Administration

PDSA committee meeting.

Received from SB request for Announcement(s) updates.
Updated website with changes and sent confirmation email to SB
(cc'd SA)

Did the last three PDSA evaluations -- all done now.

Off sick yesterday so I had to walk the timesheets over to Payroll to make sure they got there on time.

One more PDSA review.

Invoiced, received 3rd QTR payment
Deposited cheque

One more PDSA review.

Removed outdated link on homepage as requested.
Sent confirmation email to SA (Med.St)

Last DH 2012 review done, and one more PDSA.

Two more PDSA and one more DH abstract done.

Updated website with changes to ALL PAGES (announcements and conference info) CONTACT, FACULTY, EVENTS pages (included poster).
Sent confirmation email to BAK (cc SA)

One DH abstract and one PDSA submission reviewed.

Very interesting abstract that sent me off to read other papers, and taught me quite a bit.

One DH 2012 abstract and one PDSA application reviewed.

Received request from SB (EMRC) to include new text in Announcements.
Made the change and sent confirmation email to SB.

Reviewed three PDSA applications today.

I obtained a two-week enterprise account with lastpass and associated that with hcmc@uvic.ca.
I created an ordinary account and associated it with lang06@uvic.ca
I then tried to figure out lang06 could have its own personal information visible only to that account and have information in the enterprise account accessible to it (at least read only).
Their documentation and support is contradictory and confusing on the implications of "linking" accounts. The documentation clearly says the admin of the enterprise account has read/write/delete access to the personal account, but their support person flatly contradicts that. I think there's some confusion around terminology and what is meant by an "enterprise" account vs a "personal" account.
I tried logging in as enterprise account (hcmc) and using the "link personal account" to link to lang06, but that allows only one such linking and is obviously intended to allow an employee to connect their personal lastpass account with their employee last pass account, rather than linking various accounts to one umbrella account.
I then tried creating a shared folder in the enterprise account. I managed to do that and to allow user lang06 to have access to that folder. I could find no indication in the user interface when logged in as lang06 to indicate I had access to a shared folder in hcmc. I was unable to put anything into the shared folder to share, so maybe that's why I saw nothing when logged in as lang06 - though I should have seen a folder even if it had no contents. I'm sure eventually I would have figured that out, but even if I did, I'd then be in the situation where I'd have my real personal account, some bogus enterprise account somehow connected to my real personal account through their "link account" feature and somehow with access to the shared folder in the hcmc account - maybe, and if everything worked out.

That's just getting too complicated. Instead I think I'll create an ordinary FastPass account associated with hcmc@uvic.ca and then give people that need it the necessary information to connect to it.

Trawling through nearly 700 emails from the last week to make sure there was nothing I'd missed; checking on timesheets and completing one that hadn't been done; discussions around what's been happening while I was away; clearing out three secondary accounts we have some plans for; backing up; etc.

I'm serving on the PDSA Committee again this year, and our first meeting was today. The work starts in a couple of days, and should be done by mid-December.

Attended a Deaf Studies meeting with HSD representatives.
Currently composing meeting minutes and will distribute accordingly upon completion.

Organizing, scheduling of upcoming Deaf Studies Meetings currently underway for 2012 and beyond.

Minor changes made today in readiness for
upcoming meeting with SB on Wed., Nov.9th.

Changes:
Index page - deleted title tag
All pages - changed alt wording

Added course to Eligible Elective Courses list as
requested.
Sent confirmation email to SA with change.
(cc'd GN,SA)

Spent most of the day reading through SF tracker items in preparation for the Paris meeting. Also put the P5 source into an instance of eXist so I can query it with XQuery, and used that to prepare a summary of one issue (@usage="mwa|rwa"), which is up for discussion. Also did some travel planning (getting from the airport to the hotel, etc.).

Logging time spent at the meeting.

Continued working on the site with GN and have test2 ready
for SB to see.

Sent SB email re test2 url for comments/approval.

Courses page - Spring courses:
Received request from SA (RS) to change instructor's name for Spring course RS200B.

Change completed; sent SA email confirming change made

Four timesheets completed and put in the mail.

Submitted a FAMIS report requesting the flickering lights in CLE -B043c be replaced again.

LH, and DR (Hispanic and Italian Studies) met with us (JN, SA) today to
view the Latin American Studies website and to discuss a future website for the Hispanics and Italian Studies Department based on the Cascade format.

Next steps:

- Current website: additional faculty information to be included; DR will organize
obtaining this information and once received will forward it to HCMC for inclusion
on site.

- HCMC will set up Cascade account for the Hispanic and Italian Studies Dept. in preparation for their new site

- Contact persons: LH and DR

Had emails and met with Mike R of philosophy. Over a year ago(?), he proposed creating a peer-review module for Moodle. This module is a utility. It
- allows students to upload a document,
- distributes those to x other students in a way that anonymizes the source account,
- allows each reviwer to upload a review and on that event updates the authors account to say a review has been received
- allows the author to upload a revised version of their document
Interface the student sees tells them current status of their document (e.g. uploaded, out for review, reviewed, re-uploaded) and provides links to reviews.
Interface for instructor allows that person to invoke the distribution of documents, see status of all documents.
The module does not provide for the actual review process, nor is it a tutorial on how to do a review - it is a utility for managing files.

