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--- webteam:webplan:2011:section6_recommendations [2011/05/10 21:31] – jimcraner
+++ webteam:webplan:2011:section6_recommendations [2011/09/07 18:09] – added more feature recos to list jimcraner
@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 ** Creation of formal Evergreen Website Team**
-A community website platform that supports the needs of a diverse community and fosters the growth of that community is not something that can be built and then left to run on its own.  We're recommending the formation of a formal Website Team, to be composed of self-selected community members,   and reporting to the Governance Committee until a formal Evergreen organizational structure can be put in place.  The twin primary goals of this Team would be to make short-term improvements to the website as well as plan long-term architecture improvement and maintenance operations.  This Team would actively and regularly seek out feedback and suggestions for direction from Evergreen community constituencies, including the Communications Committee, the developer community, DIG, new users and potential users, etc.  In addition, this team would be tasked with lowering any barriers to participation in the website and encouraging contributions from as many community members as possible.
+A community website platform that supports the needs of a diverse community and fosters the growth of that community is not something that can be built and then left to run on its own.  We're recommending the formation of a formal Website Team, to be composed of self-selected community members,   and reporting to the Governance Committee until a formal Evergreen organizational structure can be put in place.  The twin primary goals of this Team would be to make short-term improvements to the website as well as plan long-term architecture improvement and maintenance operations.  This Team would actively and regularly seek out feedback and suggestions for direction from Evergreen community constituencies, including the Communications Committee, the developer community, DIG, new users and potential users, etc.  In addition, this team would be tasked with lowering any barriers to participation in the website and encouraging contributions from as many community members as possible.  Finally, this team would coordinate a schedule of maintenance and management duties for volunteers (e.g., conducting periodic reviews of curated content, performing website software updates, running link scanning tools to detect old or broken links, etc.).
 **Creation of Website Policies**
@@ Line 42: / Line 42: @@
 Many of the strategic goals and requirements defined during this process involve the need for a system allowing as many community members as possible to easily contribute content to the community: documentation, files, useful resources, discussion, etc.  A modern community website platform would include easy-to-use, web-based content management tools for all community members to take advantage of.
-At the same time, there is a need for the community website to be well-organized and for highly-relevant information to be curated to a prominent position.  A well-designed website platform would provide powerful editorial capabilities for the Evergreen Website Team defined in the People & Process Recommendations.
+At the same time, there is a need for the community website to be well-organized and for highly-relevant information to be curated to a prominent position, while deprecated information is archived or removed.  A well-designed website platform would provide powerful editorial capabilities for the Evergreen Website Team defined in the People & Process Recommendations.
 **2. Provide collaboration tools that allow community members to work together**
-**3. Provide a foundation for data-driven community applications**
+Like most communities, the EG community uses a combination of web-based development tools (software code and documentation repositories, development management, community wiki space), email (on various development and community-focused lists), and IRC (development, support, and community meetings).  The Web Team has identified some additional opportunities for web-based community tools, such as standard online forums (for discussion and/or support), an idea percolator (a workflow for identifying potential collaborators), and a voluntary contact directory of Evergreen community members (individuals and organizations).
-**4. Provide a foundation for integrating third-party data, software, and services**
+**3. Provide a foundation for integrating third-party data, software, and services**
 There are a variety of requirements that involve interacting with third-party data, software, and services.  Many of these requirements are fairly straightforward, e.g.:
@@ Line 54: / Line 54: @@
   * allowing website visitors to easily post a link to the website to their Facebook profile
   * integrating website content and internal search with Google Analytics to help the Website Team gather data for continuous website improvement
-  * aggregating Evergreen-related content from third-party websites via RSS or API
+  * aggregating Evergreen-related content from third-party websites via RSS or API, especially bug-tracking and development-management tools used by the developer community
 A community website platform can include many of these features "out of the box" or via relatively easy modular integration.
-==== B. Plan for implementing a new community website platform ====
+=== Plan for implementing a new community website platform ===
 . Define project management team membership, responsibilities, and decision-making authority in a process that recognizes the importance of community input.  Pragmatically, this might take the form of the Governance Committee formally chartering the Evergreen Website Team to plan and implement the new platform with input from the community at regular intervals and defined community stakeholder representatives.  Since virtually all of the strategic planning has already been conducted and documented as part of our planning process, the Website Team would be able to proceed directly with relatively straightforward technical planning.
