Archive for September, 2008
September 29th, 2008 by Ian McBride
I was spurred by a comment by Middlebury student George Altshuler on Tim Spears’ blog to make a change to our online Events Calendar. George commented that a student-created listed of Middlebury events provided through Google Calendars via RSS really should have been created by Middlebury College staff. Specifically, George believes,
“Middlebury needs an events calendar on its website that allows you to create a profile and allows you to select types of events you’re interested. Other schools have this, and for the amount of money the school has (and we pay) there is absolutely no good excuse for not having it.”
Our current Events Calendar was coded by Middlebury student Tyler Kremberg during the time he worked for LIS as a web programmer, about three years ago. It reads information directly from our administrative scheduling database, Resource 25 (which in turn gets much of its scheduling information from Banner), and displays it on the web with a bit more decoration than the default R25 calendar. At the time this was developed, RSS was only beginning to gain widespread popularity on websites – less than 10% of surveyed web users knew what it was.
Since that time, we in Web Services have badly wanted to recode the Events Calendar to include some of the features George is asking us to provide. However, when I speak of “Web Services” in terms of coding staff, I’m really talking about myself and Travis Stafford, who has been working with us for the last year and a half. Prior to three years ago, LIS didn’t have a full time web programmer outside of Banner and Segue, for two years before that LIS had only a Webmaster and a graduate student intern, and before that just the Webmaster. Much of the work in Web Services over the last five years has been creating a central Content Management Server and migrating all of the web sites and web applications into that framework. So while I’ve wanted to redevelop the Events Calendar for the last two years, I’ve been working on creating an online Directory that will work for both Middlebury and MIIS (and others too…), an online Donor Roll that reads directly from Banner, an automated Dining menu that allows you to provide feedback, a new site for the Museum of Art, an interactive Campus Map, and many other applications. And that’s my excuse for why we don’t have an interactive Events Calendar.
But that doesn’t mean that we can’t make improvements on what we do have. Today I’ve added RSS feeds for all of the Event Types listing on the Events Calendar. Just click on one of the types in the left navigation bar and you’ll be able to subscribe to a feed of those events. This took me about a half hour to do, so it’s probably something I should have done a while ago. Developing feeds for the front page of the calendar and the student organizations is going to be a bit more complex, but it’s something I’m aiming to do, probably some time this week. Not exactly a fully database-driven, user-personalizable solution, but it should give users some more flexibility in getting event information.
Let me conclude by saying that I welcome and invite comments here on ways that we can improve our website and our web applications. Middlebury has chartered a group to look at developing strategies for online services and, while I’m not included in that group, I will attempt to pass along any recommendations given to me. I take special note of anything our students suggest, since I so rarely hear from them on this topic.
If you’re curious about what Web Services is up to in terms of improvements to our website and web applications, I encourage you to subscribe to this blog. Also, check out the link to “my priorities” on the right. I keep that updated with the projects I’m working on. As to when we’ll see something like a user-personalizable events calendar, you might notice a line item there labelled “Personal Dashboard Application”….
September 26th, 2008 by Judy Watts
 Submitted by Judy Watts
Students asked, and we provided!
Thanks to Dean Cadoret and others, Armstrong Library group study rooms now have equipment for video and laptop viewing. For computer use, researchers can bring their own laptops or check out a laptop from the Circulation Desk. For videos, a DVD player/VCR is already in the room.
This is another outcome based on feedback received from the Post-It note bulletin board Carrie MacFarlane did at Armstrong last year. Carrie and Brendan Owen, Digital Media Intern, will be doing a presentation on this effort next week at The October Conference , Space 2.0 : Small-Scale Library Redesign Projects, at Dartmouth.
Nice teamwork, Carrie and Brendan!
September 26th, 2008 by Judy Watts
Submitted by Judy Watts
You are registered, right?
Voter registration materials are available in the Main Library atrium. If you or anyone you know, are not registered to vote in the November elections, stop by to pick up the materials.
Thanks to Brenda Ellis and Jean Simmons for getting the materials, Joseph Watson for helping with the display, and Morgan Connor for the brilliant picture.
