Thank you to all of those who came along to this month’s Web Publishers’ Community meeting– it was a highly informative and engaging session, with presentations on a wide variety of interesting topics.

Renovate your EdWeb site with the University Image Collections database

The University of Edinburgh Library’s Digital Curator, Gavin Willshaw, popped by to demonstrate an exciting image resource – The University of Edinburgh Image Collections – which features thousands of digital images accessible to staff and students across the University. Anything in the collections that has been photographed can be found in this database, with the vast majority being copyright of The University of Edinburgh. This means that you can use almost all of the content on your website or social media – something that may be of particular interest to anybody looking to source new images for their EdWeb site.

The database features photographs of the campus, both old and new, along with pictures of famous alumni, maps and drawings and an abundance of student/staff related images. Those looking for something a bit different will also not be disappointed, as a large portion of the University’s art collection has been digitised and made available online.

University of Edinburgh Buildings Extension, the McEwan Hall – just one of the many architectural drawings available

You can access the University of Edinburgh Image Collections database on images.is.ed.ac.uk.

The University of Edinburgh Image Collections

Introducing EdGel

After the usual EdWeb update by Bruce, Stratos took to the stage to demo the new Edinburgh Global Experience Language (EdGel). EdGel is a toolkit that offers a set of style guides and a library of digital designs that will be used to support a consistent University digital experience. The website features live code examples of available EdWeb content types as well as design elements and patterns. It also gives you the chance to see any new ideas that are in the pipeline as new developments will be made available to view online. What’s more, as it is an open resource, anyone can view and use any of the content which will save a considerable amount of time when designing or developing your website.

A preview of the new EdGel website

The EdGel Beta site is scheduled to be released at the end of August.

The new University Search Engine

The last presentation of the day came from UWP’s Callum Kerr, who introduced the new University search engine. Callum has been heavily involved in the design process and has worked closely with other team members to create something that both looks great and works well. The interface has been tidied up and performance optimised. A new filter option has been added which allows users to filter search results in order to find specific information much quicker. In fact, the new EdWeb search is approximately 10x faster than the old Polopoly search engine!

The new design was achieved through what is called ‘Rapid Collaborative Testing’. This involves working collaboratively to build a rapid prototype, which allows all parties to see a solution take shape, to discuss misunderstandings and to point out issues with a design early in the process. This proved to be highly successful and the results of the session were used to create the mobile interface.

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 26 August, 2015, in Room 1.07, Main Library. Full details will be circulated when the agenda has been finalised.

Web Publishers’ Community wiki