WEBMASTERS’ COMMITTEE
MEETING MINUTES
Tuesday, November 14, 2000
W-01 Room, Anatomy/Zoology
Building
Ms.
Pridgen called the meeting to order at 9:00 a.m.
Members Present: J. Bethel, J. Chandler, M.
Fettman, J. Gentile, T. Harmon, S. Hilligoss, J. Kammerzell, J. Lenz, C. Moth,
M. Pridgen, J. Riegel, C. Schmer, P. Sollars, J. Strecker, and L. Tarnoff.
Old Business
Network
Services is the only page out of compliance with the CVMBS standards for
webpages.
Photographs that Bill Cotton took for College use are
available to everyone. If a department
or unit feels their photograph is being over-used they can request that it be
replaced with a new one.
New Business
Bobby Validator Demonstration
Dr.
Chandler and Ms. Lenz gave a demonstration of the Bobby validator. Bobby is a web-based tool that analyzes web
pages for their accessibility to people with disabilities. CAST offers Bobby as a free public service
in order to further its mission to expand opportunities for people with
disabilities through the innovative uses of computer technology.
To
analyze a web site, go to http://cast.org/bobby
and type in the URL of the page to be examined. Bobby will display a report indicating any accessibility and/or
browser compatibility errors found on the page. Once a site receives a Bobby Approved rating, it may display a
Bobby Approved icon. Bobby's analysis
of accessibility is based on the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines at http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/.
Bobby
provides three levels of accessibility problems--Priority #1 statements
identify the most serious barriers, Priority #2 statements identify moderate
barriers, and Priority #3 statements identify not as serious barriers. These problems can be read in either a total
report or summary. The report lists
each of the lines where the error exists and links to it for repair. Some comments are subjective so the
Webmaster needs to determine whether and how to fix the problem. The bottom of the report gives the site
creator the download times for the site.
In the interest of saving time when putting a site through the validator,
it is best not to have it check all links.
Ms.
Lenz moved that all top-level pages on the CVMBS website be validated by Bobby
by the Webmasters' January meeting. Ms.
Moth seconded. The motion carried.
W3.org Validator
This
validator works in a similar way. In
its report, the line number and line with a red arrow pointing to the error
appears on the screen. Ms. Lenz found
some of the arrows a bit obscure so she is creating a legend to assist
others. It is posted on the webmasters'
page--webmasters/validation/w3cerror.
It was pointed out that validation can be carried out on ColdFusion.
Dr.
Chandler demonstrated how to bring up a text-only version of a website. He logged into Lamar and typed LYNX.
A
few other websites were mentioned- www.LGTA.org accessibility provides lessons for
accessibility and www.webpagesthatsuck.com
provides examples of poor sites.
Dr.
Chandler showed some pages with which he experimented and showed different
background color. Mr. Bethel suggested
that PhotoShop 5.5 provides hex colors with the code.
New Photo for Main Page
Committee
members agreed to have Dr. Greg Ogilvie and canine friend as the new photograph
on the main college web page.
Survey Results
Ms.
Pridgen gave a brief overview of the survey results in the time remaining. There is turnover in the people who are
responsible for web pages so she encouraged everyone to help each other.
The
survey yielded some new topics for future meetings--CSU Webmaster to discuss
the direction of the University pages, Cascading Style Sheets and ColdFusion.
The
meeting was adjourned at 10:00 a.m. The
next meeting will be held in the Adams Lounge of the Physiology Building on
Tuesday, December 12th at 9:00 a.m.
NOTE: There will be a change in location
beginning with the December meeting due to the construction in the Anatomy
Building.
Carol
Moth 11/14/00