All requests to the Web Programming work-group will be placed into our request/task/project pool. At the beginning of each biweekly work cycle we will evaluate the contents of this pool and tackle a set of work that can be accomplished at our current staffing level. While we will generally try to fit requests into our work cycles in a timely manner, we will not promise what work cycle a request will be placed in. Our task/project pool is not a first-in-first-out system (a queue) nor is it a last-in-first-out system (a stack), the pool is a mixed collection of items that will be reevaluated each work cycle based on how the projects match against institutional, departmental, and work-group priorities.

For major projects and/or those with firm deadlines, specifications may be required, and evaluation/approval will be required. LIS will be working with others on campus to define this approval process.

General Focus

The Web Programming work-group is currently focused on the Web Redo project — both finishing up the MIIS site and developing the Midd site.

Tasks/Projects planned for the current cycle (October 27 – November 10)

Tasks/Projects planned for and completed in the previous cycle (October 14 – October 27)

Please note that the items listed here represent a range of time commitments; some took 10 minutes to complete, others took 3 days.

Tasks/Projects NOT planned for and completed in the previous cycle (October 14 – October 27)

Please note that the items listed here represent a range of time commitments; some took 10 minutes to complete, others took 3 days.

Tasks/Projects planned, but not completed in the previous cycle

91 Testing the  LDAP connection to hosted events site was dependant on the testing of the SIS interface, which happened at the end of last week.

191 A change in strategy for delivering the 1800 Society Donor Roll resulted in substantial time, which pushed out this task.  This was a high priority for College Advancement.

203 Updating the Basic Content template was dependent on a deliverable from the design vendor, which happened at the beginning of this week.

Task/Project Pool

Team ok with Alex sending out the notice he presented. Team decided that the notice should be sent to all faculty rather than a limited group. Team decided that Segue 1 should be made unavailable at the end of Fall 2009 classes and not postponed until later.

Topic 2: CT Site IA.

Team looked at the Uses categories started by Alex. After much discussion and a few changes, we agreed to use the following IA as a starting point for our build-out:

• Uses
  • Video
    • Video recording/editing/formatting
    • Computer screen recording (i.e. screencasts)
    • Images/audio/video collection
    • Share video on the web
    • Create/share series of audio/video files (i.e. podcast)
  • Audio
    • Audio recording/editing/formatting
    • Share audio on the web
    • Create/share series of audio/video files (i.e. podcast)
    • Musical notation
  • Graphics
    • Scan a photo/slide or document
    • Image editing (resize, crop, reformat)
    • Images/audio/video collection
    • Presentation of text/images
    • Create/share a collection of images/audio/video
    • Model creation
    • Charts/graphs/diagrams
    • Create and print posters
  • Web Publishing
    • Create a web site
    • Create a course site
    • Create an online journal (i.e. blog)
    • Share files on the web
    • Share documents/presentations for collaborative editing
    • tagging
    • Share news/opinions/ideas with a group
    • create/edit/share calendars/schedules
  • Research
    • Find news on a topic
    • Web page “bookmarks” (i.e.  tags)
    • Manage citations
    • tagging
  • Data Collection & Analysis
    • Data analysis (i.e. statistical analysis)
    • Surveying
    • Document collection from others in a group (e.g. assignments)??
    • Quizzes/Exams??
  • Presentation
    • Create a presentation of text/images/audio/video
    • Create and print posters
    • Share presentations for collaborative editing
    • Share presentations/slide-shows on the web
    • Display geographic data
  • Course Management
    • Share files on the web
    • Share documents/presentations for collaborative editing
    • Document collection from others in a group (e.g. assignments)
    • Announcements
    • create/edit/share calendars/schedules
    • Grading
    • Quizzes/Exams
    • View/share a list of students in a class/people in a group
    • View/share views of roles/participation in a site (i.e. contributions of subscribers, authors, editors, admins… etc)
  • Discussion & Communications
    • “real-time” discussion
    • “asynchronous” discussion (needs nicer term)
    • A meeting in a virtual environment
    • send email to a class/group
    • Give feedback about contents of a document (e.g. assignment)
    • Annotate content of a document (i.e. inline notes) (e.g. assignment feedback)
    • Share news/opinions/ideas with a group
  • Visualization
    • Create/edit/annotate maps
    • Display geographic data
    • Model creation
    • Participate in a virtual environment (e.g. 2nd Life)
    • Meet in a virtual environment
• Tools
  • MediaWiki
  • WordPress
  • Audacity
  • Segue
  • GoogleDocs
  • Key Survey
  • Voice Recorders
  • Video Cameras
  • Still cameras
  • Microphones
  • iPods
  • ArcGIS
  • GoogleEarth
  • Moodle
  • Sibelius
  • GradeKeeper
  • RefWorks
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Adobe Flash
  • MiddMedia
  • Scanner
  • Blender
  • EndNote
  • CONTENTdm
  • SubjectsPlus
  • SnapzPro
  • PowerPoint/Keynote
  • Word
  • Excel
  • Google Reader
  • Drupal
• Buzzwords
• Stories
• Help