MR believed in Sept 2010 that implementation on UVic server would be unproblematic. He got a grant and hired a programmer to write the code. MR has been running the code on a test server (using bogus account names) and reports not problems. He says the project is 90% complete and the remaining work is cosmetic and tweaking. He went back to the UVic moodle people who said implementing on the UVic would be difficult for a couple of reasons:
1) the module is not tested enough
2) the module may not provide enough functionality beyond what is already offered in other modules to justify inclusion

I have to find out what, if any, process there is to get a module approved. It appears that UVic has nothing between the production server and little sandbox instances, so it's not clear how one can get a module produced at UVic through a process and onto the production server. Should also see if there is a test suite or something similar that we can run against this module to see what happens.

MR reports that no similar module is available on the UVic instance. In the Moodle world, the closest similar modules are much more tutorials on how to write a review rather than utilities on distributing documents and reporting on document and review status.

There's also the issue of who is responsible for maintaining the module and upgrading it when UVic upgrades to the next version of Moodle.

I might also ask about how MR had the impression a year ago that implementation shouldn't be a huge problem, and then this year is told that implementation will be hard.

Met with AY of philosophy to discuss software that the editor of a book review journal could use for this typical work flow:
- associate a book with a reviewer and inform reviewer, set deadline for receipt of review
- automatically send out reminders to reviewer of reviews due
- allow reviewer to upload review and automatically inform editor
- allow editor to "accept", "reject", or "request revision" and send that from editor to reviewer
- allow reviewer to submit updated review
Would also be able to generate reports on books not assigned yet, status of books that have been assigned to reviewer etc.

Right now it appears the workflow is handled manually with text files and an email client with attached files.

Much of this workflow could be handled by an integrated calendar and email app (like Microsoft product). Possibly we could use the Open Journal System instance in the library for this administrative task rather than actually publishing. It seems there must be something that could handle this that wouldn't be overkill, but I'll have to look. If all else fails, we'll look at writing something ourselves. It should be a pretty straightforward relationsl db. The automated sending of messages to reviewer and to editor is something we haven't done much before

Received new announcements from SB to be included on all pages.
Updated the website with them and sent email confirmation to SB (cc to GN,SA)also.

First timesheets for the two workstudies, and regular timesheets for the Mariage folks. Takes more time than you think it's going to...

Meetings today with:

• JC (History): exploratory meeting about project for which SSHRC app is being prepared.
• WW (History): exploratory meeting about creation of a repository for audio, image and document data, which would require access restrictions involving non-UVic individuals.
• SA and GN, about our server strategy.

Wrote the first draft of a proposal for the MVP pilot, and sent it to SR and JS for comments and to get some extra info.

Received current feedback/changes/additions from SB for website.
Started updating website with new information.

Received confirmation from LK (in Accounting) that my "test submission" was approved and we are now set up for production.

Accounting tasks:
-Reviewed/compiled expenses paperwork
-Updated inventory spreadsheet
-Checked charges posted against FAST accts.

Accounting advised a new procedure for jv's required by Oct. 1/11.
Studied, completed tutorial and submitted questions for approval to LK/Acctng. as requested.

TS will be joining us to work on the Despatches (in the Library position), starting tomorrow. He'll be working initially on learning TEI, and then on writing abstracts.

Went through the blog list revoking a few permissions that were out of date, and hiding a couple of blogs whose projects aren't currently active.

A basic reno plan was worked out, and the only outstanding item from our point of view is the cost of adding 4TB of storage to the TAPoR storage area; GN is checking with KL about how much that would be, and we need to pass on the info to LG when we have it.

Drop-in visit -- gave a quick tour of HCMC and some of our projects.

CD brought down a visitor who's a potential PhD student for a look at the HCMC.

RGS decided on a deadline of today for all proposals to be considered by the committee by email during August (in lieu of a ftf meeting), so we've been rushing to get the last couple done. They're all now finished and uploaded, and I presume will be considered over the next few days.

Courses page:
-received from SA (in RS) new text for RS302 course description.
-included new information for RS302 on website

Sent email confirmation to SA (RS).

Created a new proposal for the HCMC committee, to make enhancements to the Adaptive DB code.

Received request from LW for 2 links changes re: faculty names, email addresses, webpage links
Changes made today; sent confirmation email to LW.

SA requested Topic description be removed from a course
description. Text removed; replacement text TBA.

Attended meeting with SK, KF to discuss ASL/Deaf Studies participation
in various events for 2012, 2013.

Deposited HB's 2nd Qtr. cheque to Accounting.

Posting time spent going through emails (600+), backing up dbs, etc.

Updated courses page with requested Timetable Change.
Sent confirmation email to SA (Rels).

Additions/changes:

-TALKS page: eliminated the Upcoming Talks section in center column
-All pages: included under Announcements the recent announcement - Call for papers....... etc.; with link to pdf.

In progress:
HOME page: logo discussion
Technicalities: Stopping Right Column from breaking on window refresh

Sent update email to SB.

Home page:Increased text size
Faculty Page: Continued with page structure; added "title" tag to structure
Resources Pg: SB will request content with Beta version
Images : Relocated center image; temporarily relocated shield
Announcements:Example inserted

As requested by SA (Rel.St) made name correction on courses page.