September 26th, 2008 by Marcella Smith
Submitted by Marcella Smith
Here’s what we’re doing:
Team
* Working on change management methodology for the lockdown project
* Hyperion System 9 preparations
* Banner 8 research, new functionality investigation, and database cleanup
Dave
* In a cooperative effort between the Administrative Systems group, Database Applications and Systems group, the Budget Office and the CCAL office, a new application for student organization budget reports was put into place for the start of fall term (as reported in the recent issue of Unbound).
* Developing new journal upload for Reprographics
* Working with Facilities Services to get P-card file uploaded to FAMIS
* Analysis of load process for potential loading of Monterey budget adjustments
* Applying Banner patches to all Banner modules (version 7)</
* Acting as change management lead for promoting objects into Production database
Cindy
* Analyzing and preparing data for Monterey general student data load to enable programmatic email account generation
* Implementing Banner security, review and cleanup of Banner Student module access
* Cleaning up Hyperion folders, removing unused reports, removing outdated access to reporting groups
* Developed new Hyperion dashboard for Donna McDurfee in the office of Academic Affairs
Liane
* In conjunction with Karin Hall-Kolts in the office of the Dean of the College, implementing the 4/2 residential life system in the Commons (junior and senior room designations will be tracked with a singular commons code scheme).
* Setup access to housing reports for Keith Bishop in Public Safety
* Working with other LIS staff to resolve directory population issues
Julie
* Open Enrollment changes and enhancements for 2009
* Spending a significant amount of time on the Hyperion and Banner upgrades (learning about what’s changing and database cleanup work
* Set up scripts to enable the Student Employment Coordinator to terminate student jobs en masse at the end of the summer
* Researching problems, assisting HR with cleanup of data entered incorrectly, and changes to move from summer to fall term
Rogelio
* Conducted workshop on how to identify and correct Banner duplicate person records, which was very popular and well-attended by staff from Admissions, Registrar’s Office, College Advancement, Language Schools, Bread Loaf School of English, and LIS
* Analysis and research for Monterey general student data load to enable programmatic email account generation
* Assisting John Nordmeyer in resolution of duplicate person data, debugging SQL code used in Hyperion reports, and changes to the Alumni Program application
* Educating himself on the Student Employment module and the payroll data feed to the Financial Aid module; working with Student Financial Services to develop a way to ensure award amounts are not exceeded when work study funds are exhausted
* Training users in the Bread Loaf School of English; resolving change of term issues on inquiry reports; correcting duplicate person data
John
* Developing two new applications for Public Safety, Open Container Citations and Fire Safety Violations, which will include new Oracle forms, shell scripts, and several PL/SQL scripts to post fines to the Banner Accounts Receivable module
Marcy
* Banner 8 work has begun with the build of a new database with UTF8 character set; installation and testing of new Oracle application server software; cleanup and reorganization of tablespaces; testing a new Pro C compiler which Mark installed for us on diamond
* Managing work for lockdown project (creation and maintenance of Oracle data privileges and developing Banner change management process)
* Automating startup of Banner java payment client for Banner credit card processing
* Implementing Financial Aid Self Service as a separate product (for delivery of upgrades independent of the Student Self Service product
* Attended NERCOMP IT Manager’s Workshop in Boston
* Setup and review of Banner accounts for student work study employment across campus
September 26th, 2008 by Michael Roy
submitted by Mike Roy
Peter Schilling, head of IT at Amherst, published an interesting index of IT factoids at Academic Commons (a site that I help to run) which the Chronicle picked up on. Look for a similar Midd-centric index coming soon to our magazine. Are the changes Amherst notices also happening here?
September 26th, 2008 by Judy Watts
Submitted by Judy Watts
With 17 class days in September, Librarians will have presented 53 classes. That’s a rate of 3 per day since the beginning of the academic year. Perhaps you can understand why getting these scheduled into rooms with adequate equipment, e.g., smart classrooms with computers for students has us tearing our hair.
First Year Seminars represent the greatest percentage of classes at the beginning of the term. New students need a basic introduction to LIS resources and services. Classes will often be back for in-depth instruction in subject resources when research papers are assigned.
