Staff at Embry-Riddle just completed annual performance reviews. For the year from March 2015 through March 2016 I had three major projects, all completed before their respective deadlines.
Hunt Library Website Redesign and Launch
Last year I completed the planning, analysis, and requirements for the new Hunt Library website. This year I began the development of the site organization and building of the site pages and content. I worked with the university’s Web Team to develop features of the content management system for library hours and news. Once the design was completed, I worked with the library’s Assessment Team to assess the usability of the website which resulted in some small but important improvements. The Hunt Library website launched on time with little disruption to our online services.
See the current Hunt Library website at https://huntlibrary.erau.edu.
Project Abandon ColdFusion
Sometime in early 2015, we were told by the university’s IT department that the ColdFusion server was old and was going to be decommissioned. So I started “Project Abandon ColdFusion” to systematically analyze and replace all ColdFusion forms and applications. I looked to utilize our existing third-party services.
All of the ColdFusion forms and applications were successfully replaced before the ColdFusion server was decommissioned in September 2015. ColdFusion forms were recreated using Springshare’s LibWizard (ex. Research Request form). The Frequently Asked Questions application was replaced with an FAQ using LibAnswers. The Library Reported Issues application was replaced by a dedicated queue in LibAnswers (see form) which was successfully implemented and improves on the previous method. I developed a Recommended Websites replacement with LibAnswers by using a dedicated and highly-customized Frequently Asked Questions group. The internal professional journal routing application was replaced (temporarily) with a shared spreadsheet in SharePoint (now a form). The Library hours feed on the Hunt Library website was replaced by a Google Sheet developed by the Web Team. The News page was replaced using the website CMS blog function at http://huntlibrary.erau.edu/news.
Hunt Library Staff SharePoint Site
Previously, the library was using a combination of a third-party wiki and a shared network drive to function as a staff intranet. Last year the university made SharePoint available to departments and the library administrators made the decision to utilize it for our new staff site. I attended some training sessions and was made an Administrator for the Hunt Library SharePoint site. The library’s SharePoint Site was completed with fully-functional sites for library departments, teams and committees, and staff information, help, policies, and procedures. All content from the previous Hunt Library Staff Wiki was either archived or migrated to SharePoint. Designated staff from each department and team are now adding apps and content to their own sites.
In addition, I conducted training sessions for library departments, teams, and individuals on using SharePoint. I created a basic SharePoint Help page and will continue adding to it. Soon, I will begin a series of about ten “SharePoint Tip of the Day” emails to give staff useful SharePoint help in bite-sized pieces.
Conclusion
It was a lot of work but it was enjoyable to have three large, high-impact projects to work on. It is rewarding to complete projects on-time and be able to have tangible results to show for the effort. It was a very successful year.