Friday, February 24, 2012

Managing Website Content - good, better, best

Managing public website content in the dynamic environment of a charter school is enormously time consuming. If you think otherwise, then your school’s website is most likely out of date and in need of an overhaul. A quick poll of your site’s users will likely confirm this, and probably tell you more than you care to know. Even the best and most popular websites face constant scrutiny from one set of stakeholders or another—who each inevitably have website suggestions but often little understanding of the costs attached to those suggestions.

Because charter schools have so many requests for content updates, accompanied by all the usual interruptions and stretched staff assignments, this task can quickly get overwhelming.

The purpose of this article is to explore three methods that we have used to manage website content, each with varying degrees of success. Pros and cons exist with each method, but no solution at all will ultimately cost you much more in wasted administrative resources. In fact, your public facing website can actually reduce the amount of administrative effort required to run your school, but only if done thoughtfully and consistently.

Before we address the methods, let’s quickly review the basic categories, and samples of content, that you ought to be familiar with, as explained below:
  • Contact and directory information that bypass admin resources to every extent practical. This category includes phone, fax, email (forms-based), maps, organizational charts, and department information.
  • Notifications that are legally required in order to comply with board and other necessary public notices. These can include board minutes, policy manuals, student handbooks, and health notifications.
  • News and activity information to inform the community about all school related activities, including academics, events, calendars, community engagement, fundraisers, school plays, projects, and field trips.
  • Social media and buzz to generate excitement, awareness, and sense of community. This involves using platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other media associated with the school’s hub of activity.
This list is intentionally given in order from the least to the most frequently updated category, and roughly parallels with semi-annual, monthly, weekly, or daily updates. And correspondingly, this list is given from most to the least restrictive category, with respect to content review and approval. Keep this in mind as we outline the methods of managing content, because different kinds of content require different publishing processes, and have different shelf lives.

One last thing before we discuss methods—all content should take the shortest path possible from the time of its creation to its publication. For example, if a calendar of events has three separate approval processes to go through, and faces any delays that sometimes happen in life, then you may as well forget about it. By the time the event is posted and published, it could long since be over. Another example is homework assignments or study guides submitted by teachers for the website. Systems need to be in place for allowing and training staff to easily save a document in a format they understand (Word, Excel, PDF, etc.) and then quickly publish the document to the website, without a lengthy approval process or any difficult technical steps.

Easier said than done? Perhaps. But with even modest training, any of these three methods below will provide this functionality. I’ve labeled them as Good, Better, and Best.

Good Use whatever they are comfortable with.

With so many web publishing options available, it is quite possible that members of your staff already have a blog, a personal home page, a Facebook page, or a website devoted to their work. These are often personalized very well, and reflect the passion and interest of the individual authors. Allowing this kind of content management comes at a very low initial cost, a reasonably high participation rate, and can be quite effective. We’ve seen some that are excellent, both artistically and functionally.

However, it’s important to understand the risks associated with this model. The primary risk is content control, lack of oversight, and possible legal issues. These kinds of resources are universally owned by the individuals creating them. Inappropriate use could be embarrassing to the school, provide misinformation, and potentially create liabilities that you feel are unacceptable. And without the cooperation of any of your particular staff members, an offensive website cannot easily be taken down, especially if you have adopted a precedent of allowing this kind of online creativity over a long period of time.

Artistically speaking, your website may end up looking like a virtual flea market. But the good thing is that there will be accurate content readily available.

Better Use a centralized content management system.

Most schools use this model to manage website content, and for good reason. Using a content management system is an efficient way to build a website that contains most of the features you need, with some type of password protected area that allows a management interface to add, remove, or modify content. Because most content management systems are built with a template framework, information on new pages gets formatted in a similar fashion as other pages, giving the site a more uniform feel. While this can make creating content easier, it can also create limitations in the design elements and artistic expressions you may wish to use.

With a modest amount of training, users can add, remove, and edit content in areas of the website where they have responsibility to do so. And some content management systems have thousands of appliciations or utilities that you can easily set up to do a wide range of tasks, like updating your Facebook page, sending out newsletters, or creating extensive directories.

Many charter schools have used such a method, normally powered by Joomla, an open source content management system. But while many of our schools use this model, we’ve experienced only modest success in those cases where there is not a single website content manger on site.

