CUNY Academic Commons

Hi Matt/Boone, some clarification questions:

• In the way we're currently thinking about courses, could a course have multiple sites associated with it? Or just one?
• Could a course have multiple groups associated with it? Or just one? My sense is just one, since a group can be linked to one site on the Commons, and a course is a type of site.
• What does it mean for a group to be designated as a course?
• Matt, can you elaborate some on what you mean by "select groups/sites manually"? Not sure I understand.

• In the way we're currently thinking about courses, could a course have multiple sites associated with it? Or just one?

In most situations, there will be a single main course site. Students may create other sites associated with the course for projects, but we wouldn't classify those as "course" sites.

• Could a course have multiple groups associated with it? Or just one? My sense is just one, since a group can be linked to one site on the Commons, and a course is a type of site.

Just one group.

• What does it mean for a group to be designated as a course?

It means that we are marking it, through metadata, as a course, which then allows us to compile a list of courses. At least right now, we are not talking about changing the properties of "course" groups or sites, though we are moving towards setting up some default templates for them in our development work next year.

The main reason for this request, overall, is that people want to see a list of course sites on the Commons. They want this for various reasons -- faculty want inspiration and to see what others are doing; administrators want reporting -- but adding courses to the nav bar will make course sites/groups easier to find.

• Matt, can you elaborate some on what you mean by "select groups/sites manually"? Not sure I understand.

At our meeting on Friday, we discussed our next year of work. Through the site launch process that Luke/Laurie specced out, we will eventually know which sites/groups are course sites/groups because people will mark them out as such through the launch process.

Until we have that in place, I (or others) could go through sites/groups and mark them as courses on a one-by-one basis.

Thanks, Erik, for these helpful thoughts. One thing we might think about is a MVP here, which I would say would be the following:

-- a courses link in the main navigation bar in the two places you show in the PNGs you attached.
-- when clicked, the link would show a courses page that shows a listing of courses

If we just start there, we have some things to figure out -- how do we display courses that have connected sites and groups? How do we display courses that have only sites, or only groups?

I very much agree with everything else you've laid out above -- it would be awesome to be able to filter courses by topic/campus/discipline/professor/etc, and to see a list of "My Courses." I guess one question, perhaps for Boone, is whether, if we are looking to include this in the Fall launch, we should just start with the MVP and think about these other issues for the Spring, or whether we can try to do it all for the Fall.

But at a basic level, and at a minimum, we would just need a page that shows courses on the Commons.

I'm in agreement with Matt that we should shoot for something modest at first, especially if we plan to do something for the fall. The additional filters suggested by Erik would require us to collect various sorts of metadata that we don't currently have a mechanism to collect, which invariably leads us into discussions about the course (site? group?) creation process, which is something we've agreed to set aside until at least spring 2019. Moreover, we'll likely be identifying "courses" manually at first, which will already be a labor-intensive and error-prone process; adding a layer of manual metadata generation ("instructor", etc) would make the job much harder.

Before thinking too much about exactly what this new directory will look like, I would like to have a better understanding of the content of the page, and how it interacts with other parts of the site. Currently, items in the top-level nav represent "first class objects": Groups are different from Sites are different from Events, etc. We don't have a "Course" object type, and from my understanding we are not suggesting the introduction of one. Instead, there will be certain objects of existing types - groups and sites - that have an additional piece of metadata that says "I am a course". For example:

1. Are we indeed including Sites and Groups on the Courses panel? Or are we only talking about one object type?
2. If we're including both types, are they collated together, or are they separated out? (separate tabs or columns or something)
3. If a group/site is a Course, does it cease to appear on the Groups/Sites pages?
4. If the answer to 3 is "no", then is there an indication in the Groups/Sites directory that an item is a course?
5. If a group is a course, is there an indication on the group home page? Where and what?
6. Same question as 5 but for sites - the problem here is harder, since sites can have different themes, and thus there's not a consistent place to put this kind of metadata.
7. What do we do with groups linked to sites? Do they get listed on Courses two times? If they're combined, which is the "primary" item? What if the group is private but site public, or vice versa?

Thank you for these thoughts, Erik -- it's excellent to get these ideas on the table. I wonder if we should set up a meeting between you, me, Luke, and Chris (along with anyone else who would want to join) to continue brainstorming on this. It seems to me that this discussion would benefit from some in-person collective thinking.

I've followed the discussion and some good points are raised and I agree an in-person meeting might be helpful. I'm travelling and will be back on July 9. I can make time most days of the week except for Thursday.

