UBCO CMS Enhancements July/Aug 2019

August 21, 2019

Hello WebCore Administrators,

Below is a quick rundown of noteworthy enhancements added to the UBCO CMS in July/Aug 2019.

To see the full list of enhancement requests or to request something new, please visit our Enhancement Requests page.

Web Accessibility Skip Links

Working with the Disability Resource Centre, the IT web team has added three ‘skip links’ to the Faculty/dept theme. Skip links are anchor links that allow visually impaired users browsing with screen readers to ‘skip’ to major areas of a webpage. Skip links are not visible on-page for sighted users. They are detected and read aloud upon page load by screen-reading software such as JAWS, Kurzweil, and Read/Write. The three skip links now available are:

– Skip to main content
– Skip to the main navigation
– Skip to the page-level navigation

These links are a very valuable time-saving tool for any current and prospective students who may be reliant on screen-reading tools to browse our UBCO websites. Because they are read aloud immediately after page load, visually impaired users can skip to the body content without having to wait for the screen reader to read out each item in the main navigation and side navigation before reaching the main page content.

Skip links are not a feature built into the standard UBC CLF 7 theme and thus is missing on the majority UBC websites. The skip link code has been added to the Faculty/Dept theme PHP headers and is now deployed on every page of every UBCO website using the Faculty/Dept theme.

Note: In case you momentarily see the skip links at the top of your page(s), do a hard refresh (shift + refresh) to clear your browser cache.

See original enhancement request >

Unhide Audience Menu Items on Mobile

The IT web team has made the Audience Menu items visible on mobile for sites using the Secondary/Audience menu. The Audience menu items will now be visible under the hamburger menu icon, while the Audience Menu bar will still be shown on tablet view. Sites using the audience menu are:

See original enhancement request >

UBCO Directory Enhancements

All user profiles should now be edited in the Central Directory including uploading user profile images and CVs. This eliminates department assignment conflicts between multiple websites. User profile editing is no longer available on your faculty or department websites and users will now be directed to edit using centraldirectory.cms.ok.ubc.ca

In addition, the following features are now available in the UBCO Directory:

  • ‘Custom Roles’ now available to use for groups/individuals who do not fit as Faculty, Staff, Grad Student, or Leadership.
    • “With great power comes great responsibility…” Please use Custom Roles judiciously.
  • hideusers parameter – hideusers=”username1, steev, jshaji, rlievers”. This will let you exclude individual users in directory listings by simply referring to their WordPress username in the shortcode.
  • The Office Hours field is also now available to the Staff role
  • ‘Currently Accepting Supervision Requests’ changed to ‘Graduate student supervisor’

If you are unsure about making changes to the Directory Options of your site’s directory and Central Directory, please get in touch with the IT web team first for advice before making changes.

Future: 

  • Text edits to various field label instructions
  • ‘Teaching’ Field

Reminders

  • With a new school year just around the corner, this is a reminder that a Novell ID is required before a new UBCO employee can be added to your site directory and the Central Directory. If a new employee needs to be added to your directory, but has not yet been issued a Novell ID, please submit a New to UBC onboarding ticket first. Once a valid Novell ID has been created, the IT web team will be able to add the individual to the CMS and any requested website(s) as normal.
  • It is a good web accessibility principle to add Alt Text to your image content. Images with alt text provide extremely helpful descriptions and context for blind and visually impaired users who may be browsing your page content with the help of a screen reader. WebAIM has an excellent article on the appropriate use of image Alt Text as well as many other good web accessibility practices
  • Save often. Publish often. Stay hydrated.

In Progress

Websites launched this month

Active Website Builds

  • Campus Recreation
    • Brand check underway
    • Target launch August 12, 2019
  • UBCO Library
    • Site in content entry stage.
    • Custom development for Library search tab is complete.
    • Target launch end of August 2019
  • School of Health and Exercise Sciences 
    • IT has started initial configuration and site build.
    • Content Starter Pack complete. Awaiting date for training/handover.
  • School of Nursing
    • Content Starter Pack being reviewed. CSP to be assembled from cloned pages of other sites.
    • IT awaiting confirmation on list of cloned pages before initial site setup/config.
  • Central Directory
    • New site created to serve primarily as ‘neutral ground’ for cross-appointed employees.
    • All profiles are now to be added and updated in Central Directory. Administrators and users should be editing profiles in central and no longer editing in their department sites. Edit fields are hidden in the department sites and only available in Central Directory.
    • More discussion to come at future WebCore meetings.
  • Management Redesign
    • Project relaunched with new communicator on-board. Existing content to be reviewed by faculty.
    • External consultant engaging with faculty to conduct UX testing.
  • Central Directory
    • New site created to serve primarily as ‘neutral ground’ for cross-appointed employees.
    • All profiles are now to be added and updated in Central Directory. Administrators and users should be editing profiles in central and no longer editing in their department sites. Edit fields are hidden in the department sites and only available in Central Directory.
    • More discussion at future WebCore meetings.
  • UBCO IT Website
    • This is the last website in ACM. IT web team will manually update the static HTML files on our servers while we work on our own redesign.

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