It is interesting to see the range of subjects addressed:
Date — Course — Title — Librarian
4 FYSE 1066 Voices Along the Way (Judy)
4 FYSE 1236 The Malleable Human (Carrie)
8 FYSE 1215 Empires (Brenda)
8 CHEM 0322 Biochemistry of Macromolecules (1) (Carrie)
8 CHEM 0322 Biochemistry of Macromolecules (2) (Carrie)
8 CHEM 0322 Biochemistry of Macromolecules (3) (Carrie)
9 HIST 0600 History Research Seminar (Brenda)
9 HIST 0600 History Research Seminar (Andy)
10 FYSE 1020 Crime & Punishment in America (Andy)
10 FYSE 1253 The Brain in Sickness & in Health (Bryan)
10 FYSE 1048 Ecology and Conservation in Vermont (Carrie)
10 FYSE 1237 What Is Life? (Carrie)
11 FYSE 1062 Brother Can You Spare a Dime? (Andy)
11 FYSE 1248 The Trojan War (Cynthia)
11 FYSE 1249 Food and Choice (Joe)
11 JAPA 0275 Seminar in Japanese (Joy)
11 FYSE 1174 Andy Warhol (Judy)
12 FYSE 1236 The Malleable Human (Carrie)
12 FYSE 1244 Geology of National Parks (Carrie)
15 Hist 0700 Senior World History Seminar (Brenda)
15 Hist 0700 Senior US History Thesis Seminar (Andy)
15 HARC 0214 Art in the Middle Ages (Judy)
16 SOAN 0302 Resch: Ethnography Qual Methods (Jean)
16 PSYC 0202 Research Methods (Bryan)
16 GEOG 0100 Place and Society (Carrie)
17 Econ 0700 Senior Research (Brenda)
17 FYSE 1258 Performing Culture (Judy)
17 FYSE 1244 Geology of National Parks (Carrie)
18 SOAN 0302 Rech: Ethnography Qual Methods (Jean)
18 HIST 0397 The U.S. and the Pacific (Andy)
18 PSYC 0105 Intro. To Psychology (1) (Bryan)
18 PSYC 0105 Intro. To Psychology (2) (Bryan)
18 PSYC 0105 Intro. To Psychology (3) (Bryan)
18 FYSE 1245 Sound: the Aural Ether (Joy)
19 PSYC 0105 Intro. To Psychology (4) (Bryan)
19 PSYC 0105 Intro. To Psychology (5) (Bryan)
19 FYSE 1021 Love & Death (Bryan)
19 FYSE 1236 The Malleable Human (Carrie)
22 GEOL 0400 Senior Thesis Seminar (Carrie)
23 REFWORKS (Brenda)
23 FYSE 1264 Race Difference in 20th C America (Andy)
23 FYSE 1250 Songwriting (Joy)
23 FYSE 1211 Godel, Escher, Bach (Judy)
23 CHEM 0311 Instrumental Analysis (Carrie)
23 HARC 0219 Northern Renaissance Art (Judy)
25 FYSE 1255 The Collapse of Complex Societies (Jean)
25 FYSE 1254 Liberation and Literature (Joy)
25 REFWORKS (Richard)
29 PSYC 0700 Senior Research (Bryan)
29 FYSE 1256 Captains, Kings, Caudillos (Joy)
29 SPAN 0300 Hispanic Literature (Joy)
29 FYSE 1048 Ecology and Conservation in Vermont (Carrie)
30 REFWORKS (Jean)
Basic technology instruction is included in a large percentage of these classes, introduced either by a Technology Liaison or by the Librarian. Classes that involve intensive use of digital media generally schedule classes separately. Some of that activity will be reported at a later date.
September 26th, 2008 by Judy Watts
Submitted by Judy Watts
RefWorks has made some significant improvements to its Windows version of Write-N-Cite –version III- - making it possible to edit and add references to formatted papers. Jean Simmons has requested similar updates for Mac users. Jean has attended two online training sessions to learn about this as well as other new features, e.g., switching between versions of W-N-C, importing from RSS feeds, creating bibliographies from materials in several folders with “My List,” working offline, appending attachments to a record. . . . Ask her what you may not know and please sit in on a RefWorks workshop. RefWorks can be helpful to anyone who needs to keep book lists, citations, or bibliographies in order..
