WEBFORUM
11 December 2002
Revamping UCL’s Web Structure
Professor Roland Rosner
Director of EISD
Information Strategy
organisation
Information Strategy Committee
Steering Groups
Academic
Systems
Administrative
Systems
Infrastructure
Web &
Intranet
Software
&
Standards
Working Group on
Web Structure
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
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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!
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002
UCLONLINE
Introduction to the new look and the new structure
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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
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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
WEBFORUM
11 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?
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Web technologies developed by the W3C
E.g. XHTML, CSS, XML, DOM
Separation of Style and Content
UCLONLINE
Advantages of web standards?
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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
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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<p>content
1.<p>content</p>
NOT
2.<p><em>content</em></p>
•Highly
structured - headers, paragraphs,
lists,
NOTetc
<em><p>content</em></p>
•Ensure
that all tags are closed and properly
nested.
3.<br> becomes <br />
• HTML as an application of XML
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
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002
UCLCMS
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
Anthony Peacock 11 December 2002
UCLCMS
Introduction to Content Management at UCL
The process
• Content Management Systems Working Group (CMSWG)
• Three pilot projects
– Bartlett
– Engineering
– Registry
• Attendance at international conferences
• Consulted with experts
Anthony Peacock 11 December 2002
UCLCMS
Introduction to Content Management at UCL
The outcome
• 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
Anthony Peacock 11 December 2002
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002
UCLCMS
Engineering Sciences CMS: talk outline
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Background and boundaries
Content
Management
Site design
Why Zope/Plone?
Functionality
What’s missing
Conclusions
UCLCMS
Background and Boundaries
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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
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Student records
Course records
Dept information (teaching, research)
Projects
Admin (committees……)
Audit trail, statistics
Events
UCLCMS
Management
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Departments
Faculty
Central College
Committees
External agencies (QAA, ….)
UCLCMS
Site design
• Departments
– programmes and modules
– research
• Faculty
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committees
projects
news
events
UCLCMS
Why Zope/Plone?
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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
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Structured documents
Discussions: BB and comments
News
Events
– deadlines
– room bookings
• Topics
UCLCMS
What’s missing?
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Structured documents
Workflow
Audit trail (versions)
Reports
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002
UCLONLINE & UCLCMS
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
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Flexibility
Zope and Dreamweaver
Content provider interface
When?
WEBFORUM
11 December 2002