Following up on today's meeting, it sounds like the fall scope will have us presenting a pretty modest amount of data: course name, site (+ privacy?) if it exists, group (+ privacy?) if it exists, faculty member name and profile link. We'll initially get inspiration for the design from our existing directories, though objects may be presented in a more uniform way than the either-group-or-site conventions in some of Erik's earlier mockups. IMO this means that we should not have avatars (only groups have avatars at the moment - site avatars belong to their owners - so having avatars only from those courses with groups would be visually inconsistent). It also means that the course title will not link to anything - only the group and site links. Erik, does this seem like a fair takeaway? Do we need an updated mockup to show how this might look?

Ray, my current thought is that we should introduce some new sort of data object that supports "containers" of this kind. We might think of it as a 'cac_container', and the particular kind of 'cac_container' in this case is 'course'. 'cac_containers' can then have names, descriptions, etc, as well as optional links to sites, groups, and so forth. This is somewhat more abstract than we strictly need, but I think it's the only way to maintain our sanity about data and sources-of-truth. Does this seem sensible to you? I'm thinking of just making it a CPT for the time being so that we don't have to build a bunch of UI and a database layer, though we can rethink this later on once we have a better sense of what kinds of data the "containers" will have to hold.

Thanks, Boone. my thoughts:

-- I do agree that the course title will not link to anything but that the group/site links will.
-- I think it would be nice for there to be avatars if at all possible. It will give the page visual interest. (Erik -- FYI, here is the OpenLab courses page -- https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/courses/ ). I am not sure how we would choose an avatar for this first iteration in the fall, though. maybe we could create ones manually from site header images or the like? I know that sounds fuzzy/unclear, but I think that images on this course listing page would be a very nice feature, certainly one that we include when we do the spring release and start building content for this page automatically
-- the other piece of information I'd love to include if possible this fall is the campus. that's pretty important info.

For a lot of this stuff, I think we will be able to enter it manually for the fall by looking over the course spaces (and possibly contacting faculty if needed)

-- the other piece of information I'd love to include if possible this fall is the campus. that's pretty important info.

Yes, this should not be a problem to add.

I think it would be nice for there to be avatars if at all possible.

Manual entry of avatars for things that don't have them (ie courses without groups) is going to be very complicated, both technically and in terms of manual entry. Technically, it's very hard to build a new interface for uploading/selecting/cropping images, so we'd likely have to fall back on image URLs, but these URLs would have to come from somewhere, and it's not clear where that would be. Adding this feature is likely to double the implementation time for the Courses tab, and may jeopardize our ability to get it done for the fall. Moreover, it's likely that whatever functionality we add as an interim fix will have to be overridden extensively for future interfaces, where users are able to do this themselves. For these reasons, I strongly suggest either (a) tabling avatars altogether for v1, (b) using only group avatars and leaving a blank space (or a default image) where a course doesn't have a group, or (c) using the user's avatar in cases where no other avatar is available (this is how sites already work). Either of these three options is far easier to implement for the fall.

Boone Gorges wrote:

Manual entry of avatars for things that don't have them (ie courses without groups) is going to be very complicated, both technically and in terms of manual entry. Technically, it's very hard to build a new interface for uploading/selecting/cropping images, so we'd likely have to fall back on image URLs, but these URLs would have to come from somewhere, and it's not clear where that would be. Adding this feature is likely to double the implementation time for the Courses tab, and may jeopardize our ability to get it done for the fall. Moreover, it's likely that whatever functionality we add as an interim fix will have to be overridden extensively for future interfaces, where users are able to do this themselves. For these reasons, I strongly suggest either (a) tabling avatars altogether for v1, (b) using only group avatars and leaving a blank space (or a default image) where a course doesn't have a group, or (c) using the user's avatar in cases where no other avatar is available (this is how sites already work). Either of these three options is far easier to implement for the fall.

Sigh. Okay, fine -- let's leave this to the Spring, then.

I think v. 1 should be as quick and dirty and simple to update as possible while also meeting our goal of collecting course-related Commons activity in one place. Maybe we can add visual interest with styling and with iconography for the jumps to the sites and groups. Perhaps something Lael could help with, Matt?

Luke Waltzer wrote:

Perhaps something Lael could help with, Matt?