Simple means different things to different individuals, and some CMS interfaces can be difficult to use or require in-depth training for staff and faculty. As you have likely experienced, often any kind of barrier or perceived difficulty may pretty much stop users from updating content on the school website, simply because they are not motivated to do so. Functionally, you will have a uniform looking website, but the amount of fresh content will depend upon how motivated and reasonably trained users are. Note: This takes more than one individual to work successfully, unless that individual devotes significant time to content management.

BestMicrosoft Sharepoint: a public website that is connected to your internal documents.

Sharepoint is a very popular Microsoft technology that manages website content through a simple Internet Explorer interface. It’s based upon the permissions you as a user are granted on the site. It bridges the gap between whichever document is sitting on your desktop waiting to be shared and the ability to upload that document to your public facing website. In the simplest of terms, any staff member with permission to do so can create a document, save it to a specific folder on their desktop, and then synchronize it to the school’s public website.

Sharepoint provides a uniform and artistically appealing framework that easily synchronizes documents from desktops with the public facing website. By allowing the creators of your most frequently changed content to publish their materials directly to the website, you will ensure that your content is always up to date.

Admittedly, there are some underlying assumptions in this model, namely the required server and software infrastructure. But this infrastructure is not terribly expensive, especially when bundled with your annual school agreement license for Microsoft technologies. It is interesting to note that the Live@edu services I recently wrote about (which provides free email, document storage, and web pages for students) utilizes Sharepoint as a usable framework. Schools adopting the Live@edu services could more easily transition to the Sharepoint services for managing website content because of the initial familiarity with the technology and interface.

Summary

Managing content on your school website is a very large undertaking, and a process best accomplished by a method that delegates content creation to the responsible authors and where strict oversight is not required. Schools that can reduce the number of steps from content creation to online publication will have greater success in creating a dynamic public website.

And remember that content on the Internet is King! Even an imperfect looking website that has great resources—meaning fresh, accurate, relevant, and accessible content—will give you high marks when users to go answer the question, “How’s our school’s website?”

Finally, it is possible to use all three of the above models simultaneously to manage your website. You don't just have to use one model. Keeping all content resources within the framework of your site will give it a more uniform look.

Good, better, best,
Never let it rest;
Until your good is better,
And your better is your best.


Please let us know if you would like additional information about managing your website content more efficiently by using Sharepoint at your school.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Desktop Security - How to avoid getting the latest bug

I was raised on a small farm in Idaho, where, believe it or not, one of my daily chores was to milk a cow – by hand. It was not a particularly difficult task, but did require a few essential pieces of equipment (aside from the cow), that being a bucket, cleaning supplies, and a wooden stool. The stool had three legs and was crucial to a successful outcome of the task.

Think about that 3 legged stool as we address the topic of desktop security; there is a lesson.

You should understand three important components to adequately address desktop security, trying to provide security with less can be a problem. They are:
  1. A Firewall to block all of the ports into and out of your computer’s resources
  2. Antivirus software to detect and destroy malicious code that arrives on your computer
  3. Spyware/malware protection to avoid being tracked, hijacked, or otherwise taken for a ride
Although possible, it was rather hazardous to milk the cow using a one or even a two legged stool. And no stool at all was a real show stopper.Keep this corollary in mind as you consider how to protect your desktop from intrusions, virus’, and malware. Optimally you need all three, having none of them will eventually stop your computer from working – unless you have no connection to the outside world whatsoever.

What about one of the popular Security Suites?

A number of software companies provide security suites for PC’s. They attempt to combine all of the aforementioned security services into one package, and sometimes throw in some extras. Are these a good use of your resources? Generally, they are not and here is why.

The problem with most of the security suites on the market today is that they are akin to using a Lazyboy recliner to milk the cow (think of the above example).   Most of them just get in the way of getting the task at hand accomplished.

Let’s keep this real simple and cost effective to boot, by reviewing the three legs of the stool in more detail and how to construct them.

Desktop Firewall

Every Windows Operating System today has a built in firewall. It is more than adequate, especially now that most networks are protected by a gateway or perimeter firewall device. Even most consumer class DSL /Cable Modems, which connects you to the Internet now have this functionality.

So, rarely do you need to buy additional firewall software. In fact, part of the problems associated with added firewall software is the inevitable conflict with the Microsoft Windows firewall.  It either turns it off, tries overriding it, or attempts to co-exist with it.

Some of these third party firewalls are so obtrusive, they may actually block current programs or programs you are attempting to install. This in turn requires you to configure the firewall to allow access to these programs. And if you are installing one brand of security software that competes with the security software of another provider, the problem can even get worse.

