Web Publishers’ Community – February update
This month’s Web Publishers’ Community session included talks on Lean UX, responsive widgets and the monthly project update on the EdWeb CMS. We were also joined by two guest speakers: Ewan McAndrew, the new Wikimedian in Residence and Stephen Donnelly, who spoke about the new media asset management system, Media Hopper.
EdWeb update
First up was Bruce Darby, who gave an overview of the latest developments from the EdWeb CMS project.
One of the key points discussed was the upcoming deployment which will see a number of homepage enhancements, including:
- dynamic content panels on homepages
- support for custom code panels on homepages
- additional presentation options
These homepage enhancements have been developed in collaboration with and funded by Communications and Marketing, but the additional functionality will be available to all site homepages, meaning that everyone will reap the benefits!
The Technical Peer Group has also been reinstated with a recent meeting on 28 January 2016. If you are interested in the more technical side of website management, this one’s for you! For more updates and to find out about upcoming meetings, please sign up to the Tech Peer Mailing list.
A full project update is available on the project wiki.
Drupal CMS Project Communications wiki page
Lean UX
Up next was Neil Allison, who ran through the key concepts of Lean UX and provided a couple of examples of how we’ve applied them to our tech development and service provision.
The talk was inspired by a recent workshop Neil attended, which was led by ‘Lean UX’ author Jeff Gothelf.
You can read all about Neil’s experience on the UWP blog.
Lean UX – requirements are hypotheses blog post
Responsive widgets
We also heard an update from Callum Kerr on our work to bring our widgets into the University central website’s responsive design.
With the migration of sites into EdWeb nearing completion, , it is extremely important that we update our existing widgets so that they are responsive and fit in with the EdGEL theme.
The Google Maps, Twitter and Video Publisher widgets have already been updated and are available now, with PURE and the Document Publisher coming very soon.
University Wikimedian
The University’s new Wikimedian in Residence, Ewan McAndrew, stopped by after the coffee break to chat about his role and some upcoming projects.
Ewan’s role is to facilitate a sustainable relationship between the University and Wikimedia UK. He will be delivering training events and workshops to further both the quantity and quality of open knowledge and the University’s commitment to digital literacy.
One of the ways in which he will engage staff and students is through the hugely popular University Editathons. The next session, which will run from Tue 16 – Thurs 18 February, involves re-writing the Wikipedia pages of Edinburgh’s famous medical figures, such as the infamous body-snatcher William Burke.
Sign up for an Editathon session
You can find out more about Ewan McAndrew and the Wikimedia project on Ewan’s project page.
Wikimedian in Residence Project page
Media Hopper
Our last talk of the day came from Stephen Donnelly, who was there to showcase the University’s new asset management system, Media Hopper. The Media Hopper service puts video at the heart of teaching, learning, research and public engagement, and is accessible to both staff and students at the University.
You can find out more about Media Hopper on the IS website.
More information on Media Hopper
Although a full launch isn’t planned until later in the year, you can start uploading right away on the Media Hopper website . Have a play around and see what you think!
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 Publishing 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 on 16 March. Full details will be circulated when the agenda has been finalised.
