TPR1: MediaWiki Fundamentals

PRESENTER: Jonathan Fuller, Colorado Community Colleges Online

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 9:45 AM to 10:45 AM.

A live demonstration of the installation and setup of MediaWiki on a LAMP Server (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). The first half will demonstrate the step-by-step process of installing the main software, extensions, plugins, and customizing the security settings. The second half will cover user creation and the basics of working in a MediaWiki: users, basic page editing, and utilizing advanced plug-ins/extensions (rss embed, flash embed, etc.).

TPR2: Getting Started with WordPress Blogs

PRESENTER: Stephanie Leary, Texas A&M University System

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM.

This is a live demonstration of WordPress installation and setup. The first half will cover the basics of installing the software, adding users, and installing themes and plugins. The second half will dig into the various user roles and how themes work. We'll demonstrate some common tasks like uploading photos or PDF files, managing comments, and adding widgets. We'll discuss how you might configure WordPress to handle different kinds of blogs: your press releases, a team's project updates, your CEO's blog, or an internal news clipping service.

TPR3: Taming the Apache Log File Monster

PRESENTER: Jeremy Wyatt, University of Rochester

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 1:30 PM to 2:00 PM.

Dealing with log files is a critical part of supporting Web services. Log files help us understand who is using our sites, what they are looking at, what they are looking with, and all too frequently why something isn't working. All this information takes a lot of space. If you need to study long term trends, you can be dealing with gigabytes of text files. Depending on the log analyzer you use, it can take a lot of time and effort to get useful reports. This presentation will cover logging directly to a MySQL database using mod_log_sql. The data can be indexed and immediately accessible using a Web application, a desktop database query tool such as MS Access, or directly via a SQL command. The many benefits include the ability to perform real time monitoring and to leverage the built-in intelligence of the database.

TPR4: Avoiding the javascript:void(‘’): Accommodating 1.0 Users in a Web 2.0 World

PRESENTER: Jason Pitoniak, Rochester Institute of Technology

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 2:15 PM to 3:15 PM.

Recent innovations in browser technology have had great implications on Web applications. AJAX and DOM scripting, for example, provide a framework for interactivity that didn’t exist previously. As we move to a Web that relies more and more heavily on JavaScript we have to remember that JavaScript is not always a given. A little bit of “old school” creative thinking can go a long way in ensuring that your Web applications will support anyone who needs them, regardless of the browser they use or their accessibility needs. This presentation will look at some of the common pitfalls that break accessibility in so-called “Web 2.0” applications and identify steps that developers can take to avoid them in their applications. We’ll also look at some of the more common JavaScript libraries and find which ones are best suited to accessible development methodologies.

TPR5: Adding Google Maps to Your College Website

PRESENTER: Paul Dempsey, Dickinson College

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 3:45 PM to 4:45 PM.

This session will present techniques for using the Google Maps API on college websites. The API, released to the public in July 2005, allows developers to integrate these dynamic maps into their own Web pages. The session will provide an overview of Google maps and then demonstrate how to incorporate a basic one in a college's "maps and directions" page. Features such as markers, information windows, and polylines will be added to the map. Techniques for creating advanced dynamic maps using server-side databases and programs will also be demonstrated.

TPR6: Adding Interactive Content to Your Website Using JQuery

PRESENTERS: Jaclyn M. Whitehorn, The University of Alabama
Gina Tinney, The University of Alabama

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM.

Today’s Internet consumers, accustomed to such sites as Facebook and Gmail, are no longer satisfied with static Web pages. When used properly, interactivity can both help you present information effectively and bolster your institution’s reputation as a technology leader. However, many higher education Web developers are too understaffed and overworked to devote large amounts of time to learning or implementing new technologies. The JQuery JavaScript library is an easy way for you to add this functionality to your site. Even a novice programmer can use JQuery and its plugins to create dynamic navigation menus, FAQs, image galleries, and forms. Simple AJAX methods allow you to access additional information from a server without reloading the page. JQuery also allows greater separation of content and presentation with tools that facilitate the use and manipulation of the document object model (DOM) and cascading style sheets (CSS). HTML tags, attributes, and content can be added, removed, or changed on the fly. This dramatically simplifies future site maintenance and development. This presentation will show you how to begin using the JQuery library on your own website. Topics and examples will include:

• an introduction to JQuery
• selecting HTML elements (traversing the DOM)
• creating a menu using the accordion plugin
• formatting data tables
• inserting remote content with AJAX
• where to find more information

Basic familiarity with HTML and CSS will be assumed, but no knowledge of JavaScript is necessary.

TPR7: Easy Web Services with Visual Studio 2005

PRESENTER: Paula Yandow-Reilly, University of Rochester

This session is scheduled for Mon, Oct 15, from 5:45 PM to 6:15 PM.