Thanks to Brian Foley, LIB 105 already has Write-N-Cite III and Armstrong 161 will have it soon.
September 26th, 2008 by Judy Watts
Thursday, October 2, from 1-2 PM, join us for an Educause Live! Professional Development Event: Web 2.0 for the 21st Century Learner. We’ll be in LIB 221. You can register here.
September 26th, 2008 by Judy Watts
Submitted by Judy Watts
Join Middlebury College Geography students and other volunteers in a workshop this Saturday to learn how to contribute to the an inventory of farm buildings in Vermont. Then, on October 18-19, participate in the Vermont Barn Census. This Saturday’s workshop is at Judy Watts’ home in Cornwall. Contact Mike Plummer via email at Mike.Plummer@state.vt.us or at (802) 828-1220.
September 26th, 2008 by Patricia Hornbeck
Submitted by Patty Hornbeck
LIS graduate interns Brendans Owen & Smith have started work on a portal for the lecture archive as well as enhancements to the search function in CONTENTdm which will allow browsing by subject and lecturer name.
 The Library’s subscription to Theatre in Video, a database of plays in streaming video from Alexander Street Press, was a pleasant surprise to students in Cheryl Faraone’s Theatre History class who are using it to view online several of the Greek dramas required for the course.
The first lecture of the 2008-09 Faculty Lecture Series was given on September 18 by David Stoll, Department of Sociology and Anthropology. That lecture, as well as an Athletics Department presentation by Dan Doyle, the founder of the Institute for International Sport, has been added to the lecture archive. If you have a chance, look at the multimedia presentation that precedes Professor Stoll’s lecture. As Media Services refine use of the Accordent video system you’ll see more of this.
The Internet Movie Database, a popular and comprehensive online database of global film information, is now offering free viewing of an advertised 6,000 feature films and television shows. Here’s a review of the service by Jason Kinkaid at TechCrunch.com.
September 26th, 2008 by Michael Lynch
Submitted by Mike Lynch
A new feature has been added to Midcat. When viewing the full record of an item you will see a link labeled Cite this title (via OCLC). For most titles, clicking that link will take you to a page at OCLC which will show you the correct format for citing the title in a number of different styles, such as APA, MLA and Turabian.
Oherwise you’ll see a page indicating that citation information may not be available.
September 26th, 2008 by Michael Roy
from Marcy Smith
Internet-based student written college guides are the Wikipedia-like resource for the prospective student on the proverbial college hunt. While the new site Unigo does not offer a radical or even new view of Middlebury, it will be an interesting site to watch develop in terms of how this particular use of technology may impact our Admissions processes, if it catches on with college seekers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/magazine/21unigo-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
http://www.unigo.com/Colleges/UnigoReview/Default.aspx?CollegeId=112
September 26th, 2008 by Michael Roy
submitted by Mike Roy
I’m writing to provide an update on what’s happening with the plans I announced in August about re-organizing LIS.
1. Our goal is to have in place by late December/early January a solid definition of what the main areas of LIS should be, and in general, what services and functions will be associated with each area. As discussed at the all-staff meeting in August, we will likely expand the current number of areas.
2. Once we have these areas defined, we will initiate searches to find directors for any new areas that we intend to create.
3. After the new directors are on board, we’ll review, clarify, and detail workgroup responsibilities, relationships, and membership, taking into account our new areas.
4. We will also launch a set of cross-functional teams, and will be soliciting ideas for such teams via a private LIS blog that we’ve set up for this effort. We are also working with Human Resources to understand what is involved in supporting the work of such teams, and how to manage the workload of belonging both to a workgroup and a team.
5. We are asking each workgroup and each area director to develop SWOT reports [Strength-Weakness-Opportunities-Threats] for their workgroups and area. While some directors and workgroup leaders may choose to approach this differently, I have asked that all staff be consulted and have input into this process. These SWOT reports will be read by the LIS management team (Mike, Carol, Jeff, Tom, Mary, Terry, and Doreen), as well by some members of President’s Staff, and a small team from Human Resources that is supporting our efforts. We have found some resources on how to do SWOT and have posted these on the blog that we’ve established for this project. If desired, we can also put together a brief workshop to help demystify the process. Please ask for help if you need it!
