The Higher Education Web Professionals association, puts on one of the most insightful conferences around. This year, the 2020 conference is completely online.

Here are a few of my notes from the first day:

Lightning Talks

• Mise-En-Place: How the Technique of Top Chefs Can Improve Your Workflow
  • Jon-Stephen Stansel – Digital Media Specialist – University of Central Arkansas
• Data, Tracking, and Reporting During a Pandemic
  • Brian Piper – Director of Content Strategy and Assessment – University of Rochester
• Old School HTML with Modern Web Components
  • Nikki Massaro Kauffman – Programmer/Analyst – Penn State University
• The Art of the Interview: How to Ask Good Questions that Lead to Great Content
  • Jenna Spinelle – Communications Specialist – Penn State McCourtney Institute for Democracy
• Rock the Mic Like a Vandal: Karaoke and the Art of Leading
  • Jeff Stevens – Assistant Web Manager, Content and Social Strategy – UF Health

Why and How You Should Add AR to Your Marketing and Communications Mix

Thomas Deneuville – Director of Web Services and UX – Cornell University

• Cool session about AR. Talked about history and complex solutions, then dove into the WebWR: JS API!
• Unfortunately, the stream crapped out halfway through… may have missed a few points.
• Came back! Now talking about apps and SDKs.
• Good example of trying on shoes via AR. “AR is the future of fashion”
• Great educational examples as well. Animals, chemistry, portals.

Self-Publishing: Streamlining The Campus Web Platform

Blake Bertuccelli – Founder & Innovation Director – Decubing Web
Services

• Anyone with an email can create a site.
• Encourages using a “tour” feature for the content creators.
• Recommends Gutenberg (even when not on WP)
• Allows users to add other users with roles like: teacher, student, follower, etc…
• Allow entire sites to be published/unpublished.
• Great set of docks and build in workflows.
• Starting to post on Github: https://github.com/Tulane
• They are interested in “creating a jetpack for schools“
• All on one multisite system. The DB is not distributed, but they can go that direction as it grows.

Make Your Own Legos: How Web Components Can Empower Your Editors

Stephen Fornal – Manager of Web Development – Tarrant County College District

• Web component tags require a dash (-). Best practice it to decide on a prefix. For us it could be pcc-component-1, pcc-component-2, etc…
• Shadow dom – a separate, encapsulated dom tree.
• Looks really nice for creating reusable content blocks that contain their own styles and css.
• Useful for shops where others are coding html. They can use blocks like <pcc-toggle></pcc-toggle> rather than building one from scratch.

(Plain) Language Matters: Creating Web Content That is Accessible, Usable and Understood

Rachell Underhill – Director of Web and Information Systems – UNC-Chapel Hill Graduate School

• Words matter
• When possible, use pronoun ‘you’ – or – even better, use the person named.
• Don’t:
  • The student will need to submit their records.
• Do:
  • You will need to submit your records.
• No double negatives: The results are not inconclusive = The results are conclusive
• Paragraphs no more than 150 words (3-5 sentences)
• https://plainlanguage.gov/

Respecting Every Identity: The Importance of an Inclusive Web for Cultural Diversity

Mark H. Anbinder  – Web Communications Manager – Cornell University

• Avoid unnecessary jargon or inside jokes
• Text that presumes a gender binary is inadequate. Unfortunately, a lot of old “he” text was simply changed to “he/she”.
• “you” is plural. The singular is “thou”
  • So what is your problem with “they”?
• When gender is required, avoid “other”. Instead let them freely specify their own gender.