This session is a simple walk-thru showing how to create a Web service that connects to a database and provides images that can be displayed on a website. This is popular with professors and administrators, allowing them to pull class rosters of student images. The session is intended to demonstrate how easy it is to create the service and consume it. In addition, it also demonstrates an easy way to share out functionality across platforms.

TPR8: XML and the College Website — Why the Time is Right

PRESENTER: Lance Merker, OmniUpdate, Inc.

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 8:15 AM to 9:15 AM.

When it comes to Web management, there are no greater challenges than content repurposing and controlling the structure and design of the site. Your institution's website is complex, interconnected, and must be managed with the right balance of tools and techniques. XML combined with XSL is the ideal way to tame the beast. But, is it worth the burden? And, what are real risks associated with the migration to this new, powerful architecture? Come learn more about how to reduce the risks and speed your migration to XML. You'll learn how to take best advantage of the XML/XSL architecture, including how to selectively use XML/XSL and benefit immediately — without a complete website redesign. Also discussed will be how to best deploy template controlled publishing, while mitigating migration risks.

TPR9: Form Processing — The Database Side

PRESENTER: Chad Killingsworth, Missouri State University

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 9:45 AM to 10:45 AM.

An email form processor has long been a standard tool provided to distributed developers, but the database version has not been so easy without supporting server software. In this session we'll examine a method for providing a database form processor that any developer can use but takes a genius to break. We’ll look at methodology and code for processing both simple and complex forms.

TPR10: Improving Web Search at Yale: Implementing and Managing the Google Search Appliance

PRESENTER: Carmine Granucci, Yale University

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM.

Effective Web search has become a crucial component of the Web user interface, and a key factor in effectively using Web communications to support University academic and administrative activities. Enterprise Web search has evolved from a commodity service (“configure it and forget it”) into a major enterprise service and an actively managed component of campus communications strategies. This presentation is a report on our year of experience in implementing the Google Search Appliance (GSA) for campus-wide search for the roughly 500,000 public pages at Yale, and a summary of our experiences creating custom search interfaces, maintaining the GSA, and using the data generated by the GSA reports as a source of metrics we use along with other Web analytics inform our Web design strategies. We’ll also look at how the GSA differs from Google’s Web-based search services for Universities and non-profits, and we’ll summarize the costs and personnel time required to implement the GSA at Yale.

TPR11: pdPortfolio: A Web-Based System for Managing Professional Development

PRESENTER: Christina Dulude, Duke University

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 2:15 PM to 2:45 PM.

The Division of Student Affairs at Duke University is piloting a new system for tracking staff members' professional development. The goals of the system are twofold but integrated: to streamline the registration process for in-house workshops, and to serve as a tool through which staff members (and their managers) can track their professional involvement and ongoing training. pdPortfolio was born out of these needs for a searchable database of in-house training opportunities, and a Web-based registration system to accompany them. It's a one-stop shop for users to browse workshop offerings, sign up, and track their ongoing professional development. The program also streamlines reporting for managers, who can view a snapshot of their staff's participation at a glance. This presentation will give a brief demonstration of the pdPortfolio system, as well as the technologies and processes that went into its creation.

TPR12: HTTP 101 — Or, What Exactly IS Under the Hood?

PRESENTER: Jason Woodward, Cornell University School of Hotel Administration

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 3:00 PM to 3:30 PM.

As Web professionals, every day we use software that implements the HTTP protocol. Usually, the details of HTTP are hidden from our view: browsers, servers, programmers, and system administrators make it so the average user thinks "http" is simply a four-letter symbol that goes at the beginning of a link. However, to a Web programmer — or even a Web designer in these days of client side XMLHTTPRequest scripting — knowledge of the details of how HTTP messages are constructed and interpreted can be useful. This session provides an introduction to the basics of HTTP including its concept of requests and responses, agents, error signalling and cache control. We'll cover techniques to inspect HTTP transmissions "on-the-wire" to help troubleshoot and debug your applications, or someone else's. We'll cover tips on how to speed up your website and applications by interpreting the contents of the communications between browsers and servers. You'll come away knowing the difference between a 301 and a 302, a 404 and a 410, which can help you (as a web site author or Web application developer) communicate more effectively with search engines.

TPR13: The Life Cycle on A Web Application

PRESENTER: Peter Huynh, Temple University

This session is scheduled for Tue, Oct 16, from 3:45 PM to 4:15 PM.

The session will discuss of the life cycle of converting a client side Access application into a .Net Web application using ASP.NET, SQL Server, CSS, and HTML. We wil also discuss the challenges of customer service, security, and technical issues that we came across during this project.