That's a really nice idea

(Erik and Boone -- Lael is a designer we already have on board for some work; he is the designer I've been working with [through Cast Iron Coding] on Manifold -- http://manifoldapp.org )

Manual entry of avatars for things that don't have them (ie courses without groups) is going to be very complicated

FWIW, BuddyPress piggybacks off of the Site Icon functionality for blog avatars. You can set the Site Icon in the WP dashboard via the WP customizer (Administration Screen > Appearance > Customize).

More info here:
https://codex.wordpress.org/Creating_a_Favicon#WordPress_Version_4.3_or_later

So if a course uses a WP site, all the admin needs to do is set the Site Icon and that should be it.

Oh, I forgot that that's the case, Ray. If so, it might be an easy integration that's worth doing.

It should be pretty easy if you use bp_get_blog_avatar():
https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.1.0/src/bp-blogs/bp-blogs-template.php?marks=347#L322

However, that is only used within the blogs loop. We can figure something out if we're calling on this outside the blogs loop though.

Yeah, this will make it technically easier, but it still depends on people having set their blog avatar, which won't be the case for most. I guess I'd lean toward leaving it out until there's a system in place that allows people to upload it.

All, thanks much for the great feedback.

• course title (no underlying link),
• site (+ privacy?) if it exists,
• group (+ privacy?) if it exists,
• faculty member name,
• profile link, and
• campus name

Is that right?

Boone, I'll flesh out some updated mockups over the next few days and post here.

Thanks, Erik. That sounds right to me.

Thanks so much for these, Erik!

1 (table).png seems closest, imo.

I'm a bit concerned about including the "instructor" field, at least in v.1 of this interface. That link doesn't map to an existing data source (we can't assume that site or group admin will always be the instructor, and we can't assume there'll be only one instructor). If we want to list that, we'll have to game out scenarios.

Some similar complexity with campus, but a bit more manageable... most (but not all) courses will be on a single campus, and we can anticipate pulling from the site/group metadata once that interface is built.

Hi Luke -- I hear your concerns, and I agree with your general desire to keep things simple on v1, but I think that multiple instructors for a single course represent a pretty small use case overall. Given how important instructor info is, both for students and faculty looking for particular sections of a course, I think we should keep the instructor name in on this first go-around if we can.

This is cool, Boone -- thank you. I am adding Sonja as a watcher because I do feel this could use a touch of design. Sonja, if you see ways to style this to improve the visual appearance (in line w/the rest of the CAC), please let us know

Please add Year (4 digits) Semester (Fall, Spring, Summer, Winter ) data points

Matt Gold wrote:

This is cool, Boone -- thank you. I am adding Sonja as a watcher because I do feel this could use a touch of design. Sonja, if you see ways to style this to improve the visual appearance (in line w/the rest of the CAC), please let us know

Matt, are you referring to looking at improving the visual appearance of the "adding a course" screen or how the course renders in the course list for members?
Boone, the flow in the gif looks intuitive!

Hi Sonja, since we are releasing in November, our options are a bit limited. I would say that in general I am hoping we have have just a bit more improvement on the visual appearance generally. If you other ideas, we would love to hear them, but if they involve significant development efforts we may not be able to implement them immediately. I would suggest a conversation with Boone on these matters -- perhaps you two can talk about it next week when you connect

To clarify, I don't think Matt is concerned with the "adding a course" workflow, as it's not going to be visible to users, and is an admin-only tool. The concern is with the public-facing directory, shown here https://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/attachments/8840/CNonNA2.png

It may be helpful for Sonja to have some background on the context for this ticket. Let's talk about it this week, either during the dev call if you're on it, or when we have our kickoff call

Following up from last Friday's call, I've added the ability to associate a course object with one or more academic term: https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac-courses/commit/041bc1cfbe8a0bfaf6984491531d81f34544b6ff After I've had an initial talk with Sonja about design issues, we can talk about how/whether this should be integrated into the v1 interface.

Thanks, Sonja! I've implemented your suggestion about multiple columns. You can see this in action on our shared testing environment, which we often call "cdev". Instructions: https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/groups/cac-community-team-project-planning/docs/cdev-connection-instructions/

There is no Commons style guide, though I strongly believe there should be one. The only question is to what extent we should spend time codifying what's currently on the site, as opposed to an "aspirational" styleguide that can guide our redesign process.

Agreed on the need for a style guide And it would be awesome to have you work on that, Sonya. Chris may have put together the beginnings of one — I remember him doing something around buttons across the Commons

Boone’s question is a good one, though. We do need to redesign the entire site, so should we do a style guide now, wait for the redesign, or use the style guide us a chance to move us towards the redesign?