@@ Line 81: / Line 81: @@
   d. begin community outreach activities to encourage membership and participation in new online community platform
-==== C. Integrate off-site sites and features into new community website platform where appropriate ====
+==== B. Integrate off-site sites and features into new community website platform where appropriate ====
 Benefits of centralization:
   * Single sign-on, single sign-in
+  * Centralized search index encompassing all content
   * Easier analytics and statistics gathering
   * Easier to maintain consistent branding and visual treatment
@@ Line 101: / Line 102: @@
 As the Evergreen ecosystem continues to grow, relevant content will increasingly be found off-site.  By integrating the community news aggregator functionality into the community website platform, off-site and on-site content can be associated in searches and collections of resources.
-==== D. Develop content structure and curated content for targeted audience roles: potential implementer/decision-maker, migration center, system administrators ====
+==== C. Develop content structure and curated content for targeted audience roles: potential implementer/decision-maker, migration center, system administrators ====
+One of the key functionality requirements for the website is the ability for users to browse and search for content specifically targeted at their specific role.  To properly satisfy this requirement, the following steps are recommended:
-==== E. Develop content structure and curated content for specific topics (circulation, documentation, translations) ====
+  * implement a categorization ("tagging") system that allows all content on the website to be optionally categorized based on intended audience
+  * manually review as much content as possible and tag with audience tag(s)
+  * provide browsing interface allowing users to view all resources with a specific audience tag
+  * provide search interface field restricting searches to resources with a specific audience tag
+  * create curated content collections (e.g., "Getting to Know Evergreen's Features" page linking to relevant resources for potential implementers)
+==== D. Develop content structure and curated content for specific topics (circulation, documentation, translations) ====
-===== Files =====
+One of the key functionality requirements for the website is the ability for users to browse and search for content based on a specific topic or keyword.  To properly satisfy this requirement, the following steps are recommended:
-{{:webteam:eg_sysarch-logical_20110509.pdf|EG Web Content Environment (Logical) - 2011-05-09}}
+  * implement a categorization ("tagging") system that allows all content on the website to be optionally categorized based on topic
+  * manually review as much content as possible and tag with topic tag(s)
+  * provide browsing interface allowing users to view all resources with a specific topic tag
+  * provide search interface field restricting searches to resources with a specific topic tag
+  * create curated content collections (e.g., "Migration Center" page linking to relevant resources for visitors seeking migration information)
+==== E. Implement an up-to-date list of Evergreen features that is searchable, sortable, and categorized. ====
+Lori Ayre is currently spearheading a team of community contributors working on a draft of this features list.  The present incarnation is a Google Docs spreadsheet embedded in the EG wiki here:
+http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=feature_list
+==== F. Implement a knowledge base to easily store highly-relevant and frequently-accessed Evergreen technical information ====
+This knowledge base could be as complex as a dedicated knowledge management application or as simple as a dedicated set of wiki pages kept up-to-date and highlighted for website visitors.
+==== G. Implement a support forum as an alternative to the mailing list and IRC for user-to-user support ====
+Evergreen users seeking community support currently use the mailing list and the IRC channel.  Some users are more comfortable using a web-based interface for support interactions -- or for finding relevant information in historical archives of those interactions.  In addition, support forum posts would automatically be archived and indexed by the content management system and could take advantage of tagging/categorization, identity/profile connection, and other features not available to the web-based mailing list and IRC transcript archives.
+==== H. Implement a "feature percolator" for collaborative development of feature/enhancement ideas ====
+As a collaborative open source software project, the Evergreen community has a demonstrated history of organizations successfully working together to build software.  The "feature percolator" application proposed by the Web Team would allow community members to submit their ideas to a community forum for collaborative discussion and development.  In addition, community members participating in the discussion of each idea would be able to communicate their willingness, if any, to sponsor the development and implementation of that idea.  This process is hoped to foster relationships between community members leading to greater collaboration and improvement of the Evergreen software.
+==== I. Implement personalization tools on the website to increase effectiveness ====
+Because many EG community members perform multiple roles in their EG deployment, and because of the increase of content related to EG, we recommend the implementation of website personalization tools to help increase visitors' effective use of the website.  These tools could include:
+  *a "favorite" tool to allow registered visitors to bookmark certain pages within the site
+  *a rating tool which would allow registered visitors to rate the usefulness of certain pages, thereby showing the most popular or helpful pages
+  *a notification mechanism to allow registered visitors to sign up for email notifications of new content matching certain criteria
+  *a way to focus the display of website content on a visitor's criteria, such as audience target or category
+===== Files =====
 {{:webteam:eg_sitemap_proposed_20110509.pdf|EG Proposed Site Map Revision - 2011-05-09}}
+{{:webteam:eg-content_arch-20110905b.pdf|EG New Website Platform - Logical Content Architecture - 2011-09-05}}
+{{:webteam:eg_newsite_wireframes_20110905b.pdf|EG New Website Platform - Functional Wireframes - 2011-09-05}}