Summary
The website has been running smoothly and consistently. We are currently reviewing a set of upgrades that will be pushed to the main website in the next two weeks. As usual, some figures regarding website usage are provided in the Analytics section.
The three main topics of this report are
- Mailing lists .
- New contracting method with SFU .
- Upgrade of system infrastructure.
Mailing Lists
The mailing lists have become less reliable and incredibly harder to manage over the past few months. We propose to discontinue the mailing lists and replace it with the following mechanisms:
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- Replacement for announcement list. Instead of subscribing to the mailing list, IT community members can subscribe to an RSS feed, which can be visualized in most email applications; a notification is received whenever a new item or event is posted. This service is already available for testing by subscribing to the RSS feeds http://www.itsoc.org/news-events/recent-news/ and http://www.itsoc.org/news-events/upcoming-events/ . This solution tremendously simplifies list management (no SPAM, subscription is the responsibility of the end-user)
- Replacement for bog announce lists. We propose to replace the bog-announce mailing list by providing a simpler mechanism to contact all bog members. The list of BoG members is already available on the website as a PeopleList, and we suggest to add a "Contact List" button on the page. This functionality will allow members of the BoG to populate an email with all the emails of BoG members. This solution will simplify list management since the list of BoG members on the website is easier to update than the current mailing list. Note that this functionality will also be available to all PeopleList on the website, hence providing a simple means of communication for chapters, committees, etc.
- Replacement for bog discuss list. The bog discuss seems seldom used, but it can be replaced by a (private) discussion page on the website. An example of discussion is illustrated [ here ].
- Replacement for bog-vote. The bog-vote will be be replaced by a mechanism similar to that for the bog-announce list.
- Allow members of the group defined by a PeopleList object to send an email to all the members of the group. question : does 'all' mean all members ever or only current members?? (members with a position in the current year)
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- Sender can choose to send a copy to themselves. If they do so, their name will be added to the appropriate field (bcc or to, see list type below)
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- Sender can specify the subject and body text of the email ( question : should the email be formatted, html text or plain text?)
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- Default value is 'yes' to self-copy
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- Allow the manager of the group to control settings for the mailer:
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- Control the type of list 'blind' or 'open'
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- 'blind' list puts the emails of the recipients into the 'BCC' field with the email of the sender in the 'from' fields
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- 'open' list puts the emails of the recipients into the 'to' field and the email of the sender in the 'from' field
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- Default value is 'open'
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- Control the list of group members who are allowed to use the mailer:
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- Either 'all' members or a selected list. The manager of the group is always allowed to use it.
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- Default value is 'all' members
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New contracting method with SFU
Recent interactions with SixFeetUp have highlighted the need for more flexibility in how we establish contracts. Presently, contracts are established based on precisely identified tasks (i.e. developing a new feature, fixing a bug), which are then converted into a number of billable hours. Any change to the contract requires either the creation of an addendum to the contract, or even a new contract. We propose to establish the next contracts for a number of billable hours instead of precise tasks. The main advantages of this contracting method are
- to have greater flexibility and reactivity in order to address discovered bugs or re-prioritize software development if a timely manner;
- to avoid unnecessary interactions with IEEE.
Although this contracting method will not change how we interact with SixFeetUp and will not affect our operating budget, the Online Committee asks for the BoG's approval of the new contracting method.
Upgrade of system infrastructure
In order to ensure that the website infrastructure is up to date and benefits from the latest features and security patches, the system (Plone) will eventually have to be migrated to Plone 2.5 to Plone 4.0. This is not an urgent matter, but we should consider this type of migration every 3-5 years. SixFeetUp has not yet provided estimates of this migrations cost, but we expect it to be in the order of a few k$. The Online Committee would like the BoG to consider increasing the Online Committee Budget when such a migration is needed to avoid sacrificing the operating budget.
Analytics
The last five months of web traffic show over 300 visits / day with 60.08% from search engines, 23.85% from direct traffic, and 16.07% from referring sites. The table below compares various analytics between the three-month periods of 05/11/2011-07/30/2011 and 07/30/2011-10/17/2011.
| Statistic | 07/30/2011-10/17/2011 | 05/11/2011-07/30/2011 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visits | 24,723 | 21,938 | +12.69% |
| Pageviews | 64,181 | 68,580 | -6.41% |
| Pages/Visit | 2.6 | 3.13 | -16.96% |
| Bounce Rate | 61.34% | 57.94% | +5.87% |
| Avg. Time | 2:03 | 2:39 | -22.3% |
| New Visits | 48.54% | 44.74% | +8.51% |
All of the above statistics may be self explanatory except for bounce rate , which is the percentage of single-page visits. The growth in visits overall is encouraging; other number suggest that the community has grown a bit more accustomed to the site over time.
| Page name | Pageviews |
|---|---|
| paper awards | 1,413 |
| information for authors | 1,382 |
| qip 2012 | 1,377 |
| recent news | 1,318 |
| ISIT 2012 | 1,128 |