6. We are collecting examples of organizational charts from other colleges and universities, and will be sharing those via the blog. We ask that any of you who know of interesting and successful organizational models to also post them to the blog. (If you don’t know how to post to a blog, just send them to me and I’ll post them.)
7. We will be doing an external review of our enterprise systems; we’ll also pick up on the review from last year of our academic technology/library liaison/reference program. This activity will involve bringing in external consultants. As details of these reviews are developed, we’ll let everyone know what the plan is.
8. As we begin to collect ideas for teams, to find interesting organizational models from elsewhere, and to formulate our thoughts about new areas, we will hold a series of open meetings (one of which will take place during an evening) to allow everyone in LIS to contribute to our analysis. We will hold those in late October and November.
9. We will also be working with Human Resources this spring on a more extensive process to look in more detail at our various business processes within and among our workgroups and areas. We will invite them to come to a staff meeting to talk about what that process might entail, and to hear about how a similar process was developed for College Advancement.
10. My hope is to be as transparent and open in this process as possible, while also recognizing that a certain amount of discretion is needed in order for some people to feel free to express themselves completely honestly. If you have concerns about this process, or ideas about how else we can be more inclusive in hearing from as many voices as possible, please feel free to let me know. And while I encourage everyone involved to be as open as they can in the process, and to not be afraid of public disagreement and debate, I also want to make sure that I hear from those who might not feel comfortable expressing themselves in this manner. To that end, if you feel you need to express your concerns confidentially, you can always direct them to me or to Deborah Francis, our HR Generalist.
September 26th, 2008 by Michael Roy
Near whose desk can you find this picture? (Hint: it’s from a book cover.)
September 24th, 2008 by Ian McBride
I’ve started work on a project that will bring multiple news sources together in a single location on our site. This will be used to show news stories, blogs posts, videos, and links to news-related web sites independent of the system or platform the content lives on. The prototype I’ve set up after a couple hours of work can be viewed here: http://devweb.middlebury.edu/systems/newsboard/Default.aspx
It’s important to note that this only contains one news source, no styling, and no configuration options. However, it is a live and dynamic feed of the news items from our site. To do this, I’m using what are called “Web Parts” in ASP.NET. These special controls allow us to store personalization and configuration information in a central database that is retrieved on each page view. The idea is that College Communications will be able to log into this page and rearrange, retitle, and relink any of the RSS feed driven controls (once we have more than one, of course).
I’ll be using the same technology to drive a project that I’m working on later this year, the Personal Dashboard, which will have controls that read information out of your email, calendar, helpdesk tickets, and other sources of information relevent to staff. This dashboard will be totally controllable by each user so you can have the controls and information on your screen (your “portal” if you will) that are most important to you.
I realize this really doesn’t look impressive now, but I’ll be adding a lot more to this over the next few days and will update here with new posts as it goes.
September 24th, 2008 by Ian McBride
We’ve successfully consolidated the News published by Public Affairs today. All news can now be found at http://go.middlebury.edu/news. This is the source for front page News items on the CMS, which previously had been drawn from a different News channel. This change should make it easier for Public Affairs to get their important stories onto the front page, since they won’t need to recreate them in a second location any more.
I made another News related improvement on the CMS yesterday that managers of Newsletters will appreciate. Each Newsletter has a set of pre-created “right nav objects” (check out SportsNotes to see what I mean), which are common design items that can be displayed on multiple Newsletter issues. Since the code for this was reused from a different part of the CMS, the right nav objects would only display if they were applied to the current channel. That’s fine when you want to display a link to the Initiative website on the front page of Supporting Middlebury, but not fine when you want to show this on every issue of a weekly (or daily!) Newsletter. You’ll be spending a lot of time setting up each channel to do this. Now, just for Newsletters on the CMS, the right nav objects will look to their parent channels to see if any are specified and inherit from there. This can be overridden at the issue level as well, allowing for variety if the author so chooses.
