Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Liz Lawley, Director, Lab for Social Computing, Rochester Institute of Technology
Gamification is the application of gaming mechanics to non-gaming environments.
Lee Sheldoen – “the multiplayer classroom”. How to use game mechanics in the classroom – instead of grades, exp points. Students are doing better, more engaged, better grades, hand in more assignments.
Gamifyforthewin.com – Ian Bogost – gamification is bullshit. “–ification is simple, repeatable, proven techniques. Is always easy and repeatable, and it’s usually bullshit”.
Earning points in games like Scrabble and Words with Friends, isn’t because you got a 50 point word, but because it was difficult. The feeling of accomplishment is very important.
@ RIT
Microsoft Research gave some money to help them get started, and is continuing to fund it.
Foursquare – gamification that really seems to work. Allows you to reflect back on what you’ve done and think about your accomplishments.
4sq&7yearsago – emails you each day to tell you what you were doing a year ago.
Experience of competence is important. Students should want to do it, not just do it for the reward.
What behaviors did we want to reward and encourage?
What feelings of competence could we engender?
What did we want our students to remember and reflect on?
Bartle’s Player Types – kinds of people who play MUDs. Killers, achievers, explorers, socializers. Too generic a model, overly simplified.
New way of thinking of achievements – apprentice, journeyman, master. Individual and shared (group work).
Just Press Play. Play.rit.edu
Game launched last week at RIT.
“Why can’t students get achievements for being awesome?” Game that overlays students day-to-day activities. Beta launched for RIT’s School of Interactive Games and Media. 720 students.
RFID keyfobs for some activities – go places. Some activities give them cards (faculty collectible cards).
Experiences the students will remember. Humor, playfulness, engaging with people around them. Humanizes faculty for students. Connects students to each other.
Facebook.com/JustPressPlayRIT
Will open source at end of summer!
The platform is important, but also need to spend time thinking about the content, designing the experience. What works for students at RIT won’t be the same for students at another univ. Will have to modify for the kind of content your students will respond to. Put the time and energy into it and you can really transform with the power of games.
Sense that they’ve really accomplished something that matters.
Links to this post
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
eBooks from publishing perspective and where we see things going in the future.
David Bowers, Oxford University Press
Individual is the focus.
Libraries – the original Google. People come to libraries to learn. Issues – budgets.
OUP – is not for profit. Univ has been only shareholder in entire history of OUP. Not kicking back profit to people as shareholders. Looking to generate a bottom line, kick back to univ, so they can share knowledge. Oxford Index.
Content Aggregators
Contract with EBSCO ebrary, Miilibrary, eLibrary. Take Oxford data, package into product.
Ereaders –
Typically, eBooks that have been made and distributed to the vendors are electronic copies of traditional print books.
iPhone and app store changing that. Apps can bring more to books. Maybe reader wants something more – a chapter, an article. Ex: look inside all available books about molecular biology from a single app.
Users rent an app from publisher?
Stephen Abram, Gale Cengage Learning
We want to build stuff that helps people learn. That’s what motivates us (people in publishing). 800 librarians on staff.
Biggest project – thinking of the future. what will the textbook look like over time? What’s going to happen with large print. What will childrens books look like?
Textbooks – needs to be device agnostic. Browser independent. Learning management system independent. ADA compliant. Learning style independent. Testing new versions of textbooks in 150 schools in north America. Mobile independent. Use social tools.
Childrens books – 1st experiences in childrens books. What’s the right form of book? Why are there pages? Scroll thru instead, like a video game. Does it have to have the same ending every time? Does everything have to be in the same place every time you open the book? Move the mouse around. (MY THOUGHTS – what do childrens educators/ experts think about this? Is a change every time good or bad? Or is the consistency what kids need?)
Reference – non fiction. We use nonfiction asynchronously. How do we pull info out of multiple encyclopedias about 1 topic? And have it in whatever format we want, and assemble as my own book on the topic I need on the fly. Frame quality information, that has been quality selected, frame it to serve our users.
