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Migrating to Drupal: Open Source Library IntranetsNina McHale, Catherine Baird, Jason Battles & Rachel Vacek

Internet Librarian 2010Our AgendaIntroductions (Nina)Presenters and attendeesWhy libraries need intranetsSuccessful intranets: the Holy Grail?JWL Intranets Special Issue: FindingsCase StudiesMcMaster University Library (Catherine)University of Alabama Libraries (Jason)University of Houston Libraries (Rachel)

and you are?NameTitlePlace of employmentExperience with DrupalExperience developing intranetsWhy youre here

Why Libraries Need Intranets

The Problem with Email

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/emailIntranets ShouldBe easy to use;Have functionality desired by their users;Be thoroughly integrated into the everyday work environment. Why is this Hard to Achieve?Varying needs of librarians and staff members based on their job dutiesVarying levels of librarian and staff member comfort levels with web applicationsNo buy-in from:AdministrationIT (internally or externally)Staff generally

JWL Intranets Special Issue: FindingsNot all libraries have their first choice in web development environmentsFree, hosted blogs and wikis (i.e., Blogger, PBWorks) can be difficult to incorporate into daily library staff workflowSharePoint is nice and integrates easily into a Windows environment but is not perfectDrupal requires a certain level of web expertise to deploy, but it is highly flexible and customizable

Case Study 1:McMaster University LibraryMcMaster University Librarys LibstaffCollaborators: Amanda Etches-Johnson & Catherine Baird

-Im here to present our first intranet case study today about McMaster University Librarys intranet site which we call Libstaff-Im sorry I couldnt join you all in person today and hope that this virtual presentation serves as an adequate replacement-just so I dont remain a faceless ghost in your minds for the rest of the conference, Ill quickly add a visual to this slide-the collaborators on this project were myself and Amanda Etches-Johnson, McMasters User Experience librarian up until very recently -just to give you a bit of context about our organization-we have just over 100 staff members in McMaster University Library-after decades of a static organizational which consisted of very traditional areas such as Collections, Public Services, IT, McMaster was going through a period of drastic change with frequent reorganizations and an org structure very much in flux-this had many implications for the organization, one part of which was the librarys staff intranet, aka libstaff10Legacy IntranetAccess & Security2.0 Explosion

-let me start off by talking about the legacy intranet, which was experiencing two main problems-to say the least, it was a neglected internal communication tool with access and security issues becomingly a daily frustrating for staff-increasingly out of sync with an organization very much embracing web 2.0 technologies

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-heres a screenshot of the old homepage of our staff intranet-it was a collection of dreamweaver created pages which were accessed from this single index page (if you were lucky)

-issues? There were many: no search, no consistent site architecture, no global navigation, no breadcrumbs, often no way to get back to the homepage once you started digging around, no standard document format, no one in charge, difficult for individuals to update unless you were in our IT department and/or one of the few designated web editors, intranet site open to anyone with a campus IP address and there was no off-campus access to the site without the use of VPN

Essentially, we were breaking every rule of user-centred web design you could think of, and probably a couple of moreAs an organization, we clearly werent thinking of our own staff as users - we were letting them fend for themselves.

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Heres an example of one of the most visited areas: an A-Z list of library committees, groups, projects, teamsanything new got added to this A to Z listEverything was on this page from a project to implement a new discovery layer for the catalogue to a new department that had been formed due to reorganization to internal documentation for our IM chat serviceSome attempt to keep it organized by at least creating a separate A to Z list for old stuffOnly consistency of information was the lead or key contact

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-many of the library staff had participated in a Learning 2.0 project, led by our User Experience Librarian, Amanda Etches-Johnson, where they played and learned about many web 2.0 tools and increasingly started to use them in their daily work-this resulted quite positively in a 2.0 explosion at the library: any self-respecting library committeee from that jpoint on had a blog, a wiki, a Facebook page, and a static page on the library intranet to boot-this was really empowering for individuals and groups of library staff, but in terms of communication and clarity, in caused increasing confusion-so it was decided that the intranet had to change

14Project PlanningThe TeamStaff EngagementList of Basic Requirements

So, lets chat for a minute about planning the project. Who was the team, how did we engage staff in this initiative and what was the basic requirements list that we arrived at.15The Team & TimelineMarketing, Communications and Outreach LibrarianCo-op StudentSupport from User Experience LibrarianFall 2008 Spring 2009