Boone Gorges wrote:

Thanks, Sonja! I've implemented your suggestion about multiple columns. You can see this in action on our shared testing environment, which we often call "cdev". Instructions: https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/groups/cac-community-team-project-planning/docs/cdev-connection-instructions/

I'm sorry but I can't get to the /courses/ overview page. I added the line to my hosts file, but now my login for WP no longer works on commons.gc.cuny.edu
Is this the cdev site's url: https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/

There is no Commons style guide, though I strongly believe there should be one. The only question is to what extent we should spend time codifying what's currently on the site, as opposed to an "aspirational" styleguide that can guide our redesign process.

I've created a new ticket for the style guide and assigned it to me: #10439
I would approach it by first taking inventory of all existing styles on the site (I assume there are a lot of unnecessary duplicates or variations of styles), then make decisions together which ones to drop/replace to simplify the style guide to achieve more consistent styles. We want to only includes styles we need, e.g. one style for each of these: primary button large, primary button small, secondary button large, secondary button small, link style in text, nav styles (default, hover, active), etc.

Matt Gold wrote:

Boone’s question is a good one, though. We do need to redesign the entire site, so should we do a style guide now, wait for the redesign, or use the style guide us a chance to move us towards the redesign?

It would be beneficial to create the style guide, especially the taking an inventory of styles across the site could be very beneficial to work towards a redesign.

Boone Gorges wrote:

Yes, cdev has the same URL as the production site. You'll know you're looking at cdev because you'll see a red flag at the lower right of every screen (see screenshot). User names are not synced automatically; I've just created an account there for you, so if you get a password reset email, note that it's for cdev, not for the production site. If you didn't get the password reset email, let me know and I'll manually reset your password. If you're not seeing the red flag with the line in /etc/hosts, try opening a private/incognito browser window - and don't forget to remove/comment out when you're ready to look at the production site.

Thanks Boone, didn't receive the pw reset email (checked spam too). Please manually reset and send me an email with the pw. Thanks for your help with this!

Email's partially crippled on cdev, which may be why you didn't get it. I've just emailed you a password.

Thanks Boone, I was able to access the cdev site. Implementation is looking good. We'll just need to add some cascading styles for mobile: let's stack the columns on mobile to one column content.

Sonja, I agree that it should go down to 1 column on mobile.

Boone you can do that by making sure to specify Flex-wrap for the flex box and adding in a flex-basis. Here is an example pen: https://codepen.io/profstein/pen/bmewVL (I chose 300px for the flex-basis but didn’t have time to test it out on mobile devices so change that as needed).

I have to disagree about having Sonja spending time doing a style guide or inventory of styles of the current site. It’s a mess and something that we would basically throw out when we redesign. But I do think there are things we could do to document functionality and needs.

Along those lines I have this site I made 3 or 4 years ago that is a start at documenting the current interface elements: https://redesign2015.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

Sonja, I sent you an invite to the site. Let em know if you don’t get it.

Here is the document on buttons that you were referring to Matt: http://www.teachingmultimedia.com/commons/buttons/buttons.html

If you read it you’ll see that there are a number of different styles which are sometimes confusingly used. [Some of these issues have actually be remediated.]

Instead of documenting the styles that we have, I would instead advocate that time be spent documenting functionality and types of interface elements. If we do that it could be a valuable tool for the redesign.

So at a higher level than buttons, but maybe how much do we have an list of items with title, thumb, date, description, or when do we use tabs, etc.

For the redesign we can then focus on whether these are the right interfaces, making a style guide etc.

I would also advocate against what I’m doing here and move the conversation on style guides and redesign to another thread either here in red mine or on the Commons.

Hi Boone,

One note. I spoke to a colleague Anna Akasoy, last week who told me that she is teaching a few courses on the Commons using only groups. I don't believe that she is on the list that Raven and Anthony compiled. Is there a way to add a sentence like this to the top of the listings?

"Don't see your Commons-hosted course listed here? Please get in touch, and we'd be happy to add it!"

With "get in touch" linked to the email address support@cunycommons.zendesk.com

In Anna's case, the issue is likely that the groups are hidden. The Courses directory, in this iteration, won't show any non-public courses.

I've added the suggested message in https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/f02c945185f908d00b5e17efbc4bd6f80781cd41.

Boone Gorges wrote:

In Anna's case, the issue is likely that the groups are hidden. The Courses directory, in this iteration, won't show any non-public courses.

I've added the suggested message in https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/f02c945185f908d00b5e17efbc4bd6f80781cd41.

Thanks!