Questions
Copyright – if you had training in copyright that’s more than 5 years old, it’s no longer valid. Things have changed too much recently. Need to update your knowledge. Laws in US and other countries is changing.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Blake Carver, LISHost
Kendra K. Levine, Librarian At Large
LISHost – 400 sites. 200 WP, 100 Drupal, 1 Joomla.
What is/Why use CMS? Centralize control, free up people to make content, not techie, non-geeky users can set up own pages.
Empowers other people to create content. Timelier, universal changes easier/quicker. Users end up having a nicer relationship with the website. More user friendly.
Goals of a CMS – what’s important to you? Make life easier? Flexibility? Easier for technophobes? Functionality(calendars, widgets)? Get code out of the way so people can actually do work?
Audience question - Used to get rid of webmasters? “any dummy can do it, so don’t need webmaster”. Wrong, still need someone to maintain it.
“CMS removes impediments of keeping website current.”
How to choose:
-Complex vs. simple
-How big is website?
-Learning curve- who’s going to be updating website? can they pick it up quickly?
-Who’s going to use it? Designers/users/webmasters?
-Translation
-Library specific modules/plugins
* Budgets, Personnel, Time
What’s open source?
Get code, modify it, share it back to community.
Free – speech vs. beer vs. kittens
Drupal
-Stared 2001, kid in dorm created bbs, powers 2-3% of sites on internet now.
-Acquia – company created by inventor.
WordPress
-2003, company is Automattic
-Support, hosting, services
-WordPress.com
-14.7% of top websites in world. 22 of every 100 new domains registered.
Joomla
-2005
-“Open source matters” website
All of them-
What makes them great-
Huge developer community, lots of themes, modules, plugins, widgets, scalable, complex yet flexible, regular security updates, tools.
What makes them suck-
Huge developer community – conflicting themes/plugins, PHP versions – servers must be kept up-to-date with current version, modules/plugins/widgets can have issues because of outside changes, security updates.
Smackdown:
-Installation- all pretty easy, one click installs for all 3, DRAW.
-Scalability – Drupal – best at managing huge amounts of content.
-Library specific stuff – depending on what you want, probably Drupal.
-Appearance – WP slightly, theme searching interface is very good. Unless you like to code/modify themes, then Drupal.
-User management – Drupal. Seemingly infinite roles/permissions. WP – not bad, started as one person/one blog, but getting better.
-Customization – all equal. Drupal and WP – lots of modules and plugins. Joomla - not as many, but there, can customize with time/patience.
-Ease of use – WP. Nice dashboard. Drupal, has done a lot of usability testing, working on it.
-Configuration and maintenance – WP. One click install, one click update. Batch update all plugins. Drupal – more intensive, have to do some in shell yourself, can configure every little thing and have to configure every little thing. WP – can, but don’t have to to get it to work.
-Upgrade and security – WP – easier for regular user. Drupal - more difficult, FTP, have to touch files on server. WP – seems to be less secure, not bad tho. Drupal a bit better.
Winner = Drupal and WP.
Drupal – big, powerful, good for a lot of pages files, WP - easy to set up, your mom can do it.
Questions –
Another criteria – what if person who picks and installs the CMS you choose leaves? Is there someone else to support? What about Plone?
Which is easiest to learn when previous person leaves? Depends on complexity of your site, not dependent on platform you choose.
RFP – what limitations shouldthey look out for? How technologically advanced are your staff? Size of lib/staff?
WP – hosted on .com or on own server? Limitations to hosted – can only use their themes, if you want to do lots of customization, have to host your own.
Final thought from Kendra - Not one right answer – it’s what is right for your situation.
Links to this post
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Goal is to represent our professions rather than our employers.
Sue, I’m a librarian and I’m concerned about:
In what format should digital format be preserved? Will it serve us in the future?
Who’s responsible/ who owns them? Library, publisher, aggregator, author? Who has the right to make backup files?
What are the trigger events? Items kept secure until checked out.
Can I move to a different interface? Do I have the right to take my archive files with me and take them to another aggregator? Is the content provider saving items in format that will work in any interface?
Do I have the ability/right to remove a title that needs weeding? Is it completely removed? Or is it stored somewhere else I can access it in case it’s discovered that I do need it again?
