idea: Quiz bowl for Wayne State facts with prizes
• Idea: “Watch for Wayne State in..” email or message prior to media
• Idea: Make the scholars on campus accessible
• Discussion: Faculty orientation is a great place to start engaging
• Discussion: Presidential communication
• Discussion: Faculty/staff/student ambassador’s
• Topic: Digital signage
• Discussion: Social Media

If you would like to be invited or updated on future meetings just let us know, email campuscommunicators@lists.wayne.edu and we will make sure you get the updates about the next meetings.

If you follow us on Flickr you might have noticed we have begun to archive all the photos from wayne.edu into a set called “Homepage Photos“.

We update the images every two weeks and will be keeping the archive going on Flickr. We are also going to start loading in titles and descriptions for the photos that we have information about.

Wayne State Flickr Group

In addition we have also reclaimed administrator access to the Wayne State University Flickr group and will begin submitting photos to it. We also encourage anyone else at the university to join and begin sharing your WSU photos!

More about our photo initiatives coming soon.

The web team at Wayne State follow the same graded browser support that Yahoo does. We use Yahoo’s list as a baseline to test all web sites and applications we produce, making sure the greatest number of users have the best overall experience.

Primary Changes

This GBS update adds A-grade support for IE8 on XP and Vista. A-grade support is discontinued for Firefox 3 on Win 2000 and Mac 10.4, keeping the A-grade testing surface at 15 platforms.

• Initiated A-grade support for IE 8, Win XP
• Initiated A-grade support for IE 8, Win Vista
• Discontinued A-grade support for Firefox 3, Win 2000
• Discontinued A-grade support for Firefox 3, Mac 10.4
• Incremented supported version of Opera to 9.6
• Incremented supported version of Safari to 3.2

The dagger symbol (as in “Firefox 3.†”) indicates that the most-current non-beta version at that branch level receives support. Put another way, † means “the most recent” instead of “all.”

Source: http://yuiblog.com/blog/2009/01/28/gbs-update-20090128/

In the presentation I introduced what I call the Social Degrees of Participation. I wanted to give a little more explanation since the presentation was just headings and I talked in depth about pretty much everything.

Social Degrees of Participation

1. Observing – The first degree of participation is meant for people who know about the social networks and their tools from their friends or main stream media. They know they exist but have not ventured to interact on the sites.
2. Searching – The second degree is meant for people who are signed up for a few social networks and actively search out their interests or mentions of their self/business. They would like to know more about what people are talking about but do not take part in sharing content.
3. Conversing – The third degree is for people who see something on a network and respond to the comment/post. They actively seek and respond to questions or comments.
4. Connecting – The fourth degree is all about remixing content. Taking content posted externally and either reposting or remixing to post to get conversations started.
5. Creating – The fifth degree consists of people who are the originators or creators of content for the networks. They contribute content that is their own and people are actively responding to it.
6. Controlling – The last and most involved level is where you are contributing original content and people are actively looking for your content and connecting with you, making you the center of information and an expert in your field on that network.

What is your degree of social participation?

WCAG 2.0 applies broadly to more advanced technologies; is easier to use and understand; and is more precisely testable with automated testing and human evaluation.

W3C WAI recommends using WCAG 2.0, instead of WCAG 1.0.

Most Web sites that conform to WCAG 1.0 will not require significant changes in order to conform to WCAG 2.0, and some may not need any changes. To help you move to WCAG 2.0, WAI is developing:

• How WCAG 2.0 Differs from WCAG 1.0
• Comparison of WCAG 1.0 Checkpoints to WCAG 2.0
• How to Update Your Web Site from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0

WCAG 2.0 has 12 guidelines that are organized under 4 principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. For each guideline, there are testable success criteria, which are at three levels: A, AA, and AAA.

For a short summary of the WCAG 2.0 guidelines, see WCAG 2.0 at a Glance.

The best place to start working with WCAG 2.0 is the How to Meet WCAG 2.0 (Quick Reference).

Remember we are here to help so any questions about your site being accessible let us know and we can give you a complete evaluation.

Participating’s easy: get your picture taken wearing a blue toque or beanie. On November 28, switch your profile picture in Facebook, Twitter, et al., and post your royal blueness to the Blue Beanie Day 2008 photo group at Flickr. That’s all there is to it!

Blue Beanie Day is the brainchild of Doug Vos, creator of the Designing With Web Standards group on Facebook. Since October 27, 2007, over 4,300 members have joined, representing over fifty countries.

Doug invented Blue Beanie Day in 2007 to promote awareness of web standards. Blue Beanie Day 2007 can be found on Facebook; photos from last year’s celebration are available for your viewing pleasure.

Originally posted at: http://www.zeldman.com/2008/11/19/blue-beanie-day-ii/

Collecting Cans at Wayne State University

Today is a day to blog about poverty, to bring awareness to others, to inspire others to make a difference. Detroit is no stranger to poverty, it is all around us. I wanted to detail what our department has been doing to work simply and locally to help charity programs in and around Detroit.

In the Marketing and Communications office we try to give back when we can. One simple way we do this is by not only recycling paper but also pop cans. Since Michigan has a $.10 deposit it allows us to collect pop bottles in the office and take them in as a group, collecting ~$5 per bag of cans.

We fill up a bag about every three weeks, after a few months a simple email blast to the department to vote and decide on the charity that the money will go to. Easy and simple, thinking of others doesn’t take a lot of work, normal every day tasks can go far.

I have included a list of the recent charities we have given to and an approximate amount we have given. We don’t have records of last year or the year before but we have been doing this for about three years now. We encourage anyone in an office environment to start something like this, instead of having a pizza party for the office why not give it to the people who really need it. I have a feeling you will sleep a little better at night.

This years charities include:

• Fall – ~$75 to Bethel Food Pantry in Southgate, MI
• Summer – ~$25 to The Alzheimer’s Association Memory Walk at the Detroit Zoo
• Spring – ~$25 to The Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries

Last but not least Wayne State University has a program called WayneCares Forgotten Harvest and to date has donated over 600 pounds of food to local area homeless shelters and kitchens.

Pass it on, make a difference.