-the Marketing, Communications and Outreach Librarian (that would be me) was put in charge of the project, in particular because of my role faciltiating internal communication at the library-there was one co-op student who worked part-time on the project and was able to do a lot of the behind the scenes work in Drupal as well as migrating or copying and pasting existing content-we had the support from our User Experience Librarian who was responsible for our public website and had previous knowledge working with Drupal-it should be said that though I and the co-op student had some web design experience, we were pretty green and neither of us had worked with Drupal or a content management system before

Timeline was very tight. We began the project in late Fall 2008 and knew it had to be completed by April 2009. With only a small team and little time, we definitely ended up taking shortcuts that we would have preferred not to have taken b/c of this tight timeline, but Im sure thats not an uncommon situation for most of us in that room.

What we did to prepare:Inventory: needed to know what all we had so that we could figure out what we could group together, including the file format in the inventoryTook a look at what staff were using and solicited more staff feedback through a surveyMocked up wireframesThis process was particularly important for us because it helped us define the content types we would require for the site will talk a bit more about that later

16Staff EngagementOnline SurveyAll-Staff ForumEasy content creationDynamicAllow for growthRequirements ListGlobal navigationSearchAuthenticationAccess rights

In addition to doing an analysis of current usage statistics, we also implemented a staff survey and presented at two all-staff forums in order to engage staff in the design process.

The online survey asked the following questions:Why do you visit the Libstaff website?What do you like about the current Libstaff website?What don't you like about the current Libstaff website?What features would you like to see on a redesigned Libstaff?Do you have any other comments you would like to share about Libstaff?

The all-staff forum events provided an occasion for us to show the work-in-progress intranet and get informal feedback on what staff liked and/or didnt like about the work we were doing. At these forums almost all of the approximate 100 members on staff took advantage of the opportunity to comment.

Basic requirements list we ended up with

global navigationsite searchsite authentication using existing staff login credentialscustomizable permissions with different levels of access rightssimplification of content creation and maintenancedynamic contenta flexible underlying architecture that would allow the site to grow and evolve in keeping with organizational changes

17Building the New Intranet in DrupalWhy Drupal?Mapping Requirements to Drupal FunctionalityDrupal Modules: Our Picks

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Why Drupal??

Drupal was free with a large community supporting it and we could customize it to work the way we wanted to.

For us, the choice was pretty easy. We had just finished a major redesign of the public library website using Drupal. With that experience and the ease of having both websites running on the same platform, a second Drupal installation was created and the work on the intranet began.

19Mapping Requirements

Etches-Johnson and Baird (2010 : Table 1)

Mapping requirements to Drupal functionality:global navigation > themessite search > nodessite authentication using existing staff login credentials > Drupals built-in authenticationcustomizable permissions with different levels of access rights > Drupals user managementsimplification of content creation and maintenance > Drupals content types and user permissionsdynamic content > RSS syndicationa flexible underlying architecture that would allow the site to grow and evolve in keeping with organizational changes >

20Drupal Modules: Our PicksContent Creation Kit (CCK)CommentContactDevelopmentFCKEditorFilters (Headings Anchors & ToC)ForumMenuPath & Pathauto

PollProfileRelated LinksSearchStatistics & Google AnalyticsTaxonomyTaxonomy BreadcrumbUploadViews

Modules: Content Creation Kit (CCK): Allows site administrators to create templates for different types of content. E.g. our committee template contains the following fields: committee name, chair/lead, links (optional), mandate, membership, start/end date, minutes (optional), additional information (optional) FCKEditor: WYSIWYG editor that allows site authors to format content using recognizable formatting icons (no knowledge of HTML required to add/edit site content). Filters: allowed us to H2 and H3 headings anchors and subsequently Tables of ContentsMenu: Allows site administrators to easily customize and maintain global navigation. Path & Pathauto: Allows users to rename URLs and set up predetermined paths for certain types of content. Related Links: Displays links related to content.Upload: Allows individual site authors to upload files to pages. Particularly useful for committee minutes, etc. 21NavigationContent TypesTaxonomiesViews

Let me talk for a minute about how we created our global navigation. At first we used a combination of content types, taxonomies and views.

