Tag Archives: Enterprise Applications

Website Improvements #7: HTML5 Video

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Videos on our website, like the new chapter in the Aunt Des story that was put up yesterday, are now available on more devices. We’re using the new <video> and <audio> tags that are part of HTML5, to enable site visitors to watch videos from MiddMedia (our local, streaming media server gives all Middlebury users space to host videos of any quality and length) and YouTube without needing to have the Adobe Flash plugin installed.

This feature has been rolled out for MiddMedia videos on Drupal and WordPress and YouTube videos on Drupal.

Don’t worry if you’re not using one of these browsers or devices. You’ll see the same Flash video player that was there yesterday.

You will now see your browser’s built-in HTML5 video player for MiddMedia videos if you are using one of these browsers or devices:

  • Safari
  • an iPad or iPhone

The HTML5 audio player for MiddMedia videos appears if you are using one of these browsers or devices:

  • Safari
  • Chrome
  • an iPad or iPhone

To see a list of the supported browsers for video in YouTube, visit their HTML5 Video Player site. You can sign up there to opt-in to their HTML5 video player trial, if you like. Note: the site lists several browsers currently in their “beta” development phase. We recommend that you do not install these browsers as features of our site may not yet work in them.

Some restrictions may apply

The technology to support these features is very new and constantly changing. We’ll keep rolling out support to new browsers and devices as it becomes available and the experience is at least as good as what you get from the Flash player. For instance, Chrome currently supports HTML5 video, but we decided not to enable it for that browser because the fullscreen button doesn’t work. Firefox also supports HTML5 video, but in a different video format that we don’t currently produce for videos uploaded to MiddMedia (WebM or OGG).

Lastly, you might notice that some of the MiddMedia videos on our site cannot be played on devices like your iPad or iPhone. The method used to encode these videos didn’t produce a video in a format that these devices recognize. However, the majority of MiddMedia videos do work and we wanted to give you the opportunity to watch some of them, rather than none of them.

Marcy moving to Enterprise Applications

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Danna Gianforte and I (Area Directors for Enterprise Applications and Central Systems & Network Services, respectively) recently agreed to a staffing change.  Marcy Smith is now a member of the Enterprise Applications area.  We believe that having the soon-to-be-hired Database Administrator (DBA) and the Enterprise Systems Administrator (aka Marcy) reporting to the same Area Director will:

  • streamline communications
  • remove roadblocks in the workflow
  • improve service to the functional areas

Central Systems & Network Services will continue to work closely with Marcy, as we do with all of Enterprise Applications staff.  Marcy will be moving to the Davis Family Library at some point, but the details of that move have not been finalized.

I enjoyed having Marcy in my area and certainly learned a lot about Banner and just how complicated it all is from her!  All of us in CS & NS look forward to continuing to work with Marcy.  In fact, the looming upgrade to Oracle 11G will give us plenty of opportunity.  But that’s a subject for another post…

Segue from Segue Updates

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The Curricular Technology Team is pleased to announce that its primary recommendations for how to segue from Segue has been approved by the Library and Information Services (LIS) Area Directors Team. In essence, the team recommended the development of a “course hub” architecture that would enable faculty to create collections of resources for a given course using a variety of platforms that would be aggregated in a single location referred to as a “hub.” For more information, see:
Segue from Segue > Course Hub

The team is now researching which platforms to include within the course hub. WordPress and MediaWiki are obvious choices since many faculty are already using these for course sites. The team also recognizes that some sort of learning management system (LMS) should also be an integral part of hub sites and is reviewing a number of LMS to present to the community as possible  candidates.

Website Improvements #6: Webform

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For the sixth in this weekly series of posts we started in March, I’m going to talk about our recent upgrade of the Webform module and the addition of some new modules to help you manage your forms. Here are the new things you can do with Webforms:

The interface to interact with the Webform has also been simplified by moving most form settings into their own tabs in the Edit Console, especially the addition of the E-mails tab that gives you a quick look at who receives E-mails when the form is submitted. The interface for adding options to select list components is also easier to use with an interface to quickly add and remove options. Lastly, if you have a sidebar on the page, it is now hidden when you’re trying to edit the form components so that you can view the full form.

New Print Theme for MIDD/MIIS sites & Additional GO Revisions

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We recently updated the GO application with a new editing interface including more verbose, color coded, messages as well as additional input validation. We are looking for feedback as to the ease of use, etc. so please share any suggestions or feedback with us.

Also a comment/reason is now required when flagging go links to give admins a clearer idea of why a link was flagged. Thanks to all who have helped us by flagging links so far.

Do you need to get a hold of someone about changing a GO shortcut or becoming an admin of the shortcut? Try contacting the shortcut administrator. We’ve made a 1min 30sec screencast on how to determine the administrator(s) of a GO shortcut.

