AASHTO RAC Website Subcommittee Meeting

Monday, May 19, 2014

1:30-2:30 p.m. Eastern Time

Participants:Allison Hardt, Amy Schutzbach, Jennifer Slesinger,Rick Kreider, Natassja Linzau, Sue Sillick, Chris Hedges, James Watkins.

ADMINISTRATION

1. Review and approval/disapproval of April 28, 2014, meeting notes (Attachment A)

Meeting Notes were approved by consensus. Natassja will add these to the SCOR/RAC website.

2. Review changes made to website from last meeting

A. Peer Exchange Availability Survey—Review changes made

Topic numbers have been added. Additional revisions were suggested to keep line numbers and subject headings on same line (replace the forward slashes with commasinTopic No. 6).

B. Peer Exchange Reports--Review the “How To” document revisions

Natassja distributed on Friday. Natassja added text boxes to clarify the instructions in the text.

Sue – Add comment that we cannot sort by state, since there are multiple entries in some cases.

Sue – when you enter “all” for state, the default sorting view is by year. Natassja will clarify the text.

C. Feedback—Has any feedback been received about particular parts of the site?

Sue heard from Tim Klein and Jim McDonnell on adding OST/R and AASHTO technical services programs respectively to the org chart of research organization relationships.

Jennifer expressed an interest in seeing the affiliation associated with each participant in the Peer Exchange Reports database, but that request cannot be accommodated due to the contract being closed out; this will be considered if future work on the database is needed.

OLD BUSINESS

3. Icons for Home Page

  1. Discuss Policy/Criteria

Don’t over-clutter the page. Also, NL explained that there are design limitations because of the layout of the page and the template AASHTO uses for their webpages, so we have limited space that can be used for icons.

Rick – One option: create a separate page for icons.

Sue – Monitor traffic to decide which sections merit icons

Natassja – Put icons on the task force page?

Sue – Still need to review Resources for Research Managersand Contacts and Programs pages. May have policy implications; defer a decision on icon policy until then.

  1. Type of pages

Not determined at this time.

  1. Volume of traffic

Rick - Use number of hits as a criterion for creating an icon?

