Symposium regrets; FDI courses

To those of you in the Virginia Tech web development community who were looking forward to the Web Development Symposium, I'm sure you are disappointed that we had to cancel the event earlier this month. I am just as disappointed, because we had a great agenda.

Unfortunately, I had a family emergency that took me out of the state for over a week, including the symposium date. At this point, we are not planning to reschedule the fall symposium. Rather, we are offering a series of CMS orientation classes through FDI beginning in January.

The FDI courses will incorporate most of the subject matter that had been planned for the symposium. Here are the course descriptions:

Introduction to Ensemble CMS

You’ve probably heard or read about Virginia Tech’s new, free enterprise Web Content Management System, called Ensemble CMS. And you’re interested in using it to manage your unit’s Web presence. If so, this course is for you. Participants will learn the basics of Web content management, gain an understanding of how Ensemble works, and become familiar with the step-by-step process of migrating a website to Ensemble.

Dates:

• 1/17/08 - Thursday - 3 to 5 - 3080 TORG
• 1/31/08 - Thursday - 3 to 5 - 3080 TORG
• 2/15/08 - Friday - 10 to noon - 3080 TORG
• 2/28/08 - Thursday - 10 to noon - 3080 TORG
• 3/20/08 - Thursday - 1 to 3 - 3060 TORG
• 3/27/08 - Thursday - 10 to noon - 3060 TORG
• 4/17/08 - Thursday - 10 to noon - 3060 TORG
• 4/24/08 - Thursday - 3 to 5 - 3060 TORG

Assumptions:

1. Participants are actively involved in maintaining their unit’s Web presence.
2. Participants need to find more efficient ways to create and maintain Web content.

Objectives:

1. Provide an overview of Web content management and CMS software.
2. Discuss how Ensemble can benefit the university and its employees.
3. Outline the key concepts and technology behind Ensemble.
4. Provide a demo of Ensemble and its basic functionality.
5. Present the Ensemble CMS Migration Guide and the steps required to move your unit’s website to the CMS, either partially or completely.
6. Outline training opportunities and other Ensemble support resources.
7. Facilitate a general discussion about Ensemble.

Outcomes:

1. Participants will know what a CMS is and how it works.
2. Participants will be familiar with Ensemble and its functionality.
3. Participants will have the necessary knowledge to decide if Ensemble would be a good fit for their unit’s Web presence.
4. Participants will know the process and steps necessary to migrate their unit’s website to Ensemble.
5. Participants will be familiar with the standard designs available in Ensemble, and the process for implementing custom designs.
6. Participants will know where to go for Ensemble support.

Using Ensemble CMS

Your unit has decided to use Ensemble CMS to manage its Web presence. The next step is to learn how to create and maintain content and Web pages with Ensemble. In this two-day, four-hour course, participants will progress from a review of university Web best practices, to an overview of Ensemble key concepts, to a series of hands-on production tasks using Ensemble. At the end of the task-oriented course, participants will be fully prepared to produce robust Web pages and other content using Ensemble.

Dates:

• 2/5/08 - Tuesday - 3 to 5 - 3080 TORG
  2/7/08 - Thursday - 10 to noon - 3080 TORG
• 3/11/08 - Tuesday - 1 to 3 - 3060 TORG
  3/13/08 - Thursday - 1 to 3 - 3060 TORG
• 4/1/08 - Tuesday - 10 to noon - 3060 TORG
  4/3/08 - Thursday - 10 to noon - 3060 TORG
• 4/29/08 - Tuesday - 10 to noon - 3060 TORG
  5/1/08 - Thursday - 3 to 5 - 3060 TORG

Assumptions:

1. Participants are, or will be, actively engaged in creating, editing, and/or publishing content to their unit’s website.
2. Participants either have attended “Introduction to Ensemble CMS,” or have learned about the basics of Ensemble through other means (one-on-one demo, Ensemble website [to launch soon], etc.)
3. Participants have a working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop.

Objectives:

1. Learn best practices for presenting content online, including writing for the Web, photo sizing and cropping, and Web usability basics.
2. Discuss the concept of “de-coupled delivery” with Ensemble and how it facilitates the sharing of content across multiple university websites.
3. Outline Ensemble key concepts, including communities, roles, and workflows.
4. Give a demonstration of some basic Ensemble production tasks.
5. Provide scenarios of how Ensemble can assist with website maintenance.
6. Facilitate a series of Web production tasks using Ensemble, including the creation and/or uploading of images, articles, navigation, and other types of content.
7. Give participants a final set of tasks at the end of the two-day course for them to complete individually using Ensemble.
8. Outline Ensemble support resources across the university.

Outcomes:

1. Participants will understand best practices for presenting content online.
2. Participants will be familiar with Ensemble key concepts.
3. Participants will know how to create several types of content using Ensemble.
4. Participants will know how to search for content within the Ensemble content database, and how to incorporate it within their own websites.
5. Participants will know how to assemble Web pages using Ensemble.
6. Participants will know how to create and manage navigation using Ensemble.
7. Participants who complete the final set of tasks will earn a Certificate of Completion, which is a prerequisite to acquiring an Ensemble login.
8. Participants will know where to go if they need further support.

We also will be having a spring web symposium, but likely later in the semester. By that time, a large number of people will have gone through our FDI courses, and we'll have several sites up and running on the CMS, so it will be a much richer symposium than what we had planned for earlier this month.