FAQ about the Otis Website CMS

Guidelines for Content Editors

Department Editors must be assigned by the Department Chair and they must complete a training program. Heather and Sue are responsible for all Academic Department training (with a couple of exceptions).

Department Editors are responsible for all content within the Department Life folder of their department only. Additional pages may be created using the provided template.

Department Chair is responsible for checking appropriateness and accuracy of all content on or within all Department web pages.

Training

Training will proceed in stages. When one stage is mastered, the next stage will be taught.

Names of approved and trained content editors will be maintained on the List of Approved Editors on the TECH wiki.

Style

Overall style of the entire Otis.edu site should be followed:

• Fonts and font colors as specified in templates; do not override:
  • Titles are black
  • Links match the header color
• Writing should be succinct and checked for typos.
• Every page should have information in the sidebar.
• Always leave space between image and text column – don’t allow text to wrap under an image.

Consult the CMS Style Guide for more information.

Tabbed Pages

There is to be no editing of content within the TABBED pages, such as the landing pages of the Academic Departments (e.g. Foundation) and the audience landing pages in the Life @ Otis section (e.g. Staff Life.) Only Admins (Rick, Peter) and Super Editors (Margi, Sue and Heather) may edit tabbed pages.

Request for content changes on the Department’s tabbed pages should be sent to the following individuals:

• Welcome- Margi
• Curriculum- Margi
• Faculty – Margi
• Careers – Margi
• Work – Heather

More Help

Portions of the sidebars may be amended by Department Editors, but please check with Super Editors (Sue, Heather) first for instructions and appropriateness of planned changes.

If you have a significant number of pages in your Department Life section and need to make frequent changes to the sidebar, please contact the Admins (Rick, Peter) for help.

If you need help organizing your Department Life section, please consult with Sue and Heather.

If there are insufficient breadcrumbs on your pages, please contact the Admins (Rick, Peter) or the Super Editors (Sue, Heather); they will show you how to add them to your pages.

Using the Asset Library

When adding an image to the Asset Library you must give it a caption and assign it to a Category/Destination (Events, News, Work, Freeform).

Images uploaded to the Asset Library must be JPEGs at 72 dpi.

Adding Captions

Please add the codes for Department, type of work, size, and description, e.g. “COMM, SW, Lab Press” or “FOUND, FW, thumb, Geraths” or “GRAD, FA, SW, small, painting”

Department Codes

Type of Work Codes:

• SW -Student Work
• FW - Faculty Work

Please note that these captions do not display whenever and wherever the images are displayed.

Work Images

Whenever possible, we would like to add these items to Otis Collections Online. To facilitate this, please send the images to Heather Cleary:

• Minimum size: 1200 x 1200 px; no maximum size, but I love 3000x3000 and larger
• File Types: TIFF is preferred, JPEG and BMP also accepted. Do not submit RAW files. Please contact her if you have items in other formats, e.g. Illustrator and PDF files.
• Minimum 72 dpi
• Include descriptive information for each image:
  • Title or preferred caption
  • Department
  • Semester (or Year)
  • Faculty and class name, if relevant and known
  • Student name, if relevant and known
  • Description, especially if it is of an event and/or if you know the people pictured

In return, Heather will make sure that the images are retouched and sized correctly for the Work slideshows (JPEG, 72 dpi, max width 540 px).

Each Department will decide who uploads the correctly-sized images to the Asset Library in the CMS.

Each slideshow must have one thumbnail image at 332w x 205h.

Each academic department may choose one slideshow to be featured on the Otis homepage and one slideshow to be featured on the Work homepage. These slideshows may be the same one.

Event Images

These images are displayed on the Event List page and on the Event Detail page. All must be JPEGs at 72 dpi: 385w x 237h.

Events may be added without an image. Only Events with an associated image will be featured on the Otis homepage.

News Images

The Communications Office handles these images.

Please send your press releases to Margi.

Freeform Images

These images are used as headers, in-text illustrations, and more. All must be JPEGs at 72dpi.

For images used in specific templates, please use these sizes:

Posting events to calendar

Select type of event: public program, exhibition, off-campus exhibition, academic, student

Always include the following information:

• Date
• Title
• Time (start and stop)
• Place (link to site or map if not at Otis)
• Description (always state what Otis has to do with it, e.g, faculty member, alum, etc.)
• Press release (optional) pdf
• Photo (optional)

Guidelines for Super Editors

All changes to tabbed pages will be backed up on Common O:\ Drive in the assigned folder called “CMS changes”

Only Admins (Rick, Peter) and Super Editors (Margi, Sue and Heather) may edit tabbed pages.

Videos must be embedded. They must have player bar at the bottom with a link “view full size” Max size for popup window is 960x540 on a page 640x480 and on the sidebar 192x108.

FAQs

I made some changes to a page, but they do not appear no matter how many times I hit refresh!

Sometimes the page will continue to display the cached version of the page despite using the refresh/reload button. Put a question mark ? at the end of the URL, e.g. http://www.otis.edu/life_otis/index.html?. That will force the CMS to display the most recent version. If that does not work, try deleting your browser's cache, then go back to the page.

I added a flash video to a page but the menu or other dynamic text when loading moves behind the video. How do I fix this?

Go to code view of the page and add wmode="transparent" as an attribute in your video's embed tag. Any descending menus or cluetips should now show above the video player.

How do I add a link or PDF to a page or to the calendar?

1. Add your link text to the page then highlight it with your mouse.
2. Click the add a link button at top (looks like globe with chain link in front of it)
3. Click upload tab and choose your file
4. Press send it to server button
5. Click ok (you've now uploaded and linked your pdf)
6. Save the page

I linked to a file on the server, but when I click on the live link, it gives me a File Not Found error. How do I fix this?

If you link to an existing file on the server, its file path is not correct. To fix it:

1. Click on the link text
2. Click on the add a link button (looks like globe with chain link in front of it)
3. Remove /file from the URL
4. Click "OK"
5. Save and publish the page

 See also the CMS Style Guide.