Middlebury

LIS Website

Revision as of 12:04, 3 July 2009 by James Beauchemin (talk | contribs) (Team Meeting Notes for July 2)

This is the space that the LIS Website Team will use for documentation and note taking.


Team Charge

  • To create a brand new LIS web presence that has the following characteristics: is easy to find (things,) is easy to use, is easy to maintain, is user centric, has more self-service functionality.

Team Priorities

  • Involve end users: develop & test [Beta test 11/09, Public beta test 12/09, Public launch 1/04/10]
  • Develop LIS staff workflow, content management, protocol procedures & apply to new web presence [Test 11/09, In place 12/09]
  • Assess/evaluate new LIS web presence ( involve end users) [April 2010 & ongoing]
  • Develop “site-refresh” strategies [Aug 2010]

Team Vision

We are creating a web site with intuitive navigation, easy access to services and resources, inviting interfaces, and a workflow that allows simple maintenance.

Scope

Resources


  • Blogs
  1. Docs on posting, an intro, etc., from the Wordpress site
  2. Tutorials and readings on blog use: Anatomy of a blog, some blog history, etc.
  • Wikis
  1. Docs on editing and a useful cheat sheet. Tutorial from Wikipedia
  2. Tutorials and readings on wiki use: wiki world (has podcasts), an article from Educause, etc.
  • Readings
  1. How Do You Measure Web Site Success? - If you can ignore the ads, I think you'll find a few good ideas for us to consider Macfarlane, Carrie Miyoshi
  2. http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Website_Design - geared to library web sites, includes examples & useability tips (it's a wiki just like ours!)

LIS Website Metrics - Measurements & Metrics - How we will measure success

Quantitative

  • Reduced support requests
  • Fewer clicks to find information
  • Reduced reliance on other communication systems
    • Fewer group emails
    • Fewer PDF newsletters and print materials
    • Unified documentation
  • More frequent updates of news content
  • Fewer dead links, reduced need to check for dead links
  • Usage analytics analysis
  • Subscription rate for syndicated content (feeds)
  • Do we want to measure how we respond to feedback, for example do we want to set a goal for ourselves that all suggestions will receive responses (even generic) within a certain amount of time? Macfarlane, Carrie Miyoshi

Qualitative

  • User satisfaction survey (on-going, periodical) - is just doing a survey enough for us, or are we looking for a certain level of satisfaction in the result? Of course we probably will never achieve 100% satisfaction. Do we want to set a target somehow, one that is linked to the ratings on the survey (eg, at least 50% of users are at least "somewhat satisfied")? Macfarlane, Carrie Miyoshi
  • "Was this page helpful?" "Rate this page" at the bottom of content

Criteria

Project Timeline

2009

June 09

  • Team Training

July 09

  • Team Planning - develop vison, define measurements and metrics, build coalition and create a marketing plan, develop the action plan to achieve key deliverables
  • 7/23/09 White Whale will share their designs for the new site at McCullough Hall, 1pm. 

August 09


Sept 09

  • 9/1, Middlebury finalizes homepage (+ top-tier) designs

October 09

  • 10/09

Novemeber 09

  • 11/09 Beta test
  • 11/09 Test in place for LIS staff workflow, content management, protocol procedures & apply to new web presence

Decemeber 09

  • 12/09 Public beta test
  • 12/09 Develop LIS staff workflow, content management, protocol procedures & apply to new web presence


2010

January 10

  • 1/04/10 Public launch

April 10

  • 4/10 & ongoing Assess/evaluate new LIS web presence ( involve end users)

August 10

  • 8/10 Develop “site-refresh” strategies


What do we need on a LIS home page?

  • Google search of website - all Midd, just LIS
  • hours for today,
  • catalog, reserves, journals, media searches
  • contact live help
  • search documentation - researching, citing etc.
  • Questions for team to decide:
  • How to get ideas, needs, input from interested LIS staff?
  • Where to get good ideas from other organizations?
  • What do we need on a LIS home page? OR do we want library & tech home pages (with big link to “about LIS” on both)?
  • Overall “look and feel” constraints? - maximum freedom for all contributers.
  • A CMS-based site for the Library, which will contain links to subject guides, reference resources, journals, and digital collections. The Library site will be built as a stand-alone site in Drupal with a new set of design templates that adequately allow for free presentation of this information.
  • An expansion of the current LIS Wiki to include all Help related content. We will migrate the remaining content out of the current CMS, PDF documents, and knowledge base. We will work to integrate links to this information into our help systems. Additionally, we will make authorship of this information available throughout the organization and offer training and support for LIS staff to update the content relevant to their work.
  • A portal to search all of the collections and databases within LIS. A long-term goal in this area will be federated search, but to begin we will create a unified area where users can view all of the collection offerings and perform basic and advanced searches of them.
  • A place to interact with LIS. This will be achieved through consolidation of the various LIS blogs, feedback forms, request forms, comment submissions and staff directories. The goal is to have a *single* blog for LIS with all staff as authors. This area of our site will also provide an appropriate place to present material on the organization, direction, and policies of LIS.