Updated Spring course listing with room change information.

Made changes to Medieval Studies website for library additions and
special volume additions.
Sent confirmation email to SA.

Met with RS & GN, and drafted a proposal for the September committee meeting, covering the tasks HCMC would take on for DHSI. The proposal is now lodged in Sharepoint. MJ has also been contacted to see if he's interested in doing the preliminary stage, i.e. porting the content of the existing DHSI site to create the static information site which would later be integrated with RegOnline for registration. GN is handling this, and also managing the transition of URLs and email addresses with Systems.

Long meeting looking at the implications and possibilities of moving some of the DHSI organization work over to HCMC. This will eventually result in a proposal for the committee, but in the meantime the urgent requirement is to evaluate regonline and its competitors, and produce a possible plan for forking the website into an information-only site at UVic, and a registration/financial management/user management component hosted externally. We must have a clear plan for this, agreed on by all of us, before my vacation.

Variety of stuff: expenses claim, timesheets for RAs, arranging/discussing classroom workshops for next semester, etc.

Confirmed meeting with SB, GN for July 20th; 11:00am in HCMC
re website updates.

Sent email to Accounting requesting work flow change as directed by
Purchasing in order to make invoice payment.
Delivered signed invoice to purchasing.
Copied AS, MH,GN & Purchasing.(EW)
Filed copies.

Memo to AS with documentation for second purchase against our Academic Equipment Allocation. JN has a copy to file.

Met with BAK,GN to discuss changes to Latin American Studies website.
Decisions:

Index page:
-Remove specific text in Right Navigation
-Increase image quantity
-Rearrange left navigation to accommodate LARG logo and new text

Website:
-Increase color saturation
-Add new images
-Reduce image display time

Establish within Latin American Studies Website:
-New Page for LARG
-Extract, archive existing LARG info.
-Set up new layout
-Input new text

To be done / Input coming:
-Additional images
-More text re LARG
-New page for LARG

I had a lot of outstanding tasks in the blog which were actually completed, or were simple, or were superceded by subsequent changes. I've been going through those, and I'm now down to only three outstanding tasks (in the blog -- lots not in the blog, of course).

Inordinate quantities of admin-related emails and tasks today, covering: stats for web.uvic.ca sites; HCMC participation in DHSI organization; printing of the Calico volume; FAST access; an IDG application; IALLT Journal domain name resolution; Cascade; and other stuff. Just posting the time that's getting eaten up by this kind of thing, which seems to be growing.

Had to walk them over to HRIS -- getting a bit close to the deadline.

Course updates for Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 entered on Religious Studies
website.
Email sent to SA in RS advising website updated.

Contacted Facilities Management again re follow up for exterior
window cleaning. FM advised Janitorial Services will be contacted
to complete task.

As requested, added course numbers and room locations to their Fall and Spring courses.
Sent email to SA(Med.St)confirming changes made today.

Most of our Calico volunteers were Ling students who can make use of a reference letter about their service during the conference, so I've written those this morning.

• Checked registration desk first thing -- all OK.
• Checked rooms for outlets, and discovered we'll need about four extra power strips. We found four around HCMC.
• Met with all concerned for a final team meeting. Discovered that no AV had been ordered for McKenzie-Sinclair or Campus View, so AE sorted that out for us.
• Booted all the Mac laptops -- all OK, except that two have bad batteries so power mustn't be disconnected from them. Labelled those.
• Took DM and MS on a tour of the presentation rooms, and checked ports in Bob Wright; they weren't connected, so GN has asked for the relevant ports to be turned on.

That's one task off the table, and actually well ahead of the deadline. :-)

We've put out all the exterior signs, and I've printed up what I think we'll need for interior signage. We've already put out a couple of signs at Cadboro Commons to help people find the registration room. Netlinks have been passed to EH, and everything seems to be going well so far.

Had the signs delivered, and taped and waterproofed them all with JN. They're ready to be deployed on Monday. We can put them out ourselves, which is going to make things a little simpler.

I've sorted out the signage with the Grounds folks, and also created a little quarter-page handout to get people started with wireless connectivity, to include with the registration package.

The netlinks have been received and prepared.

With a print vend card, printed out all the 11x17 signs and then taped them together. I'll take them home tonight and spray them in an attempt to make them a bit more resistant to the weather.

Workstudy is done, so fewer timesheets now, but still three for Mariage RAs. Submitted today.

Had a morning meeting of the team. Created and printed some signs for the workshop folks to put up, and put them in the mail to MT. Updated the volunteer schedule four or five times as people changed their times. Updated the volunteer handout with more info, including something on the audio recording.

Created all the signs as 11x17 SVGs and PDFs for Calico, and also installed the ETCL printer and printed a test page on it. Ready to print the signs off tomorrow.

Ordered: additional office paper supplies (on-line) in readiness for upcoming
conference.
Today received and stored 4 toner cartridges.

Updated GT account information.
Ordered office supplies (via phone, GT)-4 printer toner cartridges; arrival 48 hrs.

JN and I went through April's books to check for anything odd, and I sent off a memo to AS about doing a journal entry for the equipment allocation for the four monitors we've bought.

