WebLion:

Open Source Content Management for Penn State

Christian Vinten-Johansen

Penn State University

Feeling the Pain

Academic and Service Units Have Common Problems

How to manage the flood of content?

How to manage content quality?

How to meet standards and accessibility?

How to support collaboration?

How can we afford this?

Web sites Aren't Usable

Non-intuitive navigation, broken links, orphaned pages

Inconsistent content quality; stale and untimely content

Non-standard, invalid markup — pages inaccessible

Emphasis on visual design at the expense of functionality and usability

No interactivity, participation, collaboration or personalization

Search for Causes

The webmaster bottleneck - inadequate staffing?

Inadequate tools?

Inadequate and outdated skills?

Shortage of resources — sub-optimal deployment of existing resources?

Broken workflow — inadequate processes from content creator through editor and publisher?

Redesign cycles out of control?

What We Need

Basic functional requirements for a CMS

Distributed, through-the-web content authoring

Role-based workflow, integrates with infrastructure (e.g., LDAP)

Protected templates — no access to markup by content providers and editors

Content reusability and scheduling

Extensibility — plug-in architecture, open API

Scalability — use in many sites and services

What We Need

Integrates with existing network and security infrastructure

Internationalization and localization

Host platform independence: Linux, OS X, FreeBSD, Windows, Solaris

Browser independence: Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera...

Support for all popular SQL-based RDBMS

Syndication, aggregation, web services, WebDAV

Collaborative applications — Wikis, blogs, publications, analysis, reporting...

Accessibility/Nondescrimination
Statements Affect Requirements

Standards-compliant markup

XHTML Specification (W3C)

CSS visual design

W3C Cascading Style Sheets Specification

Accessible (Section 508)

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

Standards-compliant sites cost less!

The Open-Source Option

Zope Users Group

Members wrote a white paper making the case for a community development model for customizing an open source CMS for Penn State

ZUG membership — experienced developers, system administrators and content authors/editors

Experience with Zope, Plone and other CMS

Introducing the WebLion Project

Open source content management system

Zope 2 application framework

Plone CMS

Development community

Agile programming project management

Self-supporting business model

Seed money offers service

Partnerships support costs and salaries

WebLion Application

WebLion is a Customization of Zope and Plone for the Penn State Web environment

Complies with Policy AD54 Web Page Design and Image

Complies with W3C XHTML markup recommendations (i.e., "standards")

Complies with ADA Section 508 requirements

Branding and page element requirements

WebLion Application

Zope application framework, plug-in architecture

Plone CMS: plug-in for Zope

Python macros and scripts: extensible functionality

ZODB: Zope Database is object oriented

Template language for easy customization of content views and page design

Security: finely granular, customizable and extensible; integrates with existing infrastructure

WebLion Plug-in Products

FlexTemplate — easy CSS customization

Authentication — integration with Web Access

Faculty/Staff Directory — searchable directory and CVs

SQIConnector — federated search web service

Mobilize — page views for mobile devices

Design and installation tools

User interface components

Zope Application Framework

Many applications — one plug-in architecture

Plone CMS

Silva document management system

Course management: eduCommons course authoring and delivery; Rhaptos Just-In-Time publication system

Specialized academic and service sites

Conference, training and seminar registration system

Business Model

Vision: build a long-lived, sustainable development community around an open source application framework

Seed money from ITS and partners starts the project

Partners dedicate funds and IT staff to the development community

Partnerships —

Departments, small units and projects: 2-year $5k

Colleges and large units: 2-year, $25k

A growing community creates credibility and attracts new partners

Cooperating units commit staff to projects

WebLion Development Community

Members: core team, partners, Zope Users Group

Developers, designers, content providers, stakeholders

Stakeholders: sysadmins, marketing representatives, financial officers, scientists, unit administrators, faculty, ...

Colonizers: anonymous users who download and customize the product

WebLion Development Community

Code Repository and Best Development Practices

Subversion source code management system

"Safe" collaboration tools

Version control, backup and controlled access

WebLion Subversion repository: anonymous access to project code

Peer training for best development practices

Automation and code generation, code management, reuse, and testing

WebLion Development Community

Support and Training

Peer training and collaboration

Community maintains the WebLion Wiki the central point for trouble tickets, documentation, and project management

Intensive training sessions:

Joel Burton, Plone Foundation and consultant

Mark Lutz, Python language author and trainer

WebLion Development Community

Support and Training

Coding sprints provide format for training

Select project for general usefulness or pedagogical value

Activities coordinated with other user groups, e.g., Web Standards Users Group

Support forums

WebLion IRC channel and user group listserve

Plone IRC channel and lists are extrememly active

WebLion Community Growth