The server runs on Drupal and currently supports 5 different Blogs & News services. Built into the system is a publication workflow consisting of 'Authors' who create content and 'Editors' who give that content final approval. All comments are moderated and easily accessed on one page through a special 'Dashboard' utility.
Also, it being Drupal, we can use the deployment for special projects such as registration for last year's UIC Disability Expo or classroom listings for student finals.
It's near the end of classes -- in fact, we're in finals week -- and I always like to go around campus taking pictures of students -- which I can then use for the UIC OAR website. Here I am on the West Side in the Medical District -- looking for someone, anyone, in scrubs or a white jacket.
The annual UIC Urban Forum took place today. Mayor Daley spoke at the opener and then took part in one of the panel discussions later on. Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel also was there -- participating in a lively discussion along with Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Motorola CEO Greg Brown and moderator Judy Woodruff.
Discussion at these things tends to lead to platitudes ("collaboration", "shared resources" -- and considering the venue -- "more support for education"). My favorite moment came when Woodruff went on and on about people's "anger" and Rahm pointed out that it might have something to do with the economic situation. "But why does the press focus on it then," Woodruff asked. Rahm looked at her and smiled: "that's the subject for another panel".*
So the site I've been losing sleep over for the past couple of weeks months is finally up. I had set a deadline for the beginning of the year and, by golly, I made it -- even if the thing kind of put a damper on my holiday activities: http://oar.uic.edu
Contrary to a lot of the stuff I've been doing recently, this project didn't focus on CMS's. In fact the goal was to develop a new 'template' for the Dreamweaver/Contribute-based system that they use at UIC's Office of Admissions & Records (OAR). This allowed me to focus a bit more on the visual or graphic end of things -- creating a new template out of whole cloth rather than grabbing something ready-made and adapting that, with an image here and an image there, to my own needs.
Of course, when you're developing something for a large public institution, it not only has to look good but the code has to validate (natch); it also has to run on everything from the latest version of Safari and Chrome to the horrifyingly antiquated IE6. Equally important, the site has to be accessibility-friendly -- meeting and (at least for stuff I do) hopefully exceeding both guidelines in general and those more specific to Illinois (i.e. IITAA).
So it's done. The initial release will be followed up by a couple of studies I want to do on our stats (thank you Google Analytics), plus interviews and focus groups with our staff and user base.
Here's something fun that I did for Prof. Taffy Raphael from the College of Education at UIC.
The idea was to present a series of (fake) Google searches that ultimately would reveal the winner of an award that Taffy would be announcing at the annual meeting of the National Research Conference in Albuquerque.
Since I had content of all kinds related to the winner (photos, video, bibliography, etc.), I just appropriated whatever corresponding Google interface there was. For example, for the bibliography I used something that looked like a combination of Google Books and Google Scholar; for the video I used something that looked like Google Video. I even managed to work in a Google Map or two.
Judging by the tittering in the audience during the presentation, it seems to have been a success.
The sticker reads, "I Got My Flu Vaccine! Did You?"
Normally I don't bother but this year, it seems like there's a heightened awareness. Judging by the larger crowd even at 10 in the morning, I'd say a lot of people were feeling the same way.
Today was the first day of school at UIC. The weather was great.
The first picture is of the East Campus at around noon. The second picture is later in the day of new student Alex (son of friend Aaron) sampling local delicacies -- including a polish sausage with grilled onions and fries from Jim's Original Maxwell St Polish and an authentic piece of original baklava from the Pan Hellenic Pastry Shop on Halsted.