US and I took a walk around the campus and decided on where our signs should be placed. I've now plotted them all on a Google Earth view and generated an image from them, along with info on what needs to be on which side, and I'll start creating the actual PDFs for printing tomorrow. I also called the sign folks in Grounds and checked on how they work; they have a coroplast insert and they can tape signs to each side for us.

Took a trip over to the banquet room, and took photos; tested the network port, and measured some distances. Also spoke to MS on the phone, and we're agreed that the twin pillars look like a good spot to bring down the network cable and locate the camera, assuming the servers don't object.

Did the last session with the three remaining volunteers, one of whom unfortunately dropped out.

Did two training sessions today, including walk-throughs of actual rooms, and tours to Cadboro Commons. Also tested some ports and investigated storage options in Cad Commons (there are basically none).

Ongoing: working my way through JavaScript.

Received invoiced payment from HB (1st Qtr 2011); deposited cheque; obtained receipt, filed paperwork/receipt in HCMC records; sent
email confirmation to MDH,SA.

Points from the meeting:

• All required network ports are turned on, and will be switched over to the conference VLAN the day before the conference.
• T-shirts are printed, and look good. They're stashed in HCMC.
• Signage: we've agreed on 10 outdoor signs, and we'll circulate a map to agree on where to place them. We'll have to get them printed on something vaguely waterproof; Zap can do that. Indoor signs we'll handle ourselves. MDH will circulate a map next week, and design a generic sign, which we can customize once we know the locations.
• No response from Walmart on phones yet. The phone issue is looking very complicated and expensive, so we resolved not to worry about it; we'll ensure that the two volunteers without phones are next to volunteers who do have them. There are also courtesy phones dotted around the buildings; we can check on the nearest ones from our presentation rooms.
• The splitter issue for PCs is being dealt with. AV have at least three splitters; HCMC has one; and HCMC also has some old graphics cards that might help. If we don't find enough solutions, we can rent splitters from Sharps.
• Video streaming: just streaming over a regular ethernet connection is not likely to be successful, so GN will investigate with AE the possibility of getting the relevant ports switched to a system which can handle the traffic. For audio, AE will also investigate getting a feed from the PA in Bob Wright A104; in the dining room, the best option might be a shotgun mic, which AE can provide. I've written to MS to get details of the camera he's bringing.
• The rented Mac laptops solve one problem for us, but create another: security. We devised a plan for storing them securely during lunchtimes and overnight.
• Temporary ids for wifi logon will be provided as a spreadsheet, which we can print, cut up, and have the registration folks distribute.
• CC will check with Cad Commons to see if we can get keys to lock the presentation rooms (e.g. during lunch), and whether we can also get a key for the little storage room in (we think?) Queenswood.
• For training sessions next week:
  • Sessions are in A010.
  • PF will make sure that there's at least one PC that's similar to what will be used for the conference rooms available.
  • CC will attend, and will bring a Mac laptop and a dongle for it.
  • MDH will also bring a Windows laptop (and Linux).
  • We will collect: phone numbers and emails of volunteers, and dates/times when they're not available.
  • We will distribute: key emergency phone numbers (HCMC, AV, MDH, GN, Help desk, ???).
  • We'll have them hook up and unhook PC and Mac a few times, and deal with some obvious problems.
  • We will take the volunteers to look at the rooms in Clearihue and in Cad Commons.

In order to apply to the various websites I'm working on (e.g. LATAM) I've started learning JavaScript. Currently working my way through the tutorials.

Met with MR, along with JA, GN and CL, and RS on Skype, to discuss the provisioning and admin of VMS for the INKE project. Made good progress; my summary sent out to everyone by email.

The usual form-filling and photocopying. Mailed in the package and also posted a zip copy as backup.

Registered for Connect U conference, Thursday, June 2

Received request from BAK today for changes/edits to website:

Updated website:
- All pages: included new upcoming conference information in right column
- Current Events page: included upcoming conference info.
- Home Page: edited first sentence as requested

To be done:
- prep additional images
- set up archival method of Past Events

GN and I investigated the dining room situation. We found that it's actually an L-shaped room in three parts, of which I expect only two parts will be used (GN has a floor plan). There are two ethernet ports, one at each end of the L, of which only one (D36) appears to be connected; Greg is confirming this with networking now. Port D41 is not in the database at all, so it may never have been connected. Assuming the event were taking place in the part of the L that contains the working port (the South Dining Room, which has port D36), and assuming we placed the speaker at the end of the room towards the bottom of the plan, and ran a long ethernet cable away from the speaker to the video setup, then we would probably be able to provide connectivity.

On the other hand, if the event is taking place in the North Dining Room, then there may not be a connected ethernet port.

So it's important we find out which part of the dining room will be used. In previous events, we've used the North bit or the South bit, including the middle bit (North + middle bit giving a long thin room across the top of the plan, or South + middle bit giving a slightly smaller room running down from the top). It's also conceivable the whole room would be used, but in that case a speaker at either end would be invisible to some diners, so that's not so likely.

I've written to DA to find out; CC's memory of the arrangements is that it would be the North room that would be used, which would unfortunately be the wrong orientation entirely.

As instructed emailed Facilities Management with HCMC exterior windows cleaning request.
No charge for service as building is part of KIP project.
Service request in queue.