[middmedia 3E8AA974A42104E3E9E420B5530A31E1 lafrance go.mp4 width:400 height:300]

NOTE: It is no longer possible to “hide” GO links. GO by its nature is a public application with publicly searchable and publicly usable links. “Hiding” a GO link is more or less a misnomer and is no longer supported. If you have hidden GO links they may be unhidden. If you feel you have a legitimate reason to hide GO links and you are concerned about this please feel free to contact go@middlebury.edu.

Also, the main Middlebury and Monterey Institute of International Studies sites now have print themes. Please enjoy the new printer friendly pages that are generated on print/print preview.

go/dmt

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The Digital Media Tutors, students who support the Wilson Media Lab in the Davis Family Library, have just launched their new web site. On this site, you will find the answers to the most commonly asked questions (FAQs), as well as links to resources and tutorials for the most common activities in the lab. Included is a video on how to connect a Mac to BigCat –

[middmedia A64317F0626BAFF21118E1F866473F6F LIS_Video_Tutorials-MIDD-web_data-middlebury-edu file server using Macintosh computer.mp4 width:400 height:300]

Please visit the site at go/dmt ( http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/technology/web/support/dmt ) and share your thoughts here or via email at DigitalMediaTutors@middlebury.edu

MiddLab Discussion Sessions Follow-up

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Thank you to everyone who was able to attend either of my discussion meetings for MiddLab last week! There were a lot of great ideas for the site and upcoming projects. You can now see one of those ideas added to the site in the new Research Centers page which shows a map of all the MiddLab projects. We’re going to continue adding features to the site throughout the semester, so stay tuned.

While we were not able to record the sessions due to some technical difficulties, I have prepared a guide to adding your project to MiddLab. Feel free to edit that page to add your own tips on creating a successful project description or send an email to middlab@middlebury.edu if anything is unclear. I will host another meeting to discuss MiddLab during the Spring semester, for those who were not able to attend, but I’m also more than happy to meet individually with Faculty, Staff, Students, departments, and offices.

Publications Database

During a discussion with Bob Cluss and Colleen Converse, we came up with an idea for a sub-site in MiddLab that serves as a portal to discover publicly available academic publications from our faculty and students. I’ll be working on adding that this semester and welcome you to send documents or (preferably) links to these papers in public databases to middlab@middlebury.edu. If the document is larger than 10MB, please send it to website@middlebury.edu instead. If you already have a site that lists these documents that you’d like to be included, you can also just send that link and I’ll take care of the rest.

Look for this information to be added to MiddLab shortly, giving people both on and off-campus another easy way to find information on the active and ongoing research at Middlebury.

Working More Closely with You

I also want to make you aware of a small change in policy about the inclusion of content in MiddLab. Due to some concerns about the unfortunate rules surrounding some academic publication and to ensure that all research collaborators are willing to be included, we’ll now ask that every person involved in a research project agrees to have it hosted in MiddLab before it is put up. I can also remove content from the site where your name appears if you would not like it published in this manner. You can see any mention of your work in MiddLab by browsing the People page. Please address any concerns to middlab@middlebury.edu.

What is MiddLab and what does it have to do with me?

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We will be hosting two sessions next week to help answer this question. One session will focus on how MiddLab can be used alongside faculty and student research projects and another on how MiddLab can work with offices on campus related to research events. You are welcome to attend either and there is a lot of overlap between these topics.

  • Tuesday, October 5, 4-5PM in LIB 105: We will discuss how MiddLab has been used to discuss articles in student publications, summer research projects, theatre performances, and live presentations. We’ll briefly show you how you can create your own page in MiddLab and leave plenty of time for questions and discussion on how MiddLab can be used to provide a space for discussion of student and faculty research.
  • Wednesday, October 6, 1-2PM in LIB 105: We’d like to talk to faculty and staff working in the many offices who support research and learning at the College (Academic Affairs, ACE, CCSRE, CTLR, Grants, LIS, OLR, SA, URO, SFS, STSS, Sustainability Integration, and surely several more). We’ll demonstrate how MiddLab has been useful in providing a continued space for the project and events you create as members of these offices, like the Life Stories project in CCSRE, staff research projects, or the many presentations at the Spring and Summer URO Symposiums. We’ll briefly show you how projects are added to MiddLab and leave plenty of time for questions and discussion.

We hope to see you there! As always, if you have any questions about MiddLab, or would like to add your work to the growing list of projects, let us know by sending an email to middlab@middlebury.edu. More information is available on the About MiddLab site, or in anarticle in this week’s issue of The Campus.

Add a MiddLab widget to your site!

We’ve added a new content type to Drupal that can display a MiddLab project in your site’s sidebar. To use this, edit your sidebar page and click Add in the Edit Console, thene select “MiddLab Widget” from the list of content types. You’ll then see a list of checkboxes with MiddLab themes, departments, and offices. Check the boxes that are appropriate to your area and save the new node.

The result will look something like this:

This is a neat, and very easy, way to highlight student, faculty, and staff work that takes place in your department or is sponsored by your office. If your department or office doesn’t have any projects in MiddLab right now and you’d like us to add some, we’d love to hear from you. Again, just email middlab@middlebury.edu.