CMS for STC—Phase 1, Moving the Online SIG to STC Online

Assembled by the Online SIG manager, Ann L. Wiley January 2006
With extensive input from Destry Wion, member, Online SIG and
STC Dynamic Web Services Team

Invitation to participate

Requirements for dynamic publishing and collaboration on STC Online are being discussed on the STC Forum (STC > Dynamic Web Services Development, http://stcforum.org/viewforum.php?id=2). All STC members are welcome to join the discussion. Please register for the STC Forum and post your ideas. The story of STC Online and plans for it follow.

Challenge for the Online and Information Design SIGs

In response to the March 2005 rechartering survey, members of the Online and Information Design SIGs indicated they would like to use forums, wikis, and blogs. The Online SIG had lost its volunteer team and had not published the award winning newsletter "HyperViews Online" since third quarter, 2002. The website had only a home page and the newsletter archive, and there was no email list for the SIG. The Information Design SIG had an active membership manager only. The website had not been updated since 2003 and the email list was not being used.

The Online SIG now has a lively email list, with over 25% of SIG members subscribed. Every two months we send a plain text "STC newsletter" to all Online SIG members via the list, summarizing our activities and what has been published on our website. The Information Design and Architecture SIG has progressed in the same way.

The Online SIG developed a "template" for a simple SIG website, to provide all the required and recommended items in the STC newsletter competition guidelines with daily publication as news is available. This template is posted at http://www.stcsig.org/oi/basic_site/home-page-code.htm and has been applied to the Online SIG and the Information Design and Architecture SIG sites. Both are updated frequently.

A static site limits the amount of information a SIG can publish and does not support collaborative work. Therefore we are moving the Online SIG site to STC Online. The web team of the Information Design and Architecture and several other SIGs are also working on the plans for STC Online and expect to move too. When STC Online is stable, dynamic publishing and collaboration will be available to all interested STC SIGs, chapters, and committees. For purposes of discussion, this article talks about dynamic sites for SIGs.

STC Online and the Dynamic Web Services team

During 2005 STC obtained hosting services from TextDrive and now operates two domains there, http://stcforum.org and http://stc-on.org, the STC Forum and STC Online respectively.

The STC Dynamic Web Services team formed in October under the sponsorship of STC President Suzanna Laurent. The initial charge was to implement the STC Forum, which was announced to all members in January. The team continues to improve the Forum. STC Online has a wiki for use by members at http://stc-on.org/wiki/Main_Page. The team is now planning dynamic publishing with a content management system for STC Online.

Lou Quillio, Online SIG member and webmaster of the Tech Valley chapter, is the technical lead for STC Dynamic Web Services. Principal developers to date are Destry Wion of the Online SIG and Courtney Schwartz, who volunteered in response to a call for design help on the Illustrators and Visual Designers SIG list. The team is expanding. If you would like to volunteer please write to the lead, ann@annlwiley.com.

The major steps in moving a static site to a dynamic one

As we develop requirements for dynamic publishing and collaboration on STC Online, we are also preparing to move the Online SIG site. Destry Wion has identified the major steps in planning and moving to a dynamic site:

  1. Define the objectives for the dynamic site.
  2. Inventory resources: people and technology.
  3. Explore and identify the collaborative technology to use (For STC, select an open source system).
  4. Identify and fill the roles on the dynamic site.
  5. Define the architecture for the dynamic site and move the static site.

Usability planning and testing are part of each step and accessibility is the underlying requirement.

The following account is part history, as some of the work is done, and partly a guide for future steps.

Define the objectives for a dynamic site

Defining the objectives for a SIG site requires knowing the objectives of the SIG. While the specific mission and plan of each STC SIG is different, special interest groups in any professional organization provide similar services. These guide the definition of objectives of a SIG site.

Services provided by a special interest group in an association

The basic services of a special interest group in any association, and ways these services typically are provided, are as follows.

Publication and collaboration objectives for STC SIG sites

STC is fortunate to have newsletter competition guidelines that identify required and recommended items to be published by SIGs and chapters at intervals.

If we can provide the items on this timeless list to members on a regular schedule, along with permanent content and project pages, we will provide many of the basic services of a SIG. This we will earn the satisfaction of members who perceive value in STC and renew their memberships each year. We will bring in new members too.

What is on the list of required and recommended items to publish?

The bulleted items identify the required and recommended items. They are associated with the services of a SIG. These requirements are also listed on the STC Forum (http://stcforum.org, STC > Dynamic Web Services Development > Requirements: SIG-specific site content).

SIG service : Foster networking, support, and involvement of members.

SIG service : Keep members informed by publishing news of the group and its area of focus.

SIG service : Foster learning and help build the literature by publishing educational articles.

SIG service : Build loyalty to and contribute to the growth of the association.

What do we want to accomplish by collaboration over the web?

To provide the other services of a SIG, it is necessary to address requirements for web-based collaboration. At this time we are using private email and email lists. Web-based methods make it easier to share, store, and track ideas and information among large numbers of collaborators across SIGs and chapters around the world.