The CALICO team phoned to check on the possibilities for live streaming of the keynote and the banquet presentation. This was previously definitely off the table, so we hadn't prepared for it. It will require wired ethernet. Went over to check the Bob Wright room, and it looks like there's good wired connectivity available there, so that shouldn't be a problem. The banquet is in the Cadboro Dining Room, which is an unknown quantity right now. We've written to ask about what's available there.

Did one last trawl through last year's accounts with JN, and checked everything. All appears to be OK, with errors we previously identified now corrected. Saved and printed copies of the main spreadsheets so we have a paper record.

Did Mariage and workstudy timesheets in advance because I'll be away next week.

Attendance at Liddell Award meeting.

CALICO meeting to discuss the issue of Macs for presentation rooms. Later obviated by news from EH that CALICO will supply Mac laptops. Now replaced by the issue of security for these laptops.

Took a while to get through this process -- their server seemed to get confused at one point, and was insisting I pay for something I'd already paid for before I could go ahead and pay for the other thing...

Did another review of what's available in terms of "disposable" cellphones. The $20 phones Rogers had last year seem to have disappeared; looked at Telus, Fido, Koodo, Chatr, Virgin and a couple of others, as well as contacting 7-Eleven stores and Walmart. The cheapest option at this point seems to be Walmart, where you can get a Samsung R100 phone for $28.83 + tax; if you then activate that phone directly through Telus, and do it online, you get $20 of talk time, which would amount to about an hour of talk time.

Timing is the key to this, though, because these phones go in and out of stock (the $20 Rogers phones that were available last year seem to have disappeared now). Walmart only have a couple of those Samsung phones at the moment, but they have a bunch on order, and they're going to call me when they come in. The Telus website has an ominous mention of the possibility that you might "need to purchase a Starter Kit during the activation process" -- it's not clear what that might cost.

We've also been talking about the possibility of doing this a slightly different way, though. My guess is that the majority of our volunteers will have cellphones already (certainly Greg, Jamie and I do), and most people would be happy to use their own cellphones. We could cut our costs by if volunteers were prepared to use their own phone while "on duty". We could gather people's cellphone numbers at or before the training workshops, and have them program the key numbers in at the workshops. They wouldn't need each other's numbers, just the numbers of the main emergency contacts (HCMC, AV, and our roving tech support people). And we wouldn't have the hassle of collecting and handing out a batch of phones every day. We'd just have to have the list of all the volunteers' numbers, and the schedule for where and when they're going to be on duty.

There would obviously be the problem of our two out-of-town tech support folks, whose phones would be from the US, so they'd be paying a US roaming rate, but I suspect that at the end of the day, having CALICO reimburse them for any charges incurred calling in Canada would be cheaper than buying a batch of phones.

Did detailed technical evaluations of the candidates for this year's Liddell Award, for the committee.

Met with AR: there have been responses from the Info Architects to the proposed navigation which will necessitate some changes, and also we need to complete a Project-Lite-Web document for the Info Architects to consult when evaluating the navigation plan. Looking ahead, I need to check with DW about how static content such as Hispanital's exams and interactive exercises could be integrated.

I'm reluctantly switching from my great little Lightning calendar to the Exchange one, so I've been moving over some of the events. I'm done up to the end of May.

AS called with some last-minute stuff we had to do for the budget, so we've spent an hour running around to get it done.

Reviewed accounts. Reversed charges and journal entries posted.

Did all the timesheets for Mariage and workstudy.

Received request from LW re uploading of faculty photo on index page.
GN explained script; solution: case sensitive file - must be lower
case to display image.
Emailed LW explaining solution.

Completed the proposal form and sent it to SAR for approval before submission.

Searched ASL/Deaf Studies records to find relevant ASL information requested
by SK.
Found and emailed information to SK, cc'd KF.

Did a walkaround with GN to test out connectivity, but only got into one of the CLE rooms -- we'll have to go again another day. What we tested showed what we expected, except that ports on top of VDP cabinets don't seem to be connected at all, which is odd. Also reworked the t-shirt logo because it now has to go on the back rather than the pocket, and sent it out to the supplier to check all is well, and get a final quote. We may not be able to get the colour we were hoping for, though.

GN FOLLOW UP: I went to the rest of the rooms today and discovered that only D131 has a live port in the room. I send MG an email as a follow up.

Highlights from today's meeting:

• T-shirts: the order should go in soon. We have decided on a larger image on the back of the t-shirt, and we're trying to get as many as we can for the $500 budget (it's a 2-colour design), and we want to have around 20 medium, 20 large and 10 XL. I'll put in a more detailed quote request on Monday, then we can put the order in through Purchasing.
• Networking: Greg and I will do a walkaround through the rooms early Monday and note down all the port numbers, check which ones we want to be using (especially in Cadboro Commons), and contact MG at the Helpdesk to arrange to have them turned on where necessary, and get the all switched over to the conference VLAN for the time of the conference. The latter will avoid the automated logout that's plagued conference sessions in the past. In CC rooms, we'll check whether we're going to need some long ethernet cables.
• Volunteer training: We've tentatively scheduled two training sessions for volunteers, on April 28th at 10.30 and 2.30. The objective will be to hold them in a lab room which has PCs with the same build of XP that will be on the conference machines, and also bring some other PC and Mac laptops and USB keys so that people can get used to hooking things up. I've written to MT to ask about booking a room.
• PCs for conference rooms: MT will provide 8 identical machines (one is a spare), of a vintage which makes them unattractive to thieves, and we'll tether them. This should obviate the need to move them between storage and presentation rooms every night.
• Signage: We will print all the indoor signs ourselves, using the same logo as is on the t-shirts, and we'll look at Zap and Island Blue for possible printing of waterproof signs (maybe just laminating them). We'll also look at the possibility of putting URLs on the signs in barcode format, pointing at Google Maps locations, so that people with cellphones can get instant feedback on where they are. CC will contact EH to find out who's going to be responsible for providing maps for the registration package. I've contacted FacMan about rules and guidelines for putting up signs.
• Phones: Martin will contact Rogers in the first week of April (no point in contacting them too far in advance) to see about a batch of cheap phones loaded with minutes.