As conflicts and performance issues arise, the firewall often gets turned off to accommodate running a particular program, defeating the entire purpose of the firewall in the first place.

My recommendation is to turn on the Windows Firewall and use it alone. If you have already purchased one of the Security Suites, simply uninstall or turn off the Firewall portion of that duplicate Firewall.

Antivirus Protection

Antivirus software is an essential part of securing your desktop or laptop. But having tried just about every brand out there, it is my opinion that few difference exists between them. No doubt there are minor differences in function and form, but most provide the same basic protection and nearly all Antivirus Software manufactures share Virus Signatures with each other in a cooperative manner, especially true during a new Virus outbreak.

It really boils down to price, and I mean total price.

Manually installing 100 copies of a free Antivirus solution in your school may be much more expensive that doing a centralized “push” type of installation from a server or management console, using a commercial antivirus solution. In other words, the hidden cost of labor could far outweigh the savings of “free” software.

My recommendation for organizations of 10 or less PC’s is to use one of the free antivirus programs available. My favorite is Microsoft Security Essentials. It is free (currently), reasonably light weight (meaning it is not a resource hog), and effective.

You can obtain a copy at the following URL: www.microsoft.com/security_essentials (don’t miss the underscore if you type that url) If you have a Microsoft school agreement, you can buy anti-virus, (end point ) protection for a few dollars per computer per year.

Spyware/Malware

The difference between a Virus, Spyware, or Malware infection can be very slight, indeed there is significant overlap in the two areas. And while much of the spyware or malware software is relatively harmless, it is a great idea to understand what software on your system may be running in the background without your knowledge or consent.

Common purposes of more serious Spyware/Malware programs are to harvest information from your system, utilize your system for unsavory purposes (such as sending out SPAM), track your browsing habits, and/or taking control of your computer.

There are all types of clever ways you can become infected with these programs, so you do need protection.  A common trick used to infect your system convincing you to install a free “Antivirus Program” or click on “Free Malware Scan”. This is usually accompanied by an unsolicited  pop-up telling you that your computer is infected.

I won’t even try to list the good, the bad, or the ugly when it comes to the enormous variety of programs in this category. I like to keep things real simple and cost effective.

My recommendation, again, for organizations of 10 or less PC’s is to use Microsoft Security Essentials. If you are still running Windows XP, then you'll need to look for Windows Defender, instead; it is still available for computers running earlier versions of Microsoft Windows. For a larger numbers of computers, please consider adding the software for your Microsoft School agreement.

Summary

I am quite aware these are all Microsoft solutions, but I make no apologies. In education, particularly, Microsoft provides a compelling value for software of all kinds. And who better is capable of understanding the real security issue of the Windows operating system than the company that created it.

And in spite of problems that are common to any mega Corporation, Microsoft has a wide variety of software solutions for education that perform as good or better than most other companies (especially in light of the wide variety of solutions they offer),and you can trust a genuine Microsoft product to actually work as specified.

Best of all - the programs mentioned above are free, or very close to it, and work quite happily together; or in larger quantities can be bundled with your School agreement at a fraction of the cost of buying antivirus software commercially.

One final note. You can dramatically improve desktop and laptop security by keeping your operating system up to date. Optimally, that would include a Windows 7 upgrade. As a minimum, be sure your installed operating system has all of the latest security patches. All versions on Windows have an update facility built right into the main menu.

Stay safe out there!

Friday, February 10, 2012

Just the FAX, please...and keep it green!

The widespread adoption of the fax machine in the 1980’s revolutionized communication of images. By using a relatively inexpensive facsimile machine one could transmit document based images over a basic telephone line.

Fax machines have since become common in organizations worldwide and provide a significant role in office communication.  However, according to GreenFax (www.greenfax.com), government research has shown that fax machines consume 200 billion pages of paper each year in the United States alone. If just five percent of this were done paperless, it could save up to 1 million trees a year.

So, how can you Fax more responsibly? It’s actually quite easy…

Think about using email instead of physically mailing a letter. In a similar manner, paperless faxing  (also termed Internet faxing or electronic faxing) has many advantages and features that a normal fax machine does not have, with only a few challenges that are easy to overcome.

The fundamental principle with paperless faxing is simply to keep the document in a digital format to the extent possible, only printing it when necessary. This might be easier than you imagine. Let’s break it down into two broad categories – inbound fax and outbound fax.

