Overview

What follows is a report on the state of notable web applications and sites in use at Middlebury including the College website, the Middlebury instance of WordPress (i.e. sites.middlebury.edu) and a variety of key web applications that provide services widely used by faculty, students and staff.

Box Office

• Addition of separate billing and shipping addresses when ordering tickets or gift items from the box office, especially useful for parents purchasing items for students.
• Improved the user interface to make purchasing as a returning customer and identifying seat locations in the seating chart simpler.

CAS – Single Sign On

The Central Authentication System (CAS) was introduced last year and allows you to move between many of our web applications after you’ve signed in once. GO and the main college website were already using CAS this time last year but since then it’s been added to many other applications, including:

• Course Catalog
• MediaWiki
• MiddMedia
• WordPress

Course Catalog

Over the past two years we developed the Course Catalog application at catalog.middlebury.edu to serve as a clearing house for accessing course information on the web due to the limitations on searching for this information via BannerWeb. The Course Catalog application allows users to search for courses based on a wide variety of criteria (including keyword searching) and properly displays and links-together cross-listed courses. The Course Catalog application also feeds course information to the department pages and faculty profiles in the main Drupal site.

New for this year, the Course Catalog has been extended to add a Schedule Planning tool that allows students to bookmark courses they are interested in, then group them together into weekly schedules to ensure that they do not have timing conflicts and that lab and discussion sections are chosen. These schedules can be printed or emailed to one’s advisor.

• Added the Schedule Planning tool.
• Users can now bookmark courses that they find interesting.
• Updated the theme to match the new website. Added a custom theme for the MIIS catalog.
• The printed Catalog is now created via an export from the Course Catalog application rather than being copy-pasted from the site by hand.
• PDF snapshots of the Catalog are now automatically generated as course descriptions and requirements get edited over the year.
• Lots of small improvements to the display of course data in search results and while browsing.
• Can now search for courses by campus — needed for Language Schools that have more than one site.
• Greatly improved the speed of the application.
• Improved the feed of courses to faculty profiles to ensure that cross-listed courses are ordered properly.
• New admin forms that allow the Registrar to suppress incomplete information about upcoming terms during data-entry.

Drupal

• Alerts: Though it hasn’t been needed yet, there is now a special alert bar that will appear on the site in the case of a campus emergency.
• Athletics Database: Many improvements, including results automatically posted to Twitter and a site that tracks the live feeds for each event.
• Calendars: Added a content type to allow offices to embed promotional calendars of their events on their department page. Updated event calendar interface to make it easier to use and added Featured Events. Clicking on items in the calendar view open in the same window (preserves page continuity). Daily breakout of events is much more pleasing to look at.
• Editing: Upgraded the WYSIWYG editor to resolve issues in Safari and Internet Explorer as well as allow pasting from MS Word without needing to use the button.
• External Links: Links to external sites will now open in a new browser window or tab automatically, though editors can choose to override this for specific links.
• Locations: You can add geo-locational information to any piece of content on the site by expanding the Locations section when editing.
• Meta Tags: A description of the content is now automatically added to each node, improving search results. Editors can customize the description and keywords.
• MiddLab: Added a content type to allow offices to embed a sidebar feature to display MiddLab projects happening in their area.
• Previews: Added a “Preview Live Site” checkbox to the Edit Console and a “Preview” button to the editing form.
• Printing: A special stylesheet allows you to print just the content of the page including contact information in the Address area.
• Search: Converted the main site search engine to use a Google Custom Search Engine to improve results, increasing our index from 175,000 pages to over 360,000 pages. You can also ask us to create a custom search engine for your part of the site. This complements the large review of Search functionality we conducted immediately after the site launch.
• Sharing: Added sharing buttons to news articles to let you send emails to friends, or post the stories to Facebook and Twitter.
• Webform: Many new features including multi-page forms, validating responses, and email templates.
• Video: Videos from MiddMedia and YouTube now use the HTML5 player in supported browsers and devices allowing you to watch them on iPhones and iPads. You can now add YouTube playlists. We also now support the use of autoplay, autorewind, loop and image attributes in videos.
• LIS Pages: Problems with this Page? link on LIS pages allows you to report an issue with the content on a page such as a spelling error, incorrect information, a broken link, etc. The submissions are reviewed by our newly assigned content managers.