Meeting Notes

2009:  June 24

Present:  Elin Waagen, Jess Isler, Ian McBride (time-keeper), Carrie Macfarlane (note-taker), Liz Whitaker-Freitas, Jim Beauchemin, Barbara Merz.


1.  Questions for the team - Jim and Carrie


  • Jim had some questions about roles and communication methods.  He will meet with Doreen to review what he missed on Thurs afternoon and Fri morning
  • Carrie shared what she'd done to get caught up on team training.  She asks that team members tell her when she does something contrary to what the team learned/agreed to during training.


2.  Decide on a platform to facilitate documentation and communication 


  • What will we use this platform for?  Communication within the team and with our users/constituents.
  • What are our options?  Basecamp, Microsoft Project, Groove, MediaWiki, Wordpress, Drupal (not yet)
  • We discussed the merits and drawbacks of the options.
  • We decided by majority:  At least in the beginning, we will use MediaWiki for meeting notes and documentation, and Wordpress for communication among ourselves and with our users/constituents.  We may use email to direct users/constituents (and team members) to Wordpress.  We may use email to communicate within the team about mundane or ephemeral matters like absences at meetings.  We can revisit this decision in the future by adding it to a meeting agenda.


3.  Team Protocols


  • Team protocols that were agreed upon during team training were listed:

a. Meet weekly - adjust frequency as needed if there are no/more agenda items.

b. Set agenda ahead of time

c. Shared responsibility to generate agenda items, agenda facilitated by team leader

d. Agenda items will have specific time and sponsor

e. Time keeper

f. Note taker-- I think this responsibility should rotate alphabetically.  If someone can't take notes when it's his/her turn then that person can ask for a substitute.  <a href="User:Carrie Macfarlane">Macfarlane, Carrie Miyoshi</a> 13:13, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


f1. Meeting time is a valuable resource. Team members will learn to use it wisely. Team members commit to being up to date on blog and wiki postings before each meeting. [Barbara 6/26]

g. Use shared platform for communication and development of documentation

h. Timely (define?) posting of meeting notes

i. Time at end (5-10 min) for discussion or overflow or to set next meeting agenda

j. If unable to attend, responsible for getting caught up

k. Open honest dialogue (with tact)

l. Simple majority rules

m. Agreement - to ensure success (from training)

n. Authentic and candid dialogue

o. Honest - with tact

p. Open to others - come to agreement

q. Make the decision and move on - or fix it and move on

r. Depersonalize and on board

s. Participate, engage, share point of view 1X

t. Focus on and value time over story

u. Informed, fast decisions

v. Confidential

w. Take notes

x. Take responsibility

y. Volunteer, be willing

z. Right to expect candor and openness

aa. Own it

bb. Be present

cc. Be on time (late + good story = on time)

dd. Outlook calendars up to date (for scheduling purposes)

ee.  Meetings will start on time.  Team will wait no longer than 5 minutes for late arrivals. <a href="User:Carrie Macfarlane">Macfarlane, Carrie Miyoshi</a> 13:14, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


3.  Vision Statements


  • Team will meet on Th Aug 25 to develop vision statement


4.  Future agenda items


  • Other potential team protocols were mentioned in conversation as team members arrived at the meeting.  It was suggested that these potential protocols be brought up during the time allotted for discussion of team protocols.  Because we needed to plan for drafting a vision statement, we didn't have time to discuss protocols.  Therefore, perhaps we should plan to discuss team protocols in a future meeting.

Other items on today's agenda for which we didn't have time (we had too many other important issues to resolve!):


  • Define measurements/metrics (10 min)What does success look like?What metric will define our success?
  • Building Coalition - Creating a Marketing Plan (10 min)Who do we need to engage early on?We need to engage early for: information and understanding, input, resources (actual and potential)
  • Action Plan to Achieve Key Deliverables (10 min)Tasks to be accomplished?Who is accountable?Delivery Time?


5.  Action items


  • Jim had some questions about roles and communication methods. He will meet with Doreen to review what he missed on Thurs afternoon and Fri morning
  • Ian will create a blog and a mediawiki page -- done!
  • Liz will create Outlook group for LIS web team
  • We will meet with our sponsor (Jeff) or sponsor-backup (Mary)
  • We will meet elsewhere from time-to-time (Voter East, Music Library, Armstrong Library)

<a href="User:Carrie Macfarlane">Macfarlane, Carrie Miyoshi</a> 19:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

2009:  June 25

Present: Barbara, Carrie, Elin, Ian, Jess, Jim, Liz

1. Updates

  • Elin is updating Jeff R./Mary B. on team meeting highlights
  • Elin will create a post for LISt blog about existence of the LIS Website Project Blog.