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Departments, Services, Projects, Committees, Staff Training and Development, Policies and Procedures and Old Stuff: the labels of our global navigationContent types were very similarly labelled: Departments, Services, Projects, Committees, Staff Training and Development, Policies and Procedures23

Heres an example of one of our content types in action the committee:

For committee content type, we specified a number of mandatory fields such as committee name, chair/lead, mandate, membership, start date; Also optional fields such as links (where you could link to the project blog/wiki), end date, and additional information.You can see how this would bring consistency to all of our committee pages.Also, we can set the permissions on the intranet site so that only certain users can create and modify committee pages, I.e. librarians and managers

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started with 3 taxonomies: browse all, old stuff, departmentsYou can see that on the left hand side of the pageAs we added more and more pages to the site using content types, we would tag it using these taxonomiesFor example, we created a policy using the p&p content type - see right hand side of pageTagged it under the browse all taxonomy as a policy and procedure and then under the departments taxonomy as the Organizational Analysis departmentBoth are hyperlinked: if you clicked on the p&p link here, you would get a page listing all of the policies and procedures on our intranet regardless of what department they are associated withIf you clicked on the organizational analysis link here, you would get a page listing anything which had been tagged as belonging to this department (committee, project, regular page, etc.)

Originally these 3 taxonomies helped us to generate the landing pages for our global navigation, but found that we didnt need this extra layer of complexity and instead, used content types combined with views (The views module creates customized views of node lists) to accomplish this. Simplified the content creation for users.

Old Stuff Taxonomy still being usedIn order to move an item into the Old Stuff section of the intranet, you use the Old Stuff taxonomy and a view.

25FeaturesCollaborationScalablePollsCommentsSearch

Collaboration: easy collaboration has been achieved but also consistency with defined fields in content types; dont have to ASK someone else to put content up on a webpage for you anymore; provides staff with the familiar the collaborative space they are now accustomed to with web 2.0 tools

Scalable: useful for large-scale and small-scale projects (not previously captured except on local hard drives!)

Polls: fun and function, real polls like how do you like the new site, some new functionality, or just plain fun polls like wheres the best lunch spot on campus

Comments: changes, improvements, not yet the active watercooler we thought it might be, interesting to note is that were starting to see staff respond to one anothers comments and help each other out

Search: usability shows us how important this is

26Corralling 2.0Incorporating Blogs and Wikis

Relationship between intranet and staff blogs/wikisSuccessful incorporation in some areas (staff newsletter blog, flickr stream)not so successful in other areas (liaison blog/intranet pageMost definitely we have achieved a single starting off point for all internal library informationthough we may not see all of the 2.0 tools in use being syndicated and pulled into the intranet, there is at the bare minimum a link to show that such an online workspace is being used-people are gravitating towards using libstaff pages for new projects and committees rather than immediately starting a new blog, only to abandon it weeks later b/c all they really needed was one or two pages-weve reached a relatively happy 2.0 medium in our organization

27Roll-outRolesStaff Training

-transition

28Roles & Permissions

Etches-Johnson and Baird (2010 : Table 3)

-Whos in charge:Roles and permissionsAdministrator (6)Committee/Service/Project Editor (36)Department Editor (21)Staff Training Editor (7)General Page Editor (18)

29Training Wiki

-small group sessions of customized training for the various roles-also provided general site orientation at this time-explained the roles concept with varying access levels to edit the site to all staff; new concept-took place in the weeks prior to the launch in Spring 2009-training wiki created as a reference tool, complete with step-by-step instructions and screenshots as seen on this screen-this level of training was essential because of the newfound editing power now in the hands of individual staff members

30AssessmentPost-Launch SurveyUsability Testing

-results of post-launch survey: we asked the same 5 questions again

staff reported liking that the site was easy to use; the new design; that it was easy to access from home; that it was secure; that it provided access to the staff newsletter; the good content; and, new items such as polls, comments, photos and a search function.staff did not like that they still had problems finding information (though in contrast to the last survey, no one said the site lacked organization); some did not like the new layout, the labels and the fact that there were multiple navigation areas; some did not like the default font size and colours.one outstanding feature staff requested (that was not rolled into the redesign) was access to documents in shared staff drives, a feature we are currently investigating for phase two of the redesign.