Inbound Fax:

Documents being sent to you are already in an electronic format, usually in a file format called .tif or .tiff (tagged image file format).  You know the process well. A sender places the document on a fax machine (scanner) and it is converted into an image file and transmitted electronically over a telephone line; and your fax machine interprets the electronic file and reconstitutes it into a printed image.

What if we just delivered that electronic image into your email inbox instead? Then you could read the fax and act upon in before printing it. Better yet, you could send it to the person in your organization that specifically needed the information – and keep a copy if you like.
 
Outbound Fax:

Many documents you fax outbound originate as digital images or files. They often consist of letters, memo’s, drawings, etc. which you are manipulating in one way or another on a computer device. Why then would you take the time to print the document on paper only to turn around and convert it back into an electronic image for transmission? This is a waste of both time and precious resources!

A simpler approach might be to just send the document directly from your workstation in one of the following ways:
  • Attach the document to an email message and fax it to an electronic fax service
  • Upload the document to a web based electronic fax service
  • Print the document to a virtual fax printer setup on your computer
  • Select send Internet Fax from within your Microsoft Word or Excel program
We know there are times when an electronic transmission of a fax will not do. Required signatures, notes on originals, and expediency are all valid reasons to not use electronic means of faxing. But like so many good ideas, just knowing the options and making a choice is a place to start.

If you would like to explore how your school can do more than pay lip service to the “Green” movement, and actually save some trees. Contact us for a demonstration on how you can begin using a paperless fax system in your organization. It costs about the same as a ream of paper per month, so it is pretty much a free solution!

For an interesting history about the development of the fax machine, go here: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/fax.htm

Friday, February 3, 2012

What’s the big deal about Live@edu? It’s more than a free email account

Offering your students free email will get you about as much mileage as offering them free brussel sprouts for lunch. It's just not a big deal anymore to have an email account, with Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, and Facebook mail all competing for young minds as an advertising audience.

However, there may be very good reason for your school to offer Live@edu services for students. Here are a few advantages of doing so:
  • Increased collaboration and communication among students and teachers
  • Security and control of your email environment
  • Brand and community building with customized logos, color schemes, and campaigns
  • Real world training for your students to communicate in a 21st Century work environment
  • Reduced infrastructure costs
So, it’s not really just free, it actually pays you significant dividends! Let’s dig a little deeper.
 
Increased collaboration and communication
 
By giving students the ability to email, instant message, video chat, share documents, and store homework assignments in the Live@edu system, you give them a powerful set of creative tools. They can collaborate on project documents using Microsoft Office Web apps, free online companions to Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and One Note.
 
Security and Control
 
Because the Live@edu is centrally managed by your internal staff, you have complete control over access to the system. And with Microsoft’s advanced email security you significantly reduce the risk of phishing, virus, and malware attacks on your internal systems. And in the event of a disciplinary matter, you have access to email communication and message archives.
 
Brand and community building
 
Think about every email sent outside of your organization as a small advertising snippet. As your students communicate around the world and across the community, your institution becomes more visible, relevant, and cutting edge. Your Live@edu email and workspaces are branded with your logo and school name.
 
Real world training
 
Live@edu services are built upon the same technology as Microsoft Office 365, a powerful and widely used business communication and collaboration system. Your students will gain valuable experience in real world communication by using Live@edu. And they can plug into the Live@edu from anywhere and on any device.
 
Reduced costs
 
How much are you spending for student servers? Maintaining shared drives, keeping track of student documents, managing student access, securing other student’s work, and keeping ahead of student hacks is a significant IT management cost. With 25GB of storage per student and access control by Live@edu account, you can eliminate a great deal of administrative expense.
 
Summary
 
Building a communication platform for students to email, instant message, video chat, share documents, and store homework assignments seems like a lot of infrastructure – and it is. An equivalent cost to build and manage such a system internally would be thousands of dollars, not to mention the administrative time diverted from more strategic initiatives.
 
Showcasing your school as a leader in technology and forward thinking will generate interest and improve your recruiting efforts.
K-12 institutions have a very specific set of requirements for cloud-based messaging and collaboration solutions. No one brings a richer set of free hosted solutions to the K-12 space than Microsoft Live@edu. Not only are our enterprise-grade services cost effective and flexible, but they also prepare students for the next step with professional tools used in higher education institutions and businesses the world over.
 
Let us help you implement a Live@edu solution on your campus.