Archive for the ‘Tools’ Category

July22

Getting the University of Bath term dates into Google Calendar

By: Phil Wilson

A couple of days ago I got asked on my personal blog if it was possible to get the Univeristy terms dates into Google Calendar. The answer is a wholehearted "yes!" and this is how:

Step 1

Go to http://www.bath.ac.uk/semester/ and look underneath the Key on the right hand side and choose which calendar you want from:

* Full chart
* Full chart with university week numbers
* Staff chart (without the teaching days and student vacation dates marked)
* Staff chart with university week numbers

Right-click the one you want and copy the link to your clipboard (you probably want either the "Full chart" or "Staff chart" screenshots of each are below).

Google Calendar using the Full chart

Google Calendar using the Staff chart

Google Calendar using the Staff chart

Step 2

Go to Google Calendar and click “Add” in the bottom left corner and then click “Add by URL”

Paste in the link you copied from the semester page and click “Add”. That’s it! You can now click “Back to Calendar” and you’ll see all the items from the calendar you imported.

At the moment the calendar you add will expire at the end of the academic year so you’ll need to go through this again next year.

Posted in: Tools5 comments

February2

Using WordPress for news

By: Phil Wilson

We've recently started a new project to overhaul the system powering the University's news pages.

The old system is powered by a desktop XML editing package called XMLmind, the new system will be powered by WordPress (mind that capital P!).

We've looked at other Universities and how they present news, looking particularly at how they use video and audio (if at all).

Surprisingly, there's very little consensus on what goes to making up the content of a news article; some have no images, some are only press releases, some have contact details and notes for journalists, others nothing but the bare text of an article.

It also seemed that there was no consensus on what software to use to power these systems - most appeared to be using homegrown solutions or the news feature provided by their CMS. Since we need to turn something around quickly, we decided to go for the third-party solution, and after comparing our desired features to the features available in the most popular open-source CMS and news management systems we went with WordPress.

WordPress has an awesome feature set, a massive plugin ecosystem, and comes at an excellent purchase price (£0). There's also masses of documentation on how to write your own plugins and themes, as well as the newly-launched WordPress.tv which contains a section containing nothing but screencasts of how to perform certain tasks.

We're currently running some user testing with WordPress straight out-of-the-box which will no doubt lead to some recommendations for changes, but we're looking forward to working with such a popular, well-documented and feature-heavy tool.

Posted in: Communication, New website, Tools6 comments

January28

Being a SCRUM Member

By: Kelvin Gan

In SCRUM there's an essential role that has to be fulfilled by someone who can't partake in the work tasks from a project. They are called the SCRUM Master.

That isn't to say that the SCRUM Master doesn't have tons of work to do. In fact, if they don't do their job properly, the "sprint" of tasks the team are to undertake isn't properly organised and hence affects their productivity.

So if you're not the SCRUM Master, surely you'd think that it's unfair as you're doing "actual" work rather than "mere" project management? Well no, in fact. The SCRUM Members (it's not an official term I don't think - I made it up. I'm imaginative like that) actually have it easier. Your entire focus is on your task at hand, nothing else, and that task should have been broken down into a working day-sized chunk but no more. You have nothing else to worry about, even when you get to a point that you can't do your work - that's for your SCRUM Master to do! They deal with impediments on your behalf you see :)

A recent example was when Phil had a pile of support queries to deal with which were stopping him from getting on with his project work. His SCRUM Master Andy Male took those tickets away from Phil and dealt with them, allowing Phil to get on with his tasks.

Essentially, it's the SCRUM Master's role to make it as easy as possible for you to get on with your work and from my observation that takes a lot of effort. With all that hassle taken out, working becomes much easier for the members.

A truly fair management style! The rest of Web Services seem to agree.

Posted in: Communication, Design, Development, Project management, Team, Tools, Web Sessions0 comments

December19

A year in Bath...

By: Alison Kerwin

As colleagues are packing up and leaving to start the Christmas break I thought I would reflect on my first year with Web Services at Bath...

In many ways 2008 feels like the year we got our house in order. Two teams merged, one new head, continuing cycle of maintenance and support but plenty of new initiatives and plans.