Who pays for preservation? Built into price of book? Access fees? Separate access fee? Or just the cost of doing business?
Rolf – publisher
Publisher is involved with beginning, middle and end of content creation.
1-Ownership: perpetual. 2-Publisher owns copyright, library owns product. Challenge is what lies between those 2 statements. Limitations – not everybody will win.
Big issue from publisher perspective is resourcing. Dollars and cents. Who pays for preservation. Publishers have the basic responsibility to participate in all the major digital preservation initiatives. LOCKSS CLOCKSS
Also need to make the investment to protect the version of record. Hard to determine because there are so many dynamic items out there.
Aggregators – a growing and preferred purchasing sector. Every publisher licenses their content to several. Who’s protecting who? Is publisher protecting aggregator who protects libraries? Or something else? What is aggregator’s mission? Contractual issue – preservation doesn’t come up in discussions with aggregators. The legal language is going to be the ultimate protector in how we tighten up issue between publisher and aggregator.
Preservation Before Dissemination
When publisher creates content we need to start thinking about preservation before dissemination. Be strategic. Proactive- plan for change is the most difficult thing for a publisher to do. Still live in book world. Need to be collaborative with aggregators and libraries. Knowing that not everything will be resolved, but publisher needs to wake up and figure out how on a collective level we can create a safer environment for content. Digital preservation is something that every publisher needs to start creating - an operational model that is resourced. Create some standards, have a profound effect on how we can protect the content that you own.
Ultimately, it’s knowledge that your end user will always need.
Ken - aggregator
What does it mean to preserve ebooks?
Light archive – the aggregated databases that exist today, either thru aggregator or publisher. Collection of ebooks on a platform that can be accessed by users on platform.
Dark archive – creating a repository to ensure that if there’s some event that warrants it that there is still the ability of your users to access the content. Closed, tightly guarded. Only reason someone should need to go in is to inventory, make sure it’s all there in case needed.
Is the text all we need to preserve?
Publisher owns copyright and original file. Publisher’s decision for what becomes the item of record.
Portico – take publisher’s original file, create normalized version of file – all in same format.
CLOCKSS – take capture of last user interface version, prior to a trigger event, and preserve that.
Who is responsible for preserving ebooks?
Publisher owns rights to book initially, grants rights to aggregator to release books. Can also grant rights to organization to preserve. Rights can be assigned to others.
What are ebook trigger events?
Publisher exits business or ebook no longer offered anywhere. Publisher has to approve trigger. Not a trigger – if aggregator exits business, because books are still available elsewhere. If library stops paying for access to platform. Same reason.
Weeding ebooks
Platforms were designd to be additive, unlimited shelf space. What is the right treatment? Choose archive as status, actually just hidden, later access can be reenabled. Manually, or ‘checked’ out? Permanently deleting? Entitled to dark archive version?
Who pays?
We all do. Publisher is owner- should preserve book. Consensus seems to be in at least 2 places. Aggregator putting redundancy in platforms and copy in dark archive. Library – up front fees or ongoing access fees. Preservation efforts.
Preservation initiatives- scalable? Sustainable?
Questions
Considered asking digital archivists? Publisher – no, question of scalability. (MY NOTE: not sure I understand the answer)
Links to this post
Goal is to represent our professions rather than our employers.
Sue, I’m a librarian and I’m concerned about:
- Usability
- Authenticity
- Discoverability
- Accessibility
In what format should digital format be preserved? Will it serve us in the future?
Who’s responsible/ who owns them? Library, publisher, aggregator, author? Who has the right to make backup files?
What are the trigger events? Items kept secure until checked out.
Can I move to a different interface? Do I have the right to take my archive files with me and take them to another aggregator? Is the content provider saving items in format that will work in any interface?
Do I have the ability/right to remove a title that needs weeding? Is it completely removed? Or is it stored somewhere else I can access it in case it’s discovered that I do need it again?
Who pays for preservation? Built into price of book? Access fees? Separate access fee? Or just the cost of doing business?
Rolf – publisher
Publisher is involved with beginning, middle and end of content creation.
