ITTS Update

Amos Lieberman has been working with Charles Wilt in ALCTS to refine a committee appointment process management application. The system will track volunteers, allow appointing officers to select committee members, and update member records in iMIS. The application continues to be refined as new user needs are identified. It is expected that the application will eventually be broadened for use by all ALA units that have appointments to make.

Our new help desk application, TrackIt! is set to launch with the Knowledge Management System portal on April 3rd. All calls or messages to the help desk will now be entered directly into the TrackIt! system, where a problem ticket will be opened and requests will be assigned to an ITTS staff member. Staff can follow the progress of their requests in the system in real time. TrackIt! will also give us reliable statistics on help desk issues.

Since the debut of the CMS in 2003, a group of ALA staff has met weekly to review content for the ALA home page. Keith Michael Fiels has asked this group to expand its charge to include oversight of more sections of the website that need regular updating. He would also like the group to seek and evaluate regular feedback on the website, and to oversee a model of continuous improvements to the site. The group is currently re-writing its charge.

ITTS staff are working with Choice to install a new version of SpaceMaster (software used to integrate ad sales into iMIS). Completion is expected in late May or early June.

The growth of electronic systems and storage at ALA is taxing our network infrastructure. To increase capacity, we will replace our current fiber optic cabling within the building. After the new fiber cabling is installed, our current electronic switching equipment will be replaced with higher speed gear. This upgrade is scheduled for later this spring.

ALA has maintained WebCT software since August of 2000. It was little used until late 2005. There are now four divisions (RUSA, YALSA, ACRL, and ALCTS) using the WebCT software, and interest seems to be growing.

During February the staff implementation team received additional training in the use and specification development for the new ALA Knowledge Management System, developed by SydneyPlus International. The initial phases of implementation include replacement of the current ALA in-house Intranet with an Information Portal and replacement of the current library OPAC. The new library OPAC is now operational and the Information Portal is scheduled to launch during National Library Week April 2-8. New features will include keyword-searchable access to human resources policies and forms, searchable access to links to electronic resources, and a number of other specialized files. Irene Marquez, ITTS, Karen Muller, Library, and Sherri Vanyek, ITTS, are the project managers.

The organization that once supported ListProc, ALA’s main discussion list management system, stopped supporting the product in 2000. After a thorough investigation, we installed Sympa as the replacement discussion list processing system.

At its March 8th meeting, the Web Editorial Board heard from Michelle Frisque and Stephanie Orphan, both of whom had overseen some usability testing for their websites (LITA and ACRL, respectively). WEB members were briefed on types of usability testing and the benefits usability testing provides in redesigning and maintaining the utility of websites. The group was also briefed on the concept and practices of user-centered design, which calls for continual testing and improvement of websites. The group agreed this is the approach ALA needs to take.

At their March 15th meeting, the group decided to proceed with commissioning a usability study of the ALA website. Rob Carlson is drafting the RFP that will be floated in April. The plan calls for the usability study to be done by August. It will lead to redesign recommendations that will be implemented as resources become available.

Our lease on the Google search appliance (installed in 2004 and credited with vast improvements in the searchability of the ALA website) will be up for renewal in December of 2006. While we would like to extend the “umbrella” of Google searching to all ALA online content (Online Communities, discussion list archives, etc.) the cost would be prohibitive. Google bases its pricing, in part, on the number of files indexed, and our list archives alone account for some 600,000 files (the website stands at approximately 141,000 files). While it is rumored that Google is restructuring its pricing models to maintain their competitiveness, it remains to be seen what this new pricing is and whether or not it would suit our needs.

We will evaluate the purported new Google pricing on just the website, and the website plus other content. If Google remains our choice for website content indexing, we will look for another solution for indexing list archives, and then will pursue a federated search solution for all ALA content.

During training for the new Knowledge Management System, ITTS staff created the “bones” of an online feedback mechanism that will write directly to a KMS database. This will eliminate spam email messages from the equation and will make feedback messages and their resolutions part of the knowledge base of the organization.

We plan to upgrade our iMIS Association Management System while evaluating our future direction. We have been reluctant to upgrade our iMIS system and have in fact not done so since July 2002. We have not taken advantage of enhancements, such as the improved fund raising module, nor have we taken advantage of fixes to various components, such as those to the iMIS web components (iMIS Business Objects). In the past, we felt that the changes to the user interface were enough of an impediment to Member and Customer Service (MACS) that we could not move forward. With the introduction of our Online Dues Renewal System (Dues Manager) and Online Meeting Registration System (Event Manager) there are fewer transactions processed by MACS, reducing the impact on MACS. We feel that the benefits from a software viewpoint (fixes and enhancements) and ease of use for the majority of our iMIS users produce a more compelling reason to upgrade. The iMIS upgrade is scheduled to take place later this summer.

Online communities software was implemented in the summer of 2005. Units of ALA that were ready and anxious to begin using the system were encouraged to set up groups. LITA and RUSA, among others, started several communities during this “soft roll-out.” As use of the OC system was ramping up and the need for training and documentation rose, ALA’s training coordinator resigned to pursue her education.

ITTS has installed “b2evolution” software to support blogging by ALA units. ALA uses MediaWiki to support Wikis.

In April of 2003, ALA went live with a content management system that staff and members had been working to select and implement for the better part of two years. Despite repeated assurances from the system developer that the system would meet ALA’s needs, it quickly became apparent that the system could not support ALA’s high demand and complicated organizational structure. After struggling for two years to correct problems and modify undesirable characteristics (e.g., server instability, long URLs, etc.), it was obvious the system would never conform to our expectations.

In March of 2005, ALA made the decision to purchase a replacement content management system. Using a staff team and member input, a request for proposals (RFP) was created. Twenty-one firms responded to the RFP with a wide variety of solutions. The field was narrowed down to five possibilities based on features, history, and cost. Of those five, two were selected for further scrutiny. The two were evaluated by staff and member volunteers with varying levels of CMS experience. Collage, from Serena, Inc., was chosen, and Duo Consulting of Chicago was chosen to facilitate the implementation of Collage.