Additional changes received today:

Images:
-Display time of images made shorter.

Faculty page:
- minor change to department association, correction of
surname.
-Advisory Committee content expanded (include name,dept.email)

Website launched today.

Received additional content (poster, text, course info) for website from BAK and have completed the following:

ALL PAGES:
-received pdf workshop poster; now included in right col on all pages

FACULTY page:
-included on-leave notice for 2 faculty members
-included additional text

COURSES info:
-rtf file previously received;confirmed content included on website

EVENTS page:
- has workshop poster information included in center col as well as
right col information

BAK, JAN, GN: website launch meeting today

Met with CC and AR to plan the French dept Cascade site menu structure, which we worked out on the whiteboard, and then reproduced it in the required spreadsheet format. Then briefly looked at the History one, which is pretty much ready to go, with one minor change.

What takes the most time is the rather painful process of turning a nice tree structure into a spreadsheet, which is the last tool anyone would want to use for building tree structures. Methinks if we're doing a lot of this, I should write some XSLT to take a nice TEI tree and build a CSV file out of it, to make this quicker.

Received feedback from SK, KF re revised minutes.
Minutes approved by SK. Will send out final copy to members this week.

Faculty page: Received new Faculty information, now included in website
with names and links.

Courses Section: Updated Courses Section with removal of specific courses/course descriptions as requested

Images: Received and inserted additional images on website

Emailed BAK with website update.

Next step: receipt of workshop poster information

Web Services training workshop on content creation for Cascade.

BAK, JAN, GN, had meeting today re website.

Changes made:

Faculty page: listed, linked faculty names
Events page : updated lecture information
All pages : changed workshop time(s)

Incoming Content: Additional images, faculty names, workshop poster

Received revisions/additions to include in Deaf Studies minutes.
Have revised minutes; awaiting approval of revised minutes before sending
out final copy to members.

Arranged meeting on Tuesday, Mar. 15th with BAK, GN, JAN re current website
development.

WS and Mariage timesheets done.

Sat in as developer-guy on a job interview for ETCL.

Dealt with plans for the DH centre, and the three outstanding project proposals.

Progressing with MH on eoy tasks. Details posted by MH yesterday.

Received request from SB for website changes.
Entered the History courses; re-arranged Courses page alphabetically; and
entered 2 presentations in Past Events section.
Emailed SB with website update. (cc'd MH, GN)

JN and I spent some time going through the whole year's accounts. Among the things we found:

• We've been billed for a key request from another dept. (being corrected).
• We've been billed for alarm services for B005, which isn't ours any more (reported to Campus Security, waiting for response).
• Phone charges for ETCL and HCMC have been confused continuously; they seem to have been billed for one or two of ours, and we've been consistently billed for their voicemail (reported to NETS, will either be fixed or corrected for next fiscal -- the amounts are trivial).
• Found some abandoned/cancelled purchase reqs.
• Reorganized some documents in the filing system to make them easier to find.

Completed Feb. 16th meeting minutes and sent out to members.

Reviewed accounts in preparation for year-end.
JN, MH, meeting March 7th re year-end tasks.

Received incoming information today to add to Feb. 16th meeting minutes.
Minutes in progress.

Finished a logo I'd started building a while ago, intended for the tech support t-shirts. For future reference: to duplicate the logo from the CALICO site, I did this:

• Took an appropriate globe image from openclipart.org, and tweaked the colours so that the sea is white and the land black. This forms the final O.
• Typed the first four letters in URW Gothic L (bold), and then turned them into paths.
• Node-edited the C to change the angle of the line terminations. This was finicky, but I put a capital O underneath in red, so I could keep the shape as close as possible to that.
• Cloned the edited C to form the second C.
• The letters still weren't quite bold enough, so I added a black Stroke to the objects (width 1px).
• Combined the letters and the globe to create the CALICO logo.
• Used a digit 2 followed by upper-case O and lower-case l to create the year.
• Imported a UVic logo and changed its text to white.
• Created the date part using Myriad Pro Semi-Bold, and sized it appropriately.

Sent this out for approval by various folks.

Made Summer course offering changes to website as requested. Sent confirmation
email to SA.

Re-adjusted the Faculty webpage with more space between the faculty names
as requested. SB advised resource material will be provided by several members
at a later date.

GN, JN manipulated and resized 31 images for the website today.
Inserted the images and have them scrolling on index page.

Lots of rearranged bookings for reading week, followed by changes due to snow and illness, so timesheets this fortnight took a while. Just posting the time spent.