1-Ownership: perpetual. 2-Publisher owns copyright, library owns product. Challenge is what lies between those 2 statements. Limitations – not everybody will win.
Big issue from publisher perspective is resourcing. Dollars and cents. Who pays for preservation. Publishers have the basic responsibility to participate in all the major digital preservation initiatives. LOCKSS CLOCKSS
Also need to make the investment to protect the version of record. Hard to determine because there are so many dynamic items out there.
Aggregators – a growing and preferred purchasing sector. Every publisher licenses their content to several. Who’s protecting who? Is publisher protecting aggregator who protects libraries? Or something else? What is aggregator’s mission? Contractual issue – preservation doesn’t come up in discussions with aggregators. The legal language is going to be the ultimate protector in how we tighten up issue between publisher and aggregator.
Preservation Before Dissemination
When publisher creates content we need to start thinking about preservation before dissemination. Be strategic. Proactive- plan for change is the most difficult thing for a publisher to do. Still live in book world. Need to be collaborative with aggregators and libraries. Knowing that not everything will be resolved, but publisher needs to wake up and figure out how on a collective level we can create a safer environment for content. Digital preservation is something that every publisher needs to start creating - an operational model that is resourced. Create some standards, have a profound effect on how we can protect the content that you own.
Ultimately, it’s knowledge that your end user will always need.
Ken - aggregator
What does it mean to preserve ebooks?
Light archive – the aggregated databases that exist today, either thru aggregator or publisher. Collection of ebooks on a platform that can be accessed by users on platform.
Dark archive – creating a repository to ensure that if there’s some event that warrants it that there is still the ability of your users to access the content. Closed, tightly guarded. Only reason someone should need to go in is to inventory, make sure it’s all there in case needed.
Is the text all we need to preserve?
Publisher owns copyright and original file. Publisher’s decision for what becomes the item of record.
Portico – take publisher’s original file, create normalized version of file – all in same format.
CLOCKSS – take capture of last user interface version, prior to a trigger event, and preserve that.
Who is responsible for preserving ebooks?
Publisher owns rights to book initially, grants rights to aggregator to release books. Can also grant rights to organization to preserve. Rights can be assigned to others.
What are ebook trigger events?
Publisher exits business or ebook no longer offered anywhere. Publisher has to approve trigger. Not a trigger – if aggregator exits business, because books are still available elsewhere. If library stops paying for access to platform. Same reason.
Weeding ebooks
Platforms were designd to be additive, unlimited shelf space. What is the right treatment? Choose archive as status, actually just hidden, later access can be reenabled. Manually, or ‘checked’ out? Permanently deleting? Entitled to dark archive version?
Who pays?
We all do. Publisher is owner- should preserve book. Consensus seems to be in at least 2 places. Aggregator putting redundancy in platforms and copy in dark archive. Library – up front fees or ongoing access fees. Preservation efforts.
Preservation initiatives- scalable? Sustainable?
Questions
Considered asking digital archivists? Publisher – no, question of scalability. (MY NOTE: not sure I understand the answer)
 |
| David Bowers and Stephen Abram |
eBooks from publishing perspective and where we see things going in the future.
David Bowers, Oxford University Press
Individual is the focus.
Libraries – the original Google. People come to libraries to learn. Issues – budgets.
OUP – is not for profit. Univ has been only shareholder in entire history of OUP. Not kicking back profit to people as shareholders. Looking to generate a bottom line, kick back to univ, so they can share knowledge. Oxford Index.
Content Aggregators
Contract with EBSCO ebrary, Miilibrary, eLibrary. Take Oxford data, package into product.
Ereaders –
Typically, eBooks that have been made and distributed to the vendors are electronic copies of traditional print books.
iPhone and app store changing that. Apps can bring more to books. Maybe reader wants something more – a chapter, an article. Ex: look inside all available books about molecular biology from a single app.
Users rent an app from publisher?
Stephen Abram, Gale Cengage Learning
We want to build stuff that helps people learn. That’s what motivates us (people in publishing). 800 librarians on staff.
