Summary of April 23, 1997, Web-Walkers meeting

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 11:25:50 -0400
From: Judy Hallman <hallman@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>
To: Web-Walkers <web-walkers@unc.edu>
Cc: david_luttrell@unc.edu, doug_short@unc.edu,
Chad Kearsley <chadk@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Summary of Apr. 23 Web-Walkers meeting

To Web-Walkers:

Summary of Web-Walkers April 23 meeting on Lotus Domino

The April 23 meeting was:
The Lotus Domino web server brings the power of the Lotus Notes database and groupware architecture to the web through a web browser.

David Luttrell, Doug Short, and Chad Kearsley talked about the initiatives currently being developed by the Institute for Academic Technology (IAT) that take advantage of the Lotus Domino, projects for the English Department, the Writing Center, the Learning Center, the School of Education, Morehead Observatory, and the Ackland Art Museum.

Overview -- Chad Kearsley

Chad gave an overview from the user end.

Lotus Domino is a Web server, that gives access to Lotus Notes, a docubase. Chad showed us some of the work being done to develop a database of lesson plans for North Carolina schools, at http://www.learnnc.org/. LEARN NC is a subscription services; it is funding based. A userid and password are required to access the lesson plan database only. The LEARN NC website and related resource databases are all examples of Lotus Domino in action.

The teachers can control their view of the database, for example, by date, by title, by author; and there is a search option. It is easy to edit lesson plans. You don't need to know any HTML. It is also easy to copy an existing lesson plan and modify it.

Writing submitted to the Writing Center can be brought up and edited by the tutor. When the tutor is done, e-mail is sent to the author saying that the tutor is done. The author can then review the comments.

The Online Writing Center is open for students, staff, and faculty during the Spring and Summer sessions. Drop by the Writing Center homepage to try it out: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/

Doug Short (IAT Fellow; developer)

Doug showed us some of the work that is being done with images at http://scribe.iat.unc.edu/IAT_dev/Doug/image.nsf/ Topics and concepts can be developed using forms; gif files can be attached. The author can change elements, like background color, without knowing HTML.

Doug also showed some work he did on courses with the School of Nursing at Duke.

Dave Luttrell (Systems)

The Institute is running the Lotus Domino server (powered by Notes) under a Windows NT server. Notes is a groupware product for collaboration. The native Notes client is a resource hog, but provides a high degree of security. Domino translates Notes to HTML and vice versa. In the future, development will be done with the Web client, but not yet.

The Lotus Domino server can provide a common look and feel for courses, through templates. The database is part of the server.

AIS is in the process of building a Domino server.

InfoWorld April 21 has a good review. There is also more info at http://www.lotus.com and http://www.microsoft.com.

Followup

The Learning Center (http://scribe.iat.unc.edu/Campus/LC/LCenter.nsf?OpenDatabase) is now linked into the campus web -- added to "Academic and Administrative Units" and "Administrative and Educational Support Units" and "What's New on the Campus Web."

Attendees (there were more; not all signed in):

Steve Davis, Research Labs of Anth, rpsdavis.alumni@mhs.unc.edu
Marforie Fowler, UNC Press, marjorie_fowler@unc.edu
Bill Groves, ATN, bill_groves@unc.edu
Judy Hallman, ATN, judy_hallman@unc.edu
Garry Halstead, FPG, halstead@email.unc.edu
Morgan Jones, Bus. School, morgan_jones@unc.edu
Pratik R. Patel, MetaLab, prpatel@sunsite.unc.edu
David Potenziani, HCRL-SPH, dpotenzi@email.unc.edu
Brenda Roberts, AIS, brenda_roberts@unc.edu
Vin Steponaitis, Research Labs of Anth, vin@unc.edu

Judy Hallman (judy_hallman@unc.edu, http://www.unc.edu/~hallman/)
Campus-Wide Information Systems Manager, UNC-Chapel Hill