Short and sweet. Mainly about plans for future webdev meetings.

Have inputted Faculty content in website; sent email Feb. 24/11 to SB advising
her of website update; and have requested content for Resources page.

Preparing minutes from ASL/Deaf Studies meeting held Feb. 16th.

Received from BAK: Announcements, Events, poster/Lansdowne information,
and content re Co-op programs.
Have added all of the above to the site, checked the links and sent email to
BAK with update.

Next step:content for faculty page forthcoming from BAK

Reading week will change TB's schedule a bit, so with JN away I split his old reservations into two sequences and re-worked his bookings for reading week itself.

JN and I went up to see AS for some advice about procedures for the end of year activities on the HCMC FAST account. It seems all our ducks are in a row; we'll do one final check through all the entries together some time in March, and we need to submit a letter about carry-over by mid-March.

Updating draft resource page, expecting additional content forthcoming.

Will be attending two ASL meetings on Feb. 16th.

Contacted BAK to get clarification on request; received specific
information and additional request to have additional listing under
Interdisciplinary Programs as well.

Have submitted BAK's information to JP-UVC to have Latin American Studies listed in the A-Z listing and also under Interdisciplinary Programs section.

Confirmation received from JP; should be able to view the updates online end of next day.

Notified BAK of confirmation.

BAK confirmed additional website content forthcoming.

Posting time spent on workstudy and RA timesheets.

Spent some time last night and today looking at the grant proposal and the technical requirements from the granting agency, and making some suggestions to SK.

Have emailed SB requesting content for website (faculty page).
Awaiting reply.

Have emailed BAK requesting website content; decisions regarding
the A-Z listing etc. Awaiting reply.

Feb. 11, 2011:

Completed year-end accounting request for confirmation of funds.
Original sent to BK in accounting; copy filed in HCMC records.

Met with SK to draft a project proposal for the HCMC committee, and then drafted the proposal; still waiting for feedback from SK and TH, and a copy of their grant application, which should be done by Monday.

Incidentally, in the process of writing the proposal, we tested the Hulq site on my Android phone, where it worked fine (although it could benefit from some friendly stylesheets to eliminate wasted space and leave more room for content). But testing on JN's iPhone, the audio failed because it seems not to support Flash or Quicktime (at least QT with AIF files, which is what we're offering).

RS asked that we supply for the committee an overview of projects we have been involved in for the various departments over the years. Did a trawl back through blogs, work diaries, and previous reports to the Dean, and I think I have a good list, which I've uploaded into the Sharepoint site. It certainly won't be complete -- I only have my own very detailed work diaries going back to 2002, and no access to SA's -- but it does give a sense of the historical work patterns.

Received email confirmation from HR PEA Rep regarding SA's 2011 vacation entitlement. Have now completed accounting's form with SA's information; filed copy with email attached from HR for our records); sent form to JM in Accounting. SA was cc'd on email
from HR; and JN advised SA form sent in with his information.

Met with ER to discuss the next phase arising out of the Coup de Dés project. Wrote a proposal and uploaded it to the Sharepoint site.

Fire drill went OK except for one room of people who reportedly wouldn't leave. I forgot to pass on the OK signal around the corner of the building -- must keep that in mind for next time. Notes from the meeting:

• The new alarm ring is an ISO standard, and will be the same in all buildings eventually.
• Instructors were reluctant to leave classrooms, which caused students to move slowly as well.
• Don't forget to clear washrooms.
• Get people out by the nearest exit. They often want to leave the way they came in, even if that's distant.
• Locking office doors is OK (in the past we were told to leave them unlocked).
• Don't leave until your floor/wing is cleared, unless staying puts you in danger.
• If you have any knowledge of the actual fire (location, conditions, injuries etc.) make sure the BEC knows.
• We have seven real fires a year at UVic, so it won't always be a drill.

Worked on the courses page today making each individual
course linked to course description(s) described below
on courses page.

Contacts page: updated with email address, office hours

Next step: images

With GN, wrote the HCMC proposal for the Mapping Greek Myth project. Both proposals are now ready for the next meeting of the committee.

Website meeting Wed., Feb. 2, 2011:

JN,GN met with BAK today for update on LATAM website.

Summary:
-BAK pleased with progress to date. Additional content: forthcoming for faculty page, announcements. Changes on course page to be done.
-Manipulation and standardization of images in progress. More images coming. Random sets of images per specific page requested.

Next meeting: mid-February

Met with SR to discuss his grant application and the construction of a related HCMC proposal. Then I drafted the proposal and sent it over to him for approval.

I have a TEI Council meeting in April in Chicago. Booked the flights and hotel today.

Feb.1: Request from Rel.Studies:

Removed the job posting from Faculty-Job Opportunities page as posting
now closed.

Jan. 31, 2011 - ASL (American Sign Language) resources web page update:

The ASL resources web page is in progress. A draft list composed of: Language acquisition / texts; reading materials; culture; organizational events; sports form the content of the resources page. JN has also contacted NH and he will be forwarding soon his list of resources to be added to the web page.
(Note: currently on JN's local machine only)

An upcoming ASL/Deaf Studies meeting with the Dean, SK, KF, NH, KW, JN and others will take place on Feb. 16th, 2:00 pm.