Newsletter administrators who want to know more about this should contact myself or Chris Norris.
September 23rd, 2008 by Ian McBride
A couple weeks ago, Joe Antonioli and Brett Wilhelm helped us out by installing a plugin for the blogging server here called “cforms”. This plugin lets people create general data collection forms which can be made available through their blog. It has a very friendly user interface and offers more form-related features than our custom coded PHP forms ever did.
I’ve received a number of questions about how to set this up, how to get started using this. I’ve created a Basic Guide to Setting up cforms on the LIS Wiki that I’ll keep adding content to as I continue to meet with people and find out what questions they have about using this plugin.
If you have questions about using cforms, you can contact me directly and I’ll work with you or your department, office, or organization to get setup and get using this.
September 23rd, 2008 by Ian McBride
We’ve just added a new Search interface to our Google Search Appliance, this one for the Monterey Institute of International Studies. The frontend uses a custom stylesheet to get the GSA interface to look like the rest of the MIIS site, which updated its design last week. The web applications that Middlebury hosts for MIIS (the Directory and the Online Giving Form) were updated to this new design yesterday. We index content on the following MIIS sites:
http://www.miis.edu/
http://policy.miis.edu/
http://translate.miis.edu/
http://language.miis.edu/
http://fisher.miis.edu/
The “All” collection includes, well, all of those, while the last four have custom search collections that let you refine your query. I waited to make this post until we’d indexed enough content. We’ve got about 5000 pages indexed currently and I’m betting there will be more by tomorrow. Generally it takes a full day to reindex the content of an institution-level website like Middlebury’s or MIIS’s.
You can get directly to the MIIS search interface by going to this URL:
http://search.middlebury.edu/search?&site=all&client=miis_frontend&proxystylesheet=miis_frontend&output=xml_no_dtd
You can also have a form on your website that lets people search the MIIS site through the GSA. Here’s some basic HTML code that allows you to do this:
<form method=”GET” action=”http://search.middlebury.edu/search”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”site” value=”all” />
<input type=”hidden” name=”client” value=”miis_frontend” />
<input type=”hidden” name=”proxystylesheet” value=”miis_frontend” />
<input type=”hidden” name=”output” value=”xml_no_dtd” />
<input type=”text” name=”q” />
</form>
September 19th, 2008 by Doreen Bernier
Submitted by Chris Norris
Welcome back folks! DAS staff have been making progress on a variety of projects lately. Here are some of the highlights…
Mike Schuster has been working closely with Rogelio and Admissions staff to update the Admissions Online Pre-Application Supplement. Mike also recently modified the course registration counts page in BannerWeb for the Registrar’s office.
Rob Pekor has been working with Travis on Banner/ListManager integration, and with College Advancement on the dynamic online Honor Roll and the Phone-a-thon data interface.
Travis Stafford has been working with Rob on Banner/ListManager integration, with Ian on the web forms migration, and with Shel Sax on a prototype web application for the BLSE teacher network. Travis is also rapidly becoming an expert HEAT user.
Liz Whitaker-Freitas has been focused on the upcoming Hyperion System 9 upgrade/migration, and has been working closely with Velaris (our Hyperion professional services vendor) and our functional and technical LEADS, to prepare for the late-September migration.
Ian McBride recently re-developed the online Directory applications for Middlebury and Monterey, has been working with Rob Pekor on the online Honor Roll project for College Advancement, and is currently working on a “News Dashboard” web application for College Communications.
Chris Norris has been preparing materials to fill a number of open DAS staff positions, coordinating project meetings with Middlebury and MIIS staff, managing vendor relationships, conducting ListManager workshops, and re-vamping GO.
Finally, if you missed the recent post about GO on the student-run middblog, you can check it out here: http://midd-blog.com/2008/09/14/go-forward-young-man/
September 19th, 2008 by Michael Roy
We’re introducing a new feature to LISt: bizarre photos culled from our offices. We’ll post the picture one week and give folks a chance to guess who they think might be the owner of the object depicted. (If you know, then don’t guess, please!)
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