So I didn’t actually post anything from the conference, but I did make some notes while I was attending the Sungard Summit. This is the annual convention put on by Sungard, the people who make our Portal software, the Banner software that underpins just about every administrative function at IWU, our Content Management system, and the Advance software we use in Development.
The conference is a huge event with people from all walks of Higher Ed in attendance. I was in the “Technical Community” which meant I was walking and talking with webmasters, instructional designers, etc. I stuck almost entirely with the Luminis Content Management product throughout the conference since that is the product I most closely support here at work. Here are a couple of interesting things I heard about:
- modifying the Site Studio interface using Javascript or AJAX to make the user interface much looser for content contributors. This means that certain page elements could be moved around, or that some options could be hidden or revealed as needed. These enhancements added some layout and design freedom to users that we do not currently provide. They also can be one way to integrate LCMS with existing systems (a database to track keywords, or a photo gallery app).
- fixing the LCMS workflow system using a little bit of Java code so that it doesn’t spam content managers with incomprehensible e-mail messages.
- there is a very easy way to integrate iTunes U with our campus portal to provide single sign-on access to shared media on Apple’s servers
Of course each of these items requires some scripting or programming, but thankfully the people who gave these presentations were quite friendly and would be willing to offer advice or help if we follow in their footsteps.
I also learned quite a bit about the new LCMS version 3.3 which is now available. The enhancements to navigation will be quite an improvement, and I hope to see improvement for our Mac clients as well.
I am also interested in learning a little bit about the underlying LCMS technology to see if I can make the Role Management system do a little more. After talking to one of the LCMS programmers I think it might be pretty easy…we’ll see how easy!
That sounds awesome. I’ve especially wanted an AJAX-type feature for the main homepage in MyIWU that would refresh just the inbox portion of the page every so often and possibly change the page title when you have new mail (much like Gmail). How feasible do you think that might be?
As far as I know is totally feasible. The only thing holding us back is resources – other schools that are creating enhanced channel content are 1) already on Luminis Platform IV, which we have not done yet (money, time, staff limitations) and 2) have dedicated Luminis admins that develop solutions like this as part of their job (money, staff limitations). Once we move to Platform IV in 2009 we might be able to borrow enhancements from another school. One downside to this is that each subsequent upgrade can break these add-ons, and we’d need someone capable of adding it back in (money, time, staff limitations). But technically we could do cool stuff in MyIWU.
iTunes U would be awesome!