2. Vision Statement Work

  • Discussion of bringing out common themes or words, creating a tagline (subtitle) for the blog, tags/keywords, discussion of what the statement really should be

[asides]

  • There’s a Wordle <a href="http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/967852/web_team">diagram</a> of our team vision statements on the blog; discussed what WORDLE is—what it represents and where it comes from: <a href="http://www.wordle.net/">Wordle</a> "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text."
  • Discussed scheduling a projector room for future meetings

[back to vision statement discussion]

3. End of meeting discussion

<a href="User:Jessica Isler">Jess Isler</a> 17:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

2009: July 1

Present: Barbara, Carrie, Elin, Ian, Jess, Jim, Liz

1) Updates

  • keep Elin & team posted about absences via Outlook calendar, meeting schedule
  • there was a managers meeting on 6/26 at which the manager expectations as produced at the team training were discussed (vigorously). There was pretty good buy-in, with the understanding that things will evolve.
  • Elin met with Jeff & showed him the blog & wiki. Jeff clarified what is our charge & what our deliverables. Suggested we make our vision shorter. Shorter form of vision as above unanimously approved.
  • Ian suggested adding a resources page to this wiki - done, see above.

2) Protocols

After short discussion, updated protocols, as below in wiki were approved.

3) Define measurements/metrics. What does success look like? What metric will define our success?

Started discussion of this topic. Need for definitions of following:

  • scope of project
  • core requirements
  • metrics

Ian listed metrics currently defined by the larger web makeover project.

4) Scope

Started discussion of project scope. See details in this blog above.

5) For next meeting

Note taking duties will rotate alphabetically. Jim's up next!

Barbara learned a valuable lesson in entering these notes - there is a SAVE button at the bottom of the wiki edit screen if only one uses the correct (outer) scroll bar.

2009: July 2

Present:  Liz, Ian, Jim, Barbara, Jess, Elin, Carrie


Scope discussion:

  •      Ian posted a very good list of items on our page the clearly itemizes our areas of focus when it comes to our project scope (see Scope section). 
  •      We discussed the proposed Scope list and we feel at this time that the proper items are listed.

Criteria discussion:

  •      We immediately started to discuss the criteria that will be used:

         -  We will document everything which is internal to our effort on the Wiki; a clear and concise communication plan is needed; 
         -  We agreed to strive for a reduction in PDF and Doc objects which are currently embedded in many areas of the web site.  An exclusion to the reduction 
            of PDF objects would be in the preservation area only.
         -  Reduce or eliminate external links
         -  We must improve the Search engine
         -  Promotion of the 'Blog' for the purpose of discussion and communication; internal as well as external communication.
         -  Propose 1 blog opposed to 20+ blogs - consolidation; need better catogorization of content!  One subscription to 'the' blog and then the user can navigate to desired area(s)
         -  Make the tools and services easy to find and access!!
         -  Promote other tools and utilities - let user choose (appropriate tools only)
         -  Simple, Intuitive, 3 click away interface
         -  Self-Service

Additional notes:

The team expressed questions and concerns regarding the Wiki and its ease of use.  The team agreed that we are now emersing ourselves into the very areas we are charged to
clean-up or re-structure.  We also came to the conclusion that whatever we put forward for a web site that it will be a bahavior change required for all user.  Training and general
prepareness will be very important and that we will need to integrate these things along the way through this restructuring process.  We also spoke about the importance of partnering
with other teams so that we can truly understand the requirements of the new LIS web site.


Next meeting:

  •    Ian will present the results of the Focus Group and survey results in our next meeting
  •    Jim will be on vacation for our next meeting


Team Protocols

Team Protocols


Agreement - to ensure success (from training workshop)

  • Authentic and candid dialogue (honesty - with tact)
  • Open to others
  • Depersonalize
  • Participation is required
  • Engage, share point of view (1X)
  • Taking action and achieving results
  • Taking responsibility
  • Taking notes and communicating
  • Confidentiality


Meeting Protocol:

  • Meetings will start on time and end on time; unless team decides otherwise
  • Meeting time is a valuable resource. Team members will learn to use it wisely. Team members commit to being up to date on blog and wiki postings before each meeting
  • Meeting time will not be used to repeat discussions/questions for late arrivals
  • Meet weekly - adjust frequency as needed if there are no/more agenda items
  • Agenda - set/communicated ahead of meeting; facilitated by team leader; team shares responsibility for agenda items; time assigned to each agenda item; allow time at beginning (5 - 10 min) to allow for brief updates, news etc.; allow for time at end (5-10 min) for discussion overflow, to wrap up and to suggest agenda items for the next meeting
  • Time keeper - rotate responsibility
  • Note taker - rotate alphabetically. If someone can't take notes when it's his/her turn then that person can ask for a substitute. Meeting notes posted to the wiki within 2 work days; action items listed
  • Meeting location - varies to accomodate the work to be done (projection, white boards, etc) and member office locations


Also:

  • Be informed; make the decision and move on - or fix it and move on
  • Be on board
  • Focus on and value time over story
  • Take responsibility
  • Volunteer, be willing
  • Right to expect candor and openness
  • Be the solution
  • Be present
  • Team will use shared platform for communication and development of documentation
  • Communicate schedule availability to team leader; take personal responsibility for staying informed
  • Simple majority rules
  • Be on time (late + good story = on time)
  • Keep Outlook calendars up to date (for scheduling purposes)
  • Share schedule/workload conflicts with team


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