The first post in the "Groups"

Somebody had to take the plunge.  I would appreciate any feedback on the site.  Lesly brought up some good questions around access.  Anything else along those lines?

Submitted by webmaster on Tue, 02/26/2008 - 22:59.

Guess I'm the next guinea pig :)

I haven't spent a lot of time on the site, but I will definitely need some training. Some specific questions, which can be answered either now or during training:

  • Will there be a gatekeeper who determines where specific items should be placed? For example, will the newsflashes and newsletters only be on their respective pages, or will we want to put some of the information on the home page, some on the calendar, etc.?
  • How do you upload a file that people can download (i.e. PDF)?
  • How do you know which areas you have access to?
  • We need to ensure consistency throughout the site, both in terms of font (type, color, size) and types of information posted. Who will be responsible for enforcing the rules we establish? (Kind of like my first bullet.)
  • Will parents be able to use the blog to communicate with teachers? If so, will it be visible to everyone who comes to the site or just teachers?

 

Before we go live, I think it makes sense to have a meeting to establish the guidelines and rules for anyone that has access to the site.

The site looks great! Thank you Jeff & Lily for the tremendous amount of time and effort you've put into this.

Lesley

 

llyons | Fri, 02/29/2008 - 10:39

good comments.

Thanks for the comments. I'll try to address them.

Will there be a gatekeeper who determines where specific items should be placed? For example, will the newsflashes and newsletters only be on their respective pages, or will we want to put some of the information on the home page, some on the calendar, etc.?

We could come up with some specific guidelines. Everything can be "tagged" so that if you click on the "newflash" tag, no matter where it was originally placed, it will show up. But yeah, we need to figure out some consistency.

How do you upload a file that people can download (i.e. PDF)?

That's easy. Whenever you create or edit a page, there is a File Attachment tab. It will expand when you click it and you can "browse" to attach a file. The attached files will be in a table on the same page. From there, if you wanted to, you can link to it in the body of the message.

How do you know which areas you have access to?

Areas you do not have access to simply do not show up. Any user that is authenticated (which means they just logged in) can view all the content unless a group has been marked private.

We need to ensure consistency throughout the site, both in terms of font (type, color, size) and types of information posted. Who will be responsible for enforcing the rules we establish? (Kind of like my first bullet.)

Going forward, any content added to the site is forced to use the same styles so that should address it. However, the imported content from the old site has legacy formating. It was simply the easiest way to import it and get it in quickly.

As far as who is in charge of the enforcement of the rules, it will be those folks who are deemed "administrators." If you would like to be an administrator, let me know and I can enable your privileges.

Will parents be able to use the blog to communicate with teachers? If so, will it be visible to everyone who comes to the site or just teachers?

Yes,parents can comment on pages, blogs, etc. In fact, the only content parents can contribute are comments. We do have some control to prevent anonymous users from seeing blogs, comments, and the such, but to make anything truly private, I suggest creating a "Group," make it invite-only, and set it "only members can view."

webmaster | Fri, 02/29/2008 - 18:18
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