On 25 Sep, Teri, Lisa, and Randy combined to give us an update on the background and plans as they stand now for the FY14 creation of a suite of activities known as UConnect at UCAR. UConnect at UCAR is a new mission critical task for Spark.
The PPT on the wiki under the Attachments Link here contains nearly everything that was discussed in the meeting. (Keynote file is here in Attachments under "Tools")
In addition, the group in attendance (12 Spark staff), raised some excellent questions and discussion points noted below:
- Based on a graph in the PPT, several at the meeting wondered why the mobile access of UCAR sites is as low as it is. It seemed too low. Is this because our site(s) is not as mobile friendly as it could/should be, OR, do people just not think to access our site via mobile platforms because they "all have desktops", or some combination or other reason.
- Rebecca noted that SOARS is planning to do 3 or 4 webinars (lead by Val Sloan) this coming year on topics like professional development, how to pick a grad school, etc. The target audience is planned to be SOARS alumni, current proteges and other interns. She wants to work with UConnect and the editorial calendar to integrate the offerings and everyone agreed this is absolutely the way to go. SOARS already reaches most Deans so it is a great way to get UConnect out to universities through this established network too.
- Becca inquired about being able to use the videos produced via UConnect in the ML exhibits and we discussed that this should absolutely be possible and encouraged.
- Rebecca asked who will "control" approve the content for "the videos" that we produce to ensure that they meet all objectives including representing diverse audiences (so that we can actually CONNECT with diverse audiences). Even users with special needs should be considered. We agreed a check list for desirable considerations for videos needs to be created. We agreed that it is likely a team of people that contribute to the content of the videos and the team will vary by topic.
The next big UConnect at UCAR activities are a planning meeting on 30 Sept AND a meeting during the Members meeting with representatives on 9 October. Teri referred Spark staff back to the website list shared from our July Tagup for examples of some of the best educational sites that are either:
- examples of ways to professionally curate resources across a given subject area
- examples of innovations using new html5 features or other state-of-the-art ways to engage