January 2011:
In SA's absence JN will consult with GN and MH for website assistance.

Jan. 7, 2011- an update re this site:
-index page: plate background and border has been removed. The newly sized images also now on all pages.
- GN emailed SB re EMRC site title banner
- Events Page: the two events have been added to the older events section
- Courses Page: have checked and correctly the links
- Courses Page: History in Art: have removed the hyperlinks to specific courses under History in Art but left the actual listing in, edited History in Art Grad. Courses.

Next steps:
SB requesting material for faculty page. Awaiting contents.
Beta version circulation on hold till arrival of additional content.
(Note: this site in the www-dev of the emrc account)
-----------------------------------------

Past history of EMRC website development:

Oct. 2010:
SA, JN met with SB and EC in Oct. 2010 to discuss the details of developing a new
website for Early Modern Research Collective.

The following is the result of that meeting:
Structure:
-visually similar to MS website
-1 layer (with "Global" logo on top right-side)
-no tables
-basically text and images
-repeating signature image (decide later, artist/budget required)

Tabs:
-coloured plates, round
-same size as MS shields

Banner:
UVic's EMRC on banner

Navigation:
Left nav (balance with right side "Announcements")

Announcements:
-on Current Events Page only

Color, font:
-prefer light background
-prefer striking/simple, no blandness

Timeframe:
couple of weeks (mid November)

Summary:
- color: TBA
- images: EC will send to SB; SB will send text to us
- Events Calendar: is the only urgent item
- Left Nav: on each page with imbedded picture as repeated element on each page
- Top Banner: includes "Who we are" symbol/text
- Font: TBA

Nov. Update:
- uploaded images
- worked on css; navigation; inputted content (courses)
- created Home, Courses, Events, Resources, Faculty, Contact Us pages
- main image on the home page - plate - was decided

Dec. Update:
- removed brown background and provided a gray gradient background
- removed some borders to make less "boxey"
- removed "UVic" in the banner- now reads only Early Modern Research Collective
- SA got sys admins. to create a netlink account
- requested high resolution copies of 6 plate images in order to provide us with
a better image for enlargement
- font decision pending
- SA got EMRC events calendar working
- GN standardized images (Archive, Large; Nav)

DEC. 13, 2011:
SA, JN met with BAK for two hours to discuss the development of a new website for Latin American Studies. BAK liked several different options from other sites and would like several of those choices applied to LATAM's new site.

After viewing other websites, a selection of preferences was established,namely:
- build site separately from the Hisp. and It. Studies site
- use university template structure
- use left navigation similar to EMRC and Hums.
- apply easy maintenance approach
- consider "tab" feature an option
- use UVic crest logo
- use map on Home page
- LARG logo- Latin American Research Group - keep on Home page, link to LARG on Hisp website
- Images: many images- scrolling purposes - similar to SJ website; number of images
open for discussion, keep on Home page
- Page background color: BAK preference - pale yellow
- Text color: BAK preference dark blue
- Music, video add to site later
- Timeframe: Deadline - LARG's workshop date - March 19, 2011.

BAK has provided documentation and content for: images, eligible courses, course description, advisory committee, LARG logos, home page wording.

During SA's absence JN will consult with GN and MH for website assistance.

The LATAM website is now under construction.

Jan.31, 2011: The work done to date is an accumulation of work performed during January 2011 with navigation, layout, page creation, receipt of images - approx. 46 -
content for most pages having been inputted.

Next steps:
- Resizing, standardizing, filing and uploading of images, GN,JN.
- BAK: provision of faculty page information
- JN has requested BAK pop down for a few minutes to review what has been done todate. Awaiting reply.

(Note: this site in the www-dev of the latam account)

Final meeting of PDSA committee.

Went to web dev meeting about Cascade, which looks very impressive. Looking forward to working with it.

Five timesheets completed and submitted.

Had the province-wide earthquake drill today. The process of getting under desks etc. proves straightforward -- plenty of room under our desks -- but we also took the opportunity to look inside our earthquake kits, and make sure there was one close to every desk. There's a little battery radio (with batteries) in the master kit (under my desk), and one other radio which is in one of the kits in the RA room. The food and water is still in-date, but most of it will run out within the next year (some in November, some next February). I'll put that on my calendar to remind me to order replacements.

Researched some suppliers of printed t-shirts in Victoria, and emailed them for quotes. I'm basing this on the Hanes 5280 t-shirt, which is (I hope) not too expensive, but not cheap and crappy. I've asked for quotes for 1, 2 and 3 colours, but I'm thinking the most likely scenario is a dark forest green with a white logo.

Confidential...

...who came on board today. Some time spent discussing projects and where to start.

...with the Dean re HCMC.

Discussed opening remarks, and dates. I need to get a quote for 50 t-shirts, 25 medium and 25 large.

Dealt with mostly admin-type stuff the last week:
* Filled in and filed forms for HRIS regarding new hire.
* Took 4 candidates from English on the HCMC tour.
* Met ER, EF and AC regarding projects
* dealt with timesheet submissions, payroll errors, departmental misunderstandings regarding same, ad nauseum.

Remarkable amount of time spent organizing a new booking for LCC working on Mariage, and then making timesheets for TB (workstudy) and the three new Mariage RAs, along with instructions for GN to complete, copy, submit etc.