Next Week

• Discuss what platform[s] will be used to build out different parts of the site (Drupal, MediaWiki, or both).
• Assign editing roles for the site.

Tasks to accomplish between meetings should be proposed during the meeting, not proposed between meetings. If proposed between meetings, should not have no expectations of accomplishment.

Communications strategies, EMail vs. Google Docs. Be clear about what is up for debate, what is not.
Vote: Email will be sent to team list. New message threads with descriptive subjects will be created for new topics. (unanimous)

Q: How does the CT site relate to our main charge?
A: A good CT site helps direct users to CT tools and services and helps users make better usage of all things we provide.

Topic 2: CT Site IA

Uses will be categorized under the following categories (to start):

• Video
• Audio
• Graphics
• Web Publishing
• Data Collection & Analysis
• Presentation
• Course (stuff?)
• Discussion

Uses will often fall under multiple categories. This should be encouraged to allow our constituents to find things even if they would assume categorization different from us.

The Adobe Flash Media Server (FMS) — the software on MiddMedia that handles streaming the video data to clients — only supports the MP3 Audio (.mp3), Flash Video (.flv), and MPEG-4 video with H.264 encoding (.mp4) formats. Up until this point, users were required to convert their videos into one of the two supported video formats before uploading them to MiddMedia. Depending on the user’s operating system and the software they have installed, this could be a challenging proposition. With this update, videos in a variety of formats can be uploaded directly to the MiddMedia server where they will be automatically converted.

When you upload a video of another format to MiddMedia now, you will at first see a placeholder video with the message “Converting Video, Please Wait”. You may make use of the embed code or links for the video at this point, even while the video is being converted in the background on the server. Once your new video is ready it will replace the placeholder when you refresh the page.

Depending on the number of users uploading videos at the same time, conversion may take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more. If an error occurs, the video will display a message of “Conversion Failed” rather than the “Converting Video, Please Wait” message.

Server-side video conversion is being handled by FFmpeg, an open-source video conversion tool that supports 157 container formats and 289 audio and video codecs. We are launching this update to MiddMedia with support for a limited number of formats, however we can easily enable any additional ones that are also supported by FFmpeg.

Currently supported video formats:
(see the wiki for an up to date list)
No conversion needed:

• MPEG-4 video with H.264 encoding (.mp4)
• Flash video (.flv)

With conversion:

• .avi – Audio Video Interleave (video/x-msvideo)
• .asf – Advanced Systems Format (video/x-ms-asf)
• .dv – Digital Video (video/x-dv)
• .m4v – iTunes Video (video/x-m4v)
• .mj2 – Motion JPEG 2000 Video (video/x-motion-jpeg)
• .mjp – Motion JPEG Video (video/x-motion-jpeg)
• .mjpg – Motion JPEG Video (video/x-motion-jpeg)
• .mkv – Matroska Video (video/x-matroska)
• .mov – Apple QuickTime Movie (video/quicktime)
• .mpeg – MPEG Video (video/mpeg)
• .mpg – MPEG Video (video/mpeg)
• .ogv – Ogg Vorbis Video (video/ogg)
• .qt – Apple QuickTime Movie (video/quicktime )
• .rv – Real Video (video/vnd-rn-realvideo)
• .wmv – Windows Media Video (video/x-ms-wmv)