The SIG services best supported by collaborative project work and web-based meetings are:

Requirements are being identified on the STC Forum (http://stcforum.org, STC > Dynamic Web Services Development > Requirements: Publishing roles and Requirements: Web services we would like to have).

Inventory resources: people and technology

The Online SIG recognized early that although it had developers willing to install and configure a dynamic site for the SIG, members willing to post articles and other items, volunteers willing to donate hosting services and the capability to be reimbursed for hosting as well, we had NO ABILITY to establish a dynamic website that would be heavily used in the longer term or meet the need for collaboration across SIGs and chapters.

We knew collaboration across SIGs and chapters is needed, because our members are interested in the same projects as members of several other SIGs. We recognized that because the availability of volunteers varies, one SIG can't necessarily always publish the volume of items needed to justify dynamic publishing with a content management system.

We recognized that once dynamic web technologies mature, skilled volunteers will drift away, leaving maintenance to less skilled volunteers dependent upon tools. By developing a dynamic site for use by any interested SIG, chapter, or committee we knew our chances were better of continually renewing the technology and keeping skilled volunteers involved.

Therefore even though the Online SIG had human resources and access to technology resources, we waited until STC was ready and volunteered to implement dynamic web services for the Society.

The Online SIG web leads wanted to host with TextDrive, a hosting service for web programmers which allows great freedom in implementing open source technologies. The team knew the capabilities of TextDrive allow us to answer the following key questions affirmatively.

  1. Are the technology resources (storage, bandwidth, database) sufficient? Basic shared hosting is sufficient, and STC can secure more resources if needed later on.
  2. Does the technology support a collaborative site? The assessment includes protocols, server specifications, database availability, and storage and bandwidth limits. Open-source technology calls for Apache servers; implementation on other types of servers is generally more technological trouble than it is worth. Apache servers typically have the MySQL databases used by all open-source systems. Collaborative publishing requires a database.

STC Online and the STC Forum are now hosted on TextDrive.

Explore and identify the collaborative technology to use (For STC, select an open source system)

The STC Dynamic Web Services team experiments with open source systems continually, assessing them against known requirements. As we develop more complete requirements in the immediate future, the team will select a system. The selection process is the subject of a separate article.

Identify and fill the roles on the dynamic site

Open source collaborative systems typically support the following generic roles, which STC can fill as follows.

The site administrator has access to and complete control of all areas of a collaborative site, controlling installation, passwords, upgrades, modifications, security, and so on. The site administrator must be well-versed in web technology, experienced with open source systems and troubleshooting, have design and development skills, and be an effective and responsive communicator. A strong volunteer technical lead fills this role, and the STC staff IT director also has all of these system rights.

The designer has access to those areas of the site that control how a site is rendered by a browser or other device. The site administrator may serve as the designer. The designer typically seeks concurrence from the editor on rendering, especially visual appearance.

The publisher is the SIG or chapter website manger or managing editor, to whom the SIG manager or chapter president delegates the authority to decide on how the objectives of the site will be implemented. The publisher has access to and complete control of all areas of the site having to do with how content is managed and by whom.

The editor is the managing editor, to whom the SIG manger or chapter president delegates the authority to approve publishing any content item. The managing editor ensures readiness for publication and may in turn delegate editorial work and approval to publish to other editors or copy editors.

The author is typically an STC member and posts articles and other items. Guests may also be invited to submit articles, though members may do the posting. Authors create, edit, and delete their own articles, but do not publish them, which is the responsibility of the editor. Authors can not modify the work of other authors, nor their own work once it is published, without approval by the editor.

Define the architecture for the dynamic site and move the static site

The web teams of the SIGs interested in moving to STC Online have started the process of "clean up" and preparation to move to STC Online. As the requirements and architecture of the dynamic site are defined, the web teams will modify existing content and determine how it maps to the dynamic site. SIG leaders will move collaborative work now being done by email to the STC Forum, the STC Wiki, dynamic publishing, or to all three.

The Online SIG will likely develop a prototype site soon, and begin the move. Rapid prototyping, cyclical development, and working in stages toward the goal are keys to success in developing dynamic web services with an all-volunteer team.

About the principal contributors

Destry Wion earned a Bachelors Degree in Marine Ecology and worked with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and as a webmaster for the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. He earned a Masters in Technical Communication from the University of Washington, with an emphasis in user-centered design in new media. Destry then relocated to Strasbourg, France, where he lives with his wife, and established a freelance web design business, http://wion.com. He specializes in standards-based design, with a strong adherence to user-centered principles. You can reach Destry via his contact form (http://wion.com/contact/).

Ann L. Wiley (ann@annlwiley.com) is the STC Web Services lead. She is an STC Fellow in the CNY, Rochester, Niagara Frontier, Tech Valley, and NY Metro chapters. She belongs to all the SIGs and is the manager of the Online SIG and the founder and manager of the Quality and Process Improvement SIG. She managed transformation of the Education and Research SIG and led the rechartering and is the immediate past manager of the International and Information Design and Architecture SIGs.