GO

The GO shortcut/permalink application has become quite central to the web infrastructure of the college since its launch several years ago. It eased the launch of the new site by allowing links in content to be easily updated en-mass. In the past year GO has become central to our search strategy as GO shortcuts are now provided as suggestions and automatic-redirects when you enter search terms on the main site.

• Totally new editing interface.
• Verbose, color coded, messages to indicate successful or unsuccessful completion of actions.
• Additional input validation to preserve shortcut integrity and prevent abuse.
• Ability for community to flag GO links as inappropriate.
• New “Info” pages for every shortcut allow everyone to see detailed information about the shortcut such as who maintains it, what its aliases are, and where it goes.
• All GO shortcuts are now shown publicly in the GOtionary (with the exception of a few internal shortcuts) to improve the transparency of the system.
• Enhanced admin interface for flag admins and the new super admin role.
• Can now switch between the Middlebury and  MIIS GOtionaries.

MiddMedia

• New “Midd” theme integrates more closely with the current Middlebury theme.
• Add to MiddTube button allows users to check off the videos they would like to batch add to MiddTube as video posts.
• We’ve upgraded to Flash Media Server 4, with a lot of new features that we’ll be rolling out and supporting in the coming months.

New Sites

We’ve been able to expand the Drupal and WordPress platforms to add a CMS experience for sites that were previously static HTML files and create new sites to show off and assist student research and projects.

• Davis United World College Scholars Program
• Projects for Peace
• MiddLab
• MiddSTART
• Middlebury College Museum of Art

SubjectsPlus

In December, we upgraded from version 0.7 to 0.9.  Changes include:

• Enhanced security.
• In addtion to Research by Subject, two new guide types are available: Research by Course and Research by Topic.
• Widget-based, drag-and-drop control panel for content creators.
• Multiple subject specialists (guide owners) now possible.
• Description field override.  This allows for a resource description to be customized for one or more guides, while still allowing the resource record to be shared among all the guides.  This cuts down on duplication of records and/or breaking others shared work.
• Cloning feature

What do we use this for, you ask?

• Databases A-Z list
• Research guides (access via sidebar at go/lib and go/subjectguides among other places.)
• globally adding EZproxy prefix for off-campus access.

Here are some of the projects and tasks that DAS staff members have been working on during the past month…

Mike Schuster
- Created a spec for Bookstore Upload / Course Listing Bookstore Links
- Researched problem Off Campus Study was having pushing Admissions applications
- Corrected problems with Bread Loaf, Language School, and Off Campus Study decisions processing reports, reports were broken due to System 9 upgrade
- Created SSB web package to allow residential systems coordinator to delete room draw preferences, reorder preferences, and activate/inactivate room draw applications
- Processed Fall 2008 course response form data
- Updated Feb’s MNET email addresses to “preferred”
- Fixed problem with LS & BLSE Financial Aid online web applications where bad data entry selection of dates in dropdown boxes would cause applications to get an Oracle error
- Modified custom p_assign_boxes database procedure to allow mail boxes to be assigned to students during winter term
- Worked with Liz Whitaker-Freitas and Marcy Smith to develop documents needed by Monterey staff when developing/requesting new reports

Liz Whitaker-Freitas
- Supporting Hyperion BI+ for functional & technical users
- Troubleshooting Admissions Decisions reports
- Coordinating roles to groups migration by Velaris

Ian McBride
- Added service to check GO addresses nightly
- Worked with Adam to develop web service for MiddTube
- Wrote WordPress plugin for MiddTube
- Developed Middlebury theme for WordPress
- Added a service to the Directory to automatically redirect to a user’s homepage
- Added a video icon to CMS home page news items with videos
- Developed home page for the New England Review site in WordPress
- Began investigation into Single Sign On applications
- Continued work with the Platform and Design/IA groups for the Web Makeover
- Finally launched News Portal at http://go.middlebury.edu/news!