We've evaluated how we work together, looked at what we can do better, where we have gaps and where we do really well.

Next year will be huge for us as we embark on the development of a new external website for the University. Plans are already underway and we're looking at significant changes with plenty of new initiatives coming to fruition. Alongside this we'll be working in a different way - using agile development methodologies to 'release early and often' - we have ambitious plans in store.

For now though I wanted to focus on 2008, to look at our achievements and reflect on our highs (and lows):

The highs

  • Development of an e-Prospectus; due for launch in January 09 - connecting with our Student Record System and allowing data to be output to create the print prospectus providing a much richer experience for the end user but also improve business processes for the University
  • Moved the majority of our Academic sites into the CMS
  • Brought in a new Web Designer - good to have you on board Liam!
  • Get Creative - it was fun, it brought the team together and it introduced us to FIKA
  • Put together (and had accepted) proposals for a new external website
  • Delivered Web Sessions to the University community
  • Moved from dSpace repository to ePrints (with the Library)
  • (Soft) launched a blogging platform
  • Developed a tinyurl and QR code generating service (with e-Learning)

The lows

  • Sadly one of our colleagues retired in April. Jacki played a key role in the website for many years and it is regrettable she is no longer in the team
  • As a new team we still have some way to go to establish ourselves and our position within the University. We believe the development of the new site will help us strengthen our profile
  • Maintenance and support of the current site has prevented us from moving on as quickly as we'd have hoped but we have new arrangements in place for 2009 to allievate this

From a personal perspective it has been a challenging yet rewarding year. I have great admiration for the team and am confident we can meet and exceed our own expectations in 2009.

To all readers of this blog, best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Posted in: CMS, Communication, Development, Team, Tools, Web Sessions0 comments

November20

Supporting ourselves with XMPP

By: Phil Wilson

Our team is the first-line support for the University's web needs. This means we get a lot of diverse requests landing in our bug tracker, RT, ever day. To help us share the load, we each deal with the support queue on rotating basis, as you can see in our schedule. We use the wiki rather than the University calendaring system just because it's quicker and easier to set up, enter events and edit them.

However, using the wiki means that there aren't any alarms or reminders.

So I took a few hours the other day and built a new module for our open-source Hungrybot which does the reminding.

The wiki calendar has an iCalendar export, so every two hours or so Hungrybot looks at that, works out who is on support today, checks the RSS feed of unassigned tickets and then lets the person on support know about them. In practice, it looks something like this (here you see I've prompted it to tell me about the new tickets):

Posted in: Development, Tools2 comments

October24

Two months on

By: Andy Savin

Two months ago we undertook the task of creating an application from concept to launch in a single week.  During the aptly named Get Creative Week, the team designed, implemented and launched Flat Out, an application allowing University of Bath students to search for rooms and properties on Facebook.

The app hasn't had any attention from us since then, so how is it doing and is anyone actually using it?

According to the statistics there are currently 47 active users which was as high as 65 at the beginning of the month.  An active user is someone who has used the app in the last 30 days, so the 65 covers the beginning of term in September.    Whilst this isn't a huge number, it does show it is being used especially given that the app got no promotion, other than a link on the University's online notice board.

Can we just release an application and then move on to something else or do we need to support, maintain and promote it?  I think it depends on the nature of the application and how worried we are about whether people are using it or not.   The purpose of Get Creative Week was to investigate the creative process, so the use of the application wasn't as important.  Although it is still nice to see that people are using it.

It is clear from the stats that new applications do get noticed by at least a few people but how many does it take before it becomes the popular, "must use" application we would like all our creations to be.   Obviously, the more fun and useful it is the more likely people are to use it, and some people will seek out new things to help make their life / job easier.  However, I think, as with any large community, to get everyone using it requires a lot more effort.

There are many different types of people each requiring a different approach to help them understand that your application is the one they need.

I think it would be nice to think an application would become popular on its own and we could just sit back and watch, but in reality it isn't that simple.

Posted in: Development, Get Creative, Tools1 comments

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