August 24, 2009

Updates to the faculty and directory website areas

Faculty and Staff Directory
Quick Summary:
  1. Added First (First name) field.
  2. Added Area of Expertise, Advising Duties, Teaching Area fields. These fields replace the Emphasis column heading in the Google Doc
  3. Position Category. Default terms are Faculty, Lecturers, Staff. Used by the PathAuto module to build URL alias (e.g. /staff/419/bren-ahearn)
  4. Change Faculty menu to Faculty and Staff. Added the following submenu items: Faculty Advisers, Lecturers, Staff.


Updated Profile Content Type

Faculty and Staff Directory
Image: Profile landing page and Directory Quick links sidebar block
New data fields (i.e. Advising Duties, Office Hours, etc.) have been added to the profile content type. The addition of these fields allows for improved search engine indexing, data entry, sorting and display, as well as improved layout consistency.

New data fields (by group):

Name

Faculty and Staff Directory
  • First
  • Last

Job

Faculty and Staff Directory
  • Title
  • Areas of Expertise
  • Advising Area
  • Teaching Area

Contact

Faculty and Staff Directory
  • Office
  • Phone
  • E-mail
  • Web
  • Office Hours

New Position Category and terms

Faculty and Staff Directory
The updated Position category list terms specific only to the profile content type.

Position Category terms (standard set):

  • Faculty
  • Lecturers
  • Staff

Updated Profile List Views

Faculty and Staff Directory
Image: Default Faculty and Staff listing. Link: http://beca.sfsu.edu/faculty-and-staff
All directory views are built and sorted from data contained in the profile content pages. This allows for greater flexibility in content filtering and pre-sorted views. In addition, a fullscreen directory view, that is not confined by the layout limitations of the web template, was created as a resource for users who may need to print or visually scan through the entire directory.

Compact List view (490 pixel maximum width, 3 columns max)

Faculty and Staff Directory
Image: Filtered list view. Note table headings. Link: http://beca.sfsu.edu/faculty
  • Faculty and Staff - Lists all currently published department profile pages.
  • Faculty Advisers - Lists all currently published Professor, Associate Professor, Professors Emeritae, etc. profile pages.
  • Lecturers - Lists all currently published Lecturer, Graduate Assistant, etc. profile pages.
  • Staff - Lists all currently published Office Manager, Office Assistant profile pages.

Expanded Directory view (Fullscreen, liquid-layout, no column count limitation)

Faculty and Staff Directory
Image: Expanded Department Directory view. Printer-friendly. Link: http://beca.sfsu.edu/directory
The Directory provides an expanded table view of all currently published Faculty and Staff profile pages with all available profile fields.
The updated Directory view is an expanded table view of all profile data generated and updated from profile data in the Drupal CMS. The Directory view is where you will want to direct anyone who needs to quickly scan or print the department directory.

Profile Pages

Faculty and Staff Directory
Image: Profile page. Link: http://beca.sfsu.edu/faculty/376/scott-patterson or http://beca.sfsu.edu/node/376
Profile pages are the building blocks for the list and directory views. They are also optimized for search engine indexing.

Office Hours

Office hours have been added as an editable text area within each profile page. Once data has been entered into a field, the field heading and content will automatically displayed in the published profile page.

Empty fields

Empty fields and their corresponding headings are not displayed. So if a profile doesn't contain an email or phone number, an empty content heading will not be displayed on the profile detail page.

The Directory View

Faculty and Staff Directory
The updated Directory view is an expanded table view of all profile data generated and updated from profile data in the Drupal CMS. The Directory view is where you will want to direct anyone who needs to quickly scan or print the department directory.

What about the Google Doc? What's the reason for the change?

The Google spreadsheet was a temporary solution that was not fully supported the Drupal Content Management System. Updates in the Google Doc did not update the profile page and vice-versa. If a user found a profile page through a Google search result, data from the Google Doc would not appear on the profile landing page. Or, if the user landed on the Directory page previously generated from the Google Doc, they would not be able to click through to the faculty profile.
Also, because the data from Google Docs had to jump through a number of hoops before being published to the web, the output was susceptible to bugs.
Drupal on the other hand, is being used exactly for what it was designed for--to manage and publish website content.

Going Forward

Faculty and Staff Directory
Image: Alternate fullscreen view listing only faculty and lecturers. Link: http://beca.sfsu.edu/officehours
These changes will prepare profile data to be shared with the College website in a master web directory. Also, additional custom views (e.g. like office hours) can be easily built as needed.

Update and editing Tips

  1. Go to Administer > Content
  2. Display only the profile content type by selecting the Type radio button below Show only items where and click Filter.
  3. You can then refine the filter by category term (e.g. Lecturer) or published/not published.
  4. Click on a name to edit or update. So you don't have to constantly re-filter the content administration screen, try opening the page you want to edit in a new window .

Easy to Remember/Say URLs

These web addresses have been standardized on all sites.
  • Directory: your site address /directory
  • Faculty Advisers: your site address /faculty
  • Lecturers: your site address /lecturers
  • Staff: your site address /staff

Disqus for Passing the Word