Travis Stafford
- Created 7 new alumni event forms
- Tested WordPress CFORMS upgrade
- Upgraded all the WordPress blogs and cforms to the new version of CFORMS (13 blogs / +/- 50 forms)
- Completed porting over all the cat standard ecommunicate forms to CFORMS
- Minor changes the New England Review ecommerce form
- Troubleshot\Fixed issues with the CCAL Fundraising ecommerce form
- Added new functionality to the BLM application to show Counts by indicator flag for Banner-ListManager admins
- Added self service component to the BLM project for subscribing\unsubscribing to Newsletters and List Manager lists
- CFORMs support/training for various departments
- General support and HEAT tickets

Rob Pekor
- Rolled late graduates to Alumni
- Started developing and creating tables to hold Harris Online Directory data
- Started creating scripts to load initial data for Harris Online Directory
- Started very preliminary development of process to send updates to Harris
- Corrected problem with Phonathon SSB data selection page, page would error on multiple individual years selected, problem has been corrected and is now in production
- Created new function to retrieve a list of regions for a particular person
- Corrected problem in AIA relating to updating ask amounts, if an ask amount never existed before for a person, the SSB page would not update the value, problem has been corrected and is now in production
- Created list of people that currently have access to AIA
- Corrected issue with view for the Banner List Manager relating to the indicator for students

Chris Norris
Staffing
- Participated in telephone interview for open DBA position
Projects
- Reviewed Phoenix BIA reports and summary
- Worked on spec for remote DR web presence
- Participated in CA fundraising strategy meeting
- Refined Banner-ListManager project spec with DAS staff
- Completed work with CA and Communications on Organic Garden giving form
- Met with DOC and PS staff regarding new ER web presence
- Met with technical/functional staff regarding eCommerce options for “pay-for-print”
- Met with Communications staff to plan for upcoming Newsletter projects
- Met with Career Services staff to plan for upcoming Newsletter projects
- Participated in various Web Makeover team meetings
- Met with HR staff regarding Web Makeover requirements
- Met with PHC staff regarding Web Makeover requirements
- Met with PS staff regarding Web Makeover requirements
Systems Administration
- Ongoing monitoring and problem resolution of online services
- Resolved service outages for Banner and Hyperion
- Resolved server config issue for GoogleEarth version of campusmap
- Updated TouchNet server config to support additional web servers
- Upgraded SubmissionManager web application for BLWC
- Configured new GO rewrite rules
- Ongoing tuning of GSA to improve search results
- Renewals of College-owned domain names
- Met with SNS staff regarding HSF config options
Help & Support
- Provided support to CFA staff for artsmail Newsletter IA
- Provided support to HR staff for middleader Newsletter buttons
- Reviewed President’s Holiday Card for pre-sending issues for Communications
- Updated Middlebury’s United Way web presence (campaign stats)
- Updated AbroadView.org web presence (footer)
- Provided various support for CMS editing, HEAT tix, and ad-hoc help calls
Vendor Related Activities
- Participated in Sun-Guard/SCT Banner DBA weekly status calls
- Participated in Velaris Hyperion SysAdmin weekly status calls
- Continued contract re-negotiation with Hyperion SysAdmin vendor (Velaris)
- Worked with DavisProjectsforPeace.org external web vendor to grant direct database access
- eCommerce call with alumni online community vendor (Harris) to define IMA requirements
- Coordinated redirect request from MIIS staff with www.MIIS.edu web vendor (NeptuneWeb)