Usability testingeight staff members from departments across the library attempt to complete nine tasks on the redesigned site. Findings from the usability testing include some accessibility and design issues with regards to the colour scheme, as well as some confusion over labels in use in global navigation.

Card sort exercise helped with labelling and rethinking the global nav

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Collapsed Department and Service under one global nav view and renamed this Department and Function

Introduced user-generated tagging to help with some findability issues.

Not visually represented on this slide: As explained earlier, we got rid of the redundant taxonomies

Started to embed new library staff projects such as our LibrarECard reward program directly into the new site32Lessons learnedGovernance IssuesUnifying Internal Staff ToolsLose the Org ChartStaff Engagement

Even with distributed editing, there needs to be central ownership of the intranet in order to realize complete adoption by individuals in the organization and become an invaluable tool. Since Drupal allows for distributed editing and content management, we naively underestimated the amount of post launch governance that would be required for the new staff intranet.

Even with distributed editing, there needs to be central ownership of the intranet in order to realize complete adoption by individuals in the organization and become an invaluable tool. Since Drupal allows for distributed editing and content management, we naively underestimated the amount of post launch governance that would be required for the new staff intranet.

Finally, despite everything we knew about the importance of resisting the urge to design an intranet around an organization's structure, we found ourselves frequently tempted to turn to the institution's organizational chart to inform our navigation and labeling decisions. On-going user testing and feedback from staff continues to help us resist this temptation, but it's a lesson we find ourselves learning over and over again on a daily basis.

33Thank you!

Many thanks for your attention today. Im sorry I couldnt join you in person but hope that this presentation has been helpful and informative. At this point Id like to turn it over to my co-presenters.34Break Time

http://www.igougo.com/photos/journal/132x132/Carmax_LA%20-%2042.jpgCase Study 2:University of Alabama LibrariesDesigning and Building a Collaborative Library IntranetJason J. BattlesHead, Web Services DepartmentThe University of Alabama Libraries37BackgroundThe University of Alabama30,000 studentsAlabamas oldest public university (1831)

University LibrariesFive branch libraries120 faculty and staff38Web Services DepartmentResponsible for libraries web presenceFour FTEPart of the Office of Library TechnologyInvolved in wide range of web projectsAquaBrowser discovery interfaceMobile web initiativesInformation literacy game developmentDeveloped the libraries Drupal-powered public web site and intranet39Legacy Web InfrastructureStatic HTML pages

Limited access for contributorsClient-based Adobe Contribute for editingOffsite access only via command line

Outdated and orphaned content

Disparate applications & information silos

40Intranet User Design GoalsPresent all important organizational information in a centralized, accessible, and personalized wayIncorporate wikis and blogsDepartment and committee pagesPolicies, statistics, and meeting minutesRoom bookingAdd features to promote collaborationImprove and expand accessMake it easy to use

41Intranet Technical Design GoalsFlexible designEasy managementGranular access controlSeparate interface and data layers

Content Management System (CMS)Which one? (http://cmsmatrix.org)DrupalJoomlaSharePoint42Why Drupal?Powerful access control settingsEasily modified themesIntegrates with existing authentication systemsOpen sourceCustom modules for specialized functionalityLarge user communitydrupal4libALA Drupal Interest Group43One-Stop ShopWhy move other content to the intranet?Increase usage through improved accessMinimize users need to go to multiple sites for key information

Migrating wikis and blogs to DrupalPreserve collaborative aspectsRetain content and improve editingAutomate url aliasing and revisioningUse existing authentication system

44Migrating Wikis

ModulesOrganic Groups ModuleLinchpin of our intranets organizationhttp://drupal.org/project/ogEditingCKEditor http://drupal.org/project/ckeditor PathnamesPathauto http://drupal.org/project/pathautoUser Interface frameworkViews http://drupal.org/project/views

46Other ModulesAccessOverride Node Options Enables non-admin users to promote content to front pageSecure Pages Allows use of SSLContent moderationModule Grants Revisioning Custom content typesContent Creation Kit (CCK)File ManagementIMCE Manages file uploading

47Information StreamsMain StreamLatest pages updates and additionsMy GroupsPersonalized feed based on membershipsProfessionalConference presentations and reportsInternal development opportunitiesTechnology instructionBrown bag discussions

48Intranet Home Page

New FeaturesRoom schedulesKey meetings immediately viewableCustom-built Drupal module for MRBS

