Topics covered: How to make our GT Drupal site & community even more helpful AND asking for volunteers in various areas.
I. Dev.drupal.gatech.edu (ideas to change on our current site)
- A separate sandbox site for EDITORS, where they can immediately try out adding pages, changing content, adding blocks, etc. without worrying about messing up their own site (perhaps edit.drupal.gatech.edu or training.drupal.gatech.edu?).
- Add a major section in the wiki handbook for EDITORS, so that there is clear how-to guides and training for people maintaining content on Drupal sites. Dave Wagner has offered to help migrate some of his already awesome content over from drupal6.gtsav.gatech.edu. Perhaps even make main menu links to 2 wikis (one for Editors and one for Developers)?
- The most helpful and discussed pages on the current site (of which people would like more) are the Step-by-Step instructions (like CAS login setup).
- The most NEEDED pages (which do not yet exist) are the "Getting Started" or "Recipe" pages that tell you how to build a GT Drupal site from start to finish. When the group finishes creating the shared installation profile, this would give detailed instructions on how to use it with web hosting.
- We should make direct links to the free Drupal training videos on Lynda.gatech.edu and embed high-quality Drupal training videos from the internet into the site.
- Add a list of recommended modules to the site (along with high-quality embedded how-to videos and tutorials from the interwebs).
- We DO need a Forum on the new site, to archive discussions and tips. It would be most helpful if it worked like Google groups, and tied into the email Listserv.
-
Make it obvious that ANYONE with a GTaccount can contribute to the Forum & Wiki (perhaps with a block on every page inviting contributions?). In terms of permissions, any GTaccount holder will be able to:
- add a page to the Wiki handbook (it will appear in the "Miscellaneous" section/taxonomy, until categorized otherwise by an admin)
- edit any page on the Wiki handbook
- add to the discussion Forum
- decide on which emails to receive from the site
- Content audit needed (to remove outdated info from the wiki). Kelly Rockwell (hurrah!) is our FIRST volunteer to help figure out what is missing on the site or is written unclearly, etc. :) Contact Eric Huffman (or just boldly make changes on the current drupal.gatech.edu site), if you'd like to help make our info easier to understand or more complete.
- Make sure the editor experience is easy and standard with whatever the GT install profile uses (i.e. regular instead of wiki linking for pages).
II. Common GT installation profile
-
We must finish the GT install profile BEFORE we can write the "Getting Started" section of the wiki! Need volunteers...
- Contact Adelle Frank if you can volunteer any configuration or testing help (even if you are just great at knowing how to configure or evaluate a great text editor experience!).
- If you want to jump directly into the code, contact Alfred Bacon to get access to the git repository where the profile is SLOWLY being developed.
-
Our group's Dream of Convenience = a one-click GaTech Drupal solution that uses Web Hosting's Installatron.
- Adelle will follow up with the awesome web hosting team to see if this is possible and what they might need from us - in addition to a supported, working GT profile & C&M's snazzy theme, of course.
- Consensus suggestion: add a default menu for Editors that makes it easy for them to do common tasks and use roles/permissions to hide all the stuff they don't need to see/be confused by.
III. Monthly Open Help Desk
- Great idea (once we have our new site, new Profile, and basic new content ready): to hold regular training/hands-on how to sessions. However, if someone new wants to volunteer to organize these, they could start sooner.
- Hold them on a different day/time than the GT Drupal meetings, so more people can attend.
- Add a signup form on GT drupal site.
- Last for ~2 hours.
- ALWAYS have 1 expert there on setting up a basic GT Drupal site (this may also be the main topic for the first few gatherings)
- Have the wider group choose 1 topic for each workshop that way we can have at least one semi-expert there to help answer questions and make suggestions. This could be a "how to make a slideshow" topic OR could be a "code/configuration review" of whatever project someone's doing. Could even add a section in the forum for topic ideas.
- C&M might attend one of these each quarter/semester, to answer any C&M-specific questions that arise.
IV. Responsive Design in Drupal (bragging rights)
- Dave Wagner showed off the fabulously responsive Drupal theme he created for the Annual Report site.
- He used image cache to create 3 specific sizes of each image he uploaded, so they could be used at his 3 break points in the design.
- Used the book module and tried for an experience that somewhat matched the print experience, too.
V. Social Media at GT
- Kimsey mentioned, and many agreed, that as "web people" they are expected to know about Facebook and other social media stuff, too.
- Question for C&M: is there a GT policy on the design and use of social media? Answer: C&M just hired a new social media buy and, hopefully, he'll be putting together something like this.
VI. Next month's Topic
- Adelle (with some help from OIT's web hosting gurus) will present on securing your Drupal site, both keeping your site from gettting hacked & how to prevent SPAM on web forms (hint: Installatron, CAS, Spamicide, Captcha, and http://www.stopforumspam.com).
- Other topic ideas??