CIC Project - CICweb Development
CICweb Development Project
CICweb Project Plan
During Jan.-April 2005, the CICweb project intends to involve 6-10 SI students in the fundamental design and development of the new CICweb site (www.si.umich.edu/cic). The immediate goal is to make the site useful to its primary audience – SI students, faculty and staff. Gearing the site to a broader public audience is the medium-term goal, something that will be planned but not necessarily implemented during this semester.
The site is powered by Drupal (www.drupal.org), an open source content management system (CMS), and was chosen after extensive research and fiddling around this past summer and fall with various PHP/MySQL-based content management systems. We believe Drupal has what we need for our purposes in CIC, but this is part of what we would like to have the students confirm and build on. We anticipate having a team of content managers (3-5), site designers (1-2), info architects (1-2) and a programmer/server manager (1).
Peter Keller-Transburg, the CIC Program Manager, will be the primary manager of the overall project, and will help facilitate the student-mentor relationships.
DFE Credit
CIC is working to line up appropriate mentors for the various CICweb development roles during the Winter 2005 semester. If we are able to find suitable mentors and if the participating students work at least 60 hours on the CICweb during the semester, they will qualify for one or more DFE credits (PEP points). If you have a web development professional in mind that would make a good mentor for this project, please contact Peter Keller-Transburg – peterkt@umich.edu. Note: The DFE proposal deadline is
CICweb Project Roles
*Content Managers (3-5)
CIC is looking for 4-5 primary content managers who will maintain many of the content and resource lists on this site. This group of managers will determine the key resource, topic and theme categories as early as possible and specific areas will be assigned according to interest. Being a Content Manager does not mean that you have to post all relevant content for specific categories - hopefully the whole community will contribute content - it just means you'll keep the lists clean and organized and help define and convey instructions for posting content to CICweb users. No prior web development experience required - just an interest in CIC issues.
Possible content areas to manage:
Forums, News, Projects, Employment/Internships, Conferences, Publications, etc.
*CICweb Designer (1-2)
The CICweb Designer(s) will be responsible for choosing and maintaining the overall “look and feel” of the site - themes, colors, fonts, etc. Interested SI students should have some prior experience and expertise with web design. Particularly, PHP and CSS experience is preferred.
DFE
*Information Architects (1-2)
In addition to, but in conjunction with the CICweb Designer role above, CIC is looking for 1-2 students to handle information architecture issues on the site. This role would include developing the overarching taxonomy of the site and determining the controlled vocabulary. The Info Architects would also decide the usefulness of various site modules and employ those determined most appropriate for CIC. Students who have taken Peter Morville’s Info Arch course at SI, or similar, are preferred.
DFE
*Programmer/Server Manager (1)
The beauty of the content management system (Drupal) that powers the CICweb is that PHP coding and working in MySQL are largely unnecessary. However, to take most advantage of this powerful system it is preferred to have someone involved who can manage the PHP files on the SI web server as need/desire arises. The Programmer/Server Manager is responsible for loading new modules, add-ons and site upgrades to the server and generally maintaining the server permissions and functionality. S/he will also troubleshoot code errors and respond to auto-generated warnings. This student should have experience with PHP and MySQL (SI539, for instance) and the ability to work in UNIX environments.
DFE
Please contact Peter Keller-Transburg – peterkt@umich.edu by