Events CalendarDisplay conferences, webinars, etc.Open to all library personnelUses customized calendar module50An Intranet for AllGive all library employees capability to easily access, contribute, and collaborate

Previous intranet limitations:Unique accounts for out-of-library accessEditing only available through ContributeLimited number of personnel could upload files or edit pagesAll updates moderated51AccessUse existing authentication credentialsLDAP Integration modulehttp://drupal.org/project/ldap_integrationAllows usage of Microsoft Active DirectoryApache web server configured to use same method for out-of-library loginsImprove editingPowerful web-based WYSIWYG editorInstant publication of most content Secure upload capability for all users52WYSIWYG Editor

ImplementationContent owners reviewed and categorized content prior to moveMove as-is 50%Needs updating 30%Delete 20%

Web Services moved content into Drupal

Content owners took control at launch

54Implementation continuedBeta phaseBoth new and old intranets accessibleFeedback collectedMultiple training sessions covering:Content creationFile uploadingPosting commentsTraining sessions also offered after launch Beta phase lasted about one monthTotal implementation took three months55AssessmentDramatic number of new contributorsFewer than 10 in old intranetAbout 40 nowOver 90 have signed into the new intranet

Increase in usage 35 page updates in last month14% overall increase in visits156% more visits from out of the library

56Lessons LearnedSucceeded in pulling disparate information silos together and increasing participation

Issues remain:Users remain hesitant to contributeContent providers do not always recognize their responsibility for updating pagesNumber of content types confuse some usersNew functionality is not easily discoverable

57Future PlansConstant ReevaluationConduct usability testingReview new technologies and applicationsAdditional featuresIM Chat Water cooler sectionMore instructionShort Camtasia tutorials for basic tasksOne-on-one and group sessions for more advanced editing

58Case Study 3:University of Houston Libraries

Rachel VacekHead of Web ServicesUniversity of Houston LibrariesIntranet 2.0 from a Project Management Perspective

UH Libraries Old Intranet

UH Libraries Old IntranetEPICFAILIntranet Redesign Task ForceRepresentatives from different areasWeb services, instruction, administration, human resources, acquisitions, access services, liaison services, and branch libraries.Each team member served as liaison to multiple departments and committeesNeeded to create buy-in across LibrariesWanted to change the way information was shared within the Libraries

Intranet ConsiderationsHave interactive informationAbility to share information easilyBe interoperableFollow user-centered designBe able to create new content or modify existing content easilyEncourage collaborationSite searchAuthentication via CAS

Project PlanningChose Drupal as the CMSTimeline6 months research, reorganize, and build6 months for people to move info and become familiar with new systemRestructured the information architectureGathered input from in-person interviews, surveys and an open forumProposed several designsAsked for feedback throughout redesign processTrainingOver 20 Basic and Advanced sessions, video tutorialsRolloutSome areas were completely blankHad no content to moveStarted fresh with blank slateSome departments and committees had already moved contentAlready had content re-organized for migrationExample for others to follow

What it looks like todayModules Core: didnt enable all of themMost useful: Views, CCK, Calendar, Event & Event signup, cas, FCKeditor, WebformNice, but needs improvement: Image galleryLooked good originally, but turned out to be not so good: Panels

Images from the Marketing Committees page

News from the Views within the site

Users have too many options when creating content

Users like being able to sign up for eventsLessons learnedToo many content types confuse usersConsider usability vs. functionalityDont use Panels on pages users need to edit frequently (or dont use Panels at all)Use the Revisions ModuleThink about users needing to bulk files uploads

Lessons learned, cont.Consider permission levels for access or content creationLock down your layout a well as other important pages that people dont need to editHave administrative section separated from contentMore modules you have, more you have to upgrade and risk something breakingKeep the CMS as lightweight as possible

Next StepsSlim down total number of modulesUpgrade to Drupal 7Install Admin ModuleMake CMS for intranet similar in functionality and Drupal naming conventions to the main websites CMSWork with library administration on internal communication recommendationsContact InformationNina McHalenina.mchale@ucdenver.eduFB & TW: ninermac

Catherine Bairdbairdca@mcmaster.caJason Battlesjjbattles@ua.eduFB & TW: jjbattles

Rachel Vacekrvacek@uh.eduFB & TW: vacekrae