April has been a busy month for all things EdWeb and this month’s Web Publishers’ Community session was designed to provide university staff with the information they need for a smooth transition over to the new Content Management System. Those with a head for technology were also in for a treat, with Billy Wardrop giving a presentation on the EdWeb distribution and how to use it.

Progress and migration update – Bruce Darby

Bruce kicked things off by bringing everybody up to date on the current status of the Polopoly to EdWeb migration. In the last couple of weeks, many people may have experienced problems with the Asset Store and Menu Tree – most notably the loading time. EdWeb users should be aware that this has been marked as high priority and the tech team are working hard to resolve these issues.

As EdWeb is an ongoing project, it is constantly evolving, with many new features planned to be released at the end of the current migration phase. Upcoming features include a bulk publish button, an event overview page and page viewing restrictions. Also in the pipeline is a new feature that allows you to change the default colour of your website. At the moment this is set to red but with over 10 new colour palettes on the way, editors will soon have far more control over how their website looks.

Migration liaison communication update – Rachel Bhandari

Next up was Rachel who explained the migration liaison process. As phase 3 is now coming to a close, this means that many lead publishers whose websites are due to be migrated in phase 4 will be beginning to receive emails from the liaison officers at the University Website Programme. Phase 4 will see the migration of 170 sites – a huge task for all involved in the project. During this time lead publishers will receive a series of emails with key information that they will need to respond to. Communications begin three months before the site is due to migrate and end after the site has gone live.

Migration handbook wiki – migration liaison email templates (requires EASE login)

EdWeb distribution – Billy Wardrop

The last talk of the day came from Billy, who shed some light on the EdWeb Distribution. The Distribution allows developers a more flexible approach to building sites and is designed to give schools, colleges and business units with the required technical expertise, the opportunity to change, modify and customise the CMS to meet their particular local business needs. Billy ran through the key steps to download, host and set-up an EdWeb distribution site. All of the details can be found by visiting the following pages (available via EdLAN only):

EdWeb Distribution website
EdWeb Distribution issues log

If you are using an EdWeb distribution, it is important to update it regularly to keep it secure and get all the new features.

Share what you’re doing

If you’d like to let us know about anything you’re working on that you think would be of interest to the Web Publishers’ Community, please get in touch! Or feel free to take the stand in the tea and coffee break to show us what you’ve been up to.

The next meeting will be 28 May, 2015, in Room 1.07, Main Library. Full details will be circulated when the agenda has been finalised.

Web Publishers’ Community wiki