docPowering Your Organization`s Web Presence using Open Source
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Powering Your Organization`s Web Presence using Open Source
Powering Your Organization’s Web Presence using Open Source and International Collaboration About Us Andrew Sinkinson Statistics Canada (613) 951-6882 [email protected] @Sinkinsona Stephen Russet Ottawa, Canada [email protected] @stephenrusset Mourad Faid Statistique Canada (613) 951-1264 [email protected] What is Drupal ? What is Drupal ? - Largest Open Source project in the world ! visit Drupal.org - Completely free to download and use - It’s a development framework - A platform for online content and user communities - Can be adapted to virtually any visual design - Built around a strong culture of collaboration Powers some of the busiest sites on the web Can be adapted to virtually any visual design What is the Web Experience Toolkit ? WET What is the Web Experience Toolkit ? - A code library for building innovative web sites that are: - Accessible, usable, and interoperable - Mobile friendly (responsive design) - Multilingual - Highly flexible (theme-able templates, reusable components) - Mega menu, multimedia player - Auto-generated charts and graphs - Tabbed interface and lightbox - HTML5 polyfills (handles browser support gaps) - Open source software - Developed by the community, and free to use What are Drupal Distributions ? - They allow for very quick setup of complex web sites in fewer steps - Some examples An Example: The WET Drupal Distro. Visit drupal.org/project/wetkit What makes Drupal stand out ? - A very mature Web Content Manageemnt System - In existance for over 12 years - Over 2 Million sites in production worldwide - Fully accessible and WCAG 2.0 compliant Enterprise ready - Scalable, Secure - Open architecture (easily extensible while preserving the core) - Modular (over 18,000 modules) - Low entry costs - Free to start - A very large collaborative community (over 1 Million members) Some Drupal Features - Multilingual Enable User Accounts and Privilege management Support Taxonomies Automatic Metadata/ HTML data Integrate Search capabilities Enable Content Deployment Include Web Feeds and Workflow Is responsive Provide out of the box Analytics and Reports Some Drupal Features - Automated content migration - Sophisticated means for importing and transforming data into WCMS - Supports quick migration roll-back and re-run until satisfied (Essential when dealing with very large amount of content to migrate !) - With out-of-the-box sample migration scripts - Scripts are easy to extend Along with a commitment to Open Standards - Extremely Flexible - Expandable (easy to add new functionality) - Integrates with a wide variety of systems Which Canadian organisations use Drupal ? How did we build the Distro. ? - The project was setup on on GitHub Discussions were handled using Issues Tracker Encouraged sharing of challenges and ideas Welcomed external contribution (from all fronts) Pull requests Developped using well formed Design Patterns Fully tested and documented Code integrity ensured through multi-level reviews How did we build the Distro. ? - We reached out to over a 100 contributors - Selected GOC departments - Provinces and Municipalities - Private sector - Academia - We created 5 working groups - Access, Quality Assurance, Technical, User Experience and Web Interoperability Working Groups The Result - A number of organisations have adopted the WET Distro. ! Few things we have learned along the way - Many are relunctant to post issues, questions, or simply request for help ! - @mentions is something many do not know/do not like to use - Due mainly to email habits, cultural norms (when to cc) - Usernames/Handles of people is part of the learning curve - Managers “cling” to printable issue reports rather than adopting issue queues Few things we have learned along the way - Government staffing practices (contractor, temporary help) are not geared towards Open Source projects - Procurement services / Project managers not familiar with open source practices - Biased perception with respect to public viewing of code, code ownership and intellectual property (IP) - Community code review and participation is uncommon - Some best practices - Set the project as an Open Source first. Defer to later whether to open source - Submit patches to upstream libraries to avoid break in upgrade support ! Few things we have learned along the way - Allow for a learning curve for use of markdown and GitHub - Users are familiar with WYSIWYG, email, and desktop tools (MS Suite) - Some best practices - Encourage staff to check issues on a continual basis (rather then of “post and forget”!) - Everyone can contribute content back to issues irrespective of job description/title - Use GitHub to become an active part of the conversation and the solution ! Some myths we had to demystify - Open Source Software - Not secure - Not scalable - Not supported (you are on your own !) - Unknown quality (not tested) - Difficulty to get out of the “organisation” silos - What’s in it for me in a collborative approach ? - How do I get my priorities addressed ? - Am I going to devote too much time to others ? - What about IP ? - Is the code I deploy “secure” ? Looking Ahead - Better alignment with GOC guidelines (CLF, etc.) - Increased reusability and standardization - Templates and module ready to be used and deployed - Streamlined web publishing process - Simplified maintenance - Separation of content from presentation - Controlled access - Enforced rules (through template usage) - Content back to the experts ! … More Benefits to Come Looking Ahead - Within GOC - Within Provinces, Municipalities, Universities - Internationally - US Government (25% of .gov sites run on Drupal) - UK, Australia, France, India, UN, and 130 countries More Opportunities to Collaborate Looking Ahead - - Be passionate and you will attract and be surrounded by passionate staff ! Be inclusive: Anyone can contribute and help make a difference Create a vision around “Collaboration” and “Sharing” Inspire people to be part of greater plans ! Be patient: It takes a lot to grow an Open Source project Use this opportunity to innovate faster ! “ Oh by the way, it’s not just about code… it’s about building communities that work together to solve common problems / challenges faced by all ! “ And last: Aim at the next level of WEM ! - - Systems enabling more than just publish content Attract users to your web site Provide dynamic and interactive experience Make users want to come back ! Eager to Collaborate ? - Over 100+ members from 50 organization contributing to WET Drupal - Drupal.org project page https://drupal.org/project/wetkit - Join the project on Github https://github.com/wet-boew/wet-boew-drupal - Try it for yourself at: http://simplytest.me/project/wetkit/7.x-1.x Documentation at: http://wiki.drupalwxt.org Thank You ! Andrew Sinkinson Statistics Canada (613) 951-6882 [email protected] @Sinkinsona Stephen Russet Ottawa, Canada [email protected] @stephenrusset Mourad Faid Statistique Canada (613) 951-1264 [email protected]