Biggest project – thinking of the future. what will the textbook look like over time? What’s going to happen with large print. What will childrens books look like?
Textbooks – needs to be device agnostic. Browser independent. Learning management system independent. ADA compliant. Learning style independent. Testing new versions of textbooks in 150 schools in north America. Mobile independent. Use social tools.
Childrens books – 1st experiences in childrens books. What’s the right form of book? Why are there pages? Scroll thru instead, like a video game. Does it have to have the same ending every time? Does everything have to be in the same place every time you open the book? Move the mouse around. (MY THOUGHTS – what do childrens educators/ experts think about this? Is a change every time good or bad? Or is the consistency what kids need?)
Reference – non fiction. We use nonfiction asynchronously. How do we pull info out of multiple encyclopedias about 1 topic? And have it in whatever format we want, and assemble as my own book on the topic I need on the fly. Frame quality information, that has been quality selected, frame it to serve our users.
Questions
Copyright – if you had training in copyright that’s more than 5 years old, it’s no longer valid. Things have changed too much recently. Need to update your knowledge. Laws in US and other countries is changing.
abram,
cengage,
ebooks,
gale,
il2011,
oxford,
publishers
|
comments (0)
Links to this post
Monday, October 17, 2011
Making Connections: Conversations, Collaboration and Negotiation in a Library Website Redesign Project.
Michael Epstein - University of San Diego, Copley Library
When working on redesign, conversations were most important. Relationships are as important as tools and tech. successful collaboration with stakeholders. must be able to communicate needs of a library website.
In USD context –
Previous univ wide redesign, library not involved, given templates – very locked down version of page, ‘place your content here’, resistance to being boxed in by templates that we hadn’t been included in the conversation about, this led to benign neglect. Didn’t implement them.
Then, CIO named interim director of library, nobody was happy with old templates, not just library. New redesign. Since CIO was director of library, could have conversation with him about library role in redesign. Instead of entire redesign, doing a few depts. at a time. Library website redesign team formed – librarians and IT.
IT and librarians – defensive at first, one size does not fit all, needed to explain why library is different, needs are diff from other departments on campus. Agreed to look at other library websites. Helped IT see how library is different.
-Collaboration
Daily conversations on content and design. Constant communication was key.
Web advisory group within library.
Univ stakeholders unhappy with new template. Not sure who, just some people from higher up. New consultant hired. Meetings with consultant. Library had place at the table. People interested in branding and uniformity vs. unique dept needs.
Lessons learned:
-Look for opportunities to collaborate with non-library personnel.
-Build relationship thru conversations, negotiations, compromise.
-Communicate unique needs of library users with other stakeholders and other people you’re working with. Can’t assume they understand what you’re working with.
-Be willing to give up some control in return for a truly collaborative approach. It’s OK, you don’t have to do the whole thing. As long as you are both able to express your needs and work things out.
PPLD.org – a redesign case study
Virginia Franklyn - Pikes Peak Library District
Old website about 8 years old, too small.
Project plan – read Project Management for Dummies. Really helped. Drew up project plan with timeline. On a wiki so all staff had access via intranet.
Choose framework.
Looked at WP and Joomla. But decided Drupal was best for them. Big websites use them, like what they needed. Geared toward staff data entry and patron participation. Received so much help from the community.
Had to learn Drupal. Drupal 6 by David Mercer. Drupal 7 is out now, should use that, but Drupal 6 was available when they started.
Did every example in book to learn it. Yes, very steep learning curve, but it worked to learn it. Drupal community is amazing. Drupal southern Colorado user group, library BOFs, consultants. But mostly trial and error. Broke website a lot when in development. Have a sense of humor about Drupal. Don’t have a strict timeline because things will come out of left field. Be flexible.
Website survey – needed to know how to set up site. Catalog/my account. Suggest a book. Find classes/programs. Became sections for site.
Website layout
Usability
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. How to make a website intuitive. Get user to what they need as easily and fast as possible.
Usability testing after basic infrastructure was built. Usability Hot Team. Doing 3-4 usability tests is optimal. But do at least 1. “Of course, everyone knows usability tests are very important, and must be done.”
2 years and 1 baby later…
Vfranklyn.blogspot.com = blog of how they did it.
Extreme make-over
Marin County Free Library
Moved from a centralized to open control. Moved from proprietary CMS to open source.
3 big takeaways – patience, perseverance, passion for the project.
Integrating social media very important. Big 5 – Blogger, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube.
Free labor – internship program with univ.
Also decided to simultaneously rebrand site. Realized too late it was a terrible idea. Concentrated on content development.
Social media committee. Weekly meetings.
Used Google docs as repository. Constant communication.
Tips:
-When evaluating vendor proposals – get examples with similar budget as yours. So you know what you can really expect to get.
-Get expectations from vendor of when things will be done.
-Wireframes – use different term, like diagrams. Some staff didn’t understand the term and had blocks about it which lasted throughout project.
-Useful tools – content spreadsheet detailing all content, who was responsible, deadline. Google docs.
Links to this post
Making Connections: Conversations, Collaboration and Negotiation in a Library Website Redesign Project.
Michael Epstein - University of San Diego, Copley Library
When working on redesign, conversations were most important. Relationships are as important as tools and tech. successful collaboration with stakeholders. must be able to communicate needs of a library website.
In USD context –
Previous univ wide redesign, library not involved, given templates – very locked down version of page, ‘place your content here’, resistance to being boxed in by templates that we hadn’t been included in the conversation about, this led to benign neglect. Didn’t implement them.
Then, CIO named interim director of library, nobody was happy with old templates, not just library. New redesign. Since CIO was director of library, could have conversation with him about library role in redesign. Instead of entire redesign, doing a few depts. at a time. Library website redesign team formed – librarians and IT.
IT and librarians – defensive at first, one size does not fit all, needed to explain why library is different, needs are diff from other departments on campus. Agreed to look at other library websites. Helped IT see how library is different.
-Collaboration
Daily conversations on content and design. Constant communication was key.
Web advisory group within library.
Univ stakeholders unhappy with new template. Not sure who, just some people from higher up. New consultant hired. Meetings with consultant. Library had place at the table. People interested in branding and uniformity vs. unique dept needs.
Lessons learned:
-Look for opportunities to collaborate with non-library personnel.
-Build relationship thru conversations, negotiations, compromise.
-Communicate unique needs of library users with other stakeholders and other people you’re working with. Can’t assume they understand what you’re working with.
-Be willing to give up some control in return for a truly collaborative approach. It’s OK, you don’t have to do the whole thing. As long as you are both able to express your needs and work things out.
PPLD.org – a redesign case study
Virginia Franklyn - Pikes Peak Library District
Old website about 8 years old, too small.
Project plan – read Project Management for Dummies. Really helped. Drew up project plan with timeline. On a wiki so all staff had access via intranet.
Choose framework.
Looked at WP and Joomla. But decided Drupal was best for them. Big websites use them, like what they needed. Geared toward staff data entry and patron participation. Received so much help from the community.
Had to learn Drupal. Drupal 6 by David Mercer. Drupal 7 is out now, should use that, but Drupal 6 was available when they started.
Did every example in book to learn it. Yes, very steep learning curve, but it worked to learn it. Drupal community is amazing. Drupal southern Colorado user group, library BOFs, consultants. But mostly trial and error. Broke website a lot when in development. Have a sense of humor about Drupal. Don’t have a strict timeline because things will come out of left field. Be flexible.
Website survey – needed to know how to set up site. Catalog/my account. Suggest a book. Find classes/programs. Became sections for site.
Website layout
Usability
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. How to make a website intuitive. Get user to what they need as easily and fast as possible.
Usability testing after basic infrastructure was built. Usability Hot Team. Doing 3-4 usability tests is optimal. But do at least 1. “Of course, everyone knows usability tests are very important, and must be done.”
2 years and 1 baby later…
Vfranklyn.blogspot.com = blog of how they did it.
Extreme make-over
Marin County Free Library
Moved from a centralized to open control. Moved from proprietary CMS to open source.
3 big takeaways – patience, perseverance, passion for the project.
Integrating social media very important. Big 5 – Blogger, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube.
Free labor – internship program with univ.
Also decided to simultaneously rebrand site. Realized too late it was a terrible idea. Concentrated on content development.
Social media committee. Weekly meetings.
Used Google docs as repository. Constant communication.
Tips:
-When evaluating vendor proposals – get examples with similar budget as yours. So you know what you can really expect to get.
-Get expectations from vendor of when things will be done.
-Wireframes – use different term, like diagrams. Some staff didn’t understand the term and had blocks about it which lasted throughout project.
-Useful tools – content spreadsheet detailing all content, who was responsible, deadline. Google docs.
Monday, October 17, 2011 Blake Carver, LISHost
Kendra K. Levine, Librarian At Large
LISHost – 400 sites. 200 WP, 100 Drupal, 1 Joomla.
What is/Why use CMS? Centralize control, free up people to make content, not techie, non-geeky users can set up own pages.
Empowers other people to create content. Timelier, universal changes easier/quicker. Users end up having a nicer relationship with the website. More user friendly.
Goals of a CMS – what’s important to you? Make life easier? Flexibility? Easier for technophobes? Functionality(calendars, widgets)? Get code out of the way so people can actually do work?
Audience question - Used to get rid of webmasters? “any dummy can do it, so don’t need webmaster”. Wrong, still need someone to maintain it.
“CMS removes impediments of keeping website current.”
 |
| Blake and Kendra |
-Complex vs. simple
-How big is website?
-Learning curve- who’s going to be updating website? can they pick it up quickly?
-Who’s going to use it? Designers/users/webmasters?
-Translation
-Library specific modules/plugins
* Budgets, Personnel, Time
What’s open source?
Get code, modify it, share it back to community.
Free – speech vs. beer vs. kittens
Drupal
-Stared 2001, kid in dorm created bbs, powers 2-3% of sites on internet now.
-Acquia – company created by inventor.
WordPress
-2003, company is Automattic
-Support, hosting, services
-WordPress.com
-14.7% of top websites in world. 22 of every 100 new domains registered.
Joomla
-2005
-“Open source matters” website
All of them-
What makes them great-
Huge developer community, lots of themes, modules, plugins, widgets, scalable, complex yet flexible, regular security updates, tools.
What makes them suck-
Huge developer community – conflicting themes/plugins, PHP versions – servers must be kept up-to-date with current version, modules/plugins/widgets can have issues because of outside changes, security updates.
Smackdown:
-Installation- all pretty easy, one click installs for all 3, DRAW.
-Scalability – Drupal – best at managing huge amounts of content.
-Library specific stuff – depending on what you want, probably Drupal.
-Appearance – WP slightly, theme searching interface is very good. Unless you like to code/modify themes, then Drupal.
-User management – Drupal. Seemingly infinite roles/permissions. WP – not bad, started as one person/one blog, but getting better.
-Customization – all equal. Drupal and WP – lots of modules and plugins. Joomla - not as many, but there, can customize with time/patience.
-Ease of use – WP. Nice dashboard. Drupal, has done a lot of usability testing, working on it.
-Configuration and maintenance – WP. One click install, one click update. Batch update all plugins. Drupal – more intensive, have to do some in shell yourself, can configure every little thing and have to configure every little thing. WP – can, but don’t have to to get it to work.
-Upgrade and security – WP – easier for regular user. Drupal - more difficult, FTP, have to touch files on server. WP – seems to be less secure, not bad tho. Drupal a bit better.
Winner = Drupal and WP.
Drupal – big, powerful, good for a lot of pages files, WP - easy to set up, your mom can do it.
Questions –
Another criteria – what if person who picks and installs the CMS you choose leaves? Is there someone else to support? What about Plone?
Which is easiest to learn when previous person leaves? Depends on complexity of your site, not dependent on platform you choose.
RFP – what limitations shouldthey look out for? How technologically advanced are your staff? Size of lib/staff?
WP – hosted on .com or on own server? Limitations to hosted – can only use their themes, if you want to do lots of customization, have to host your own.
Final thought from Kendra - Not one right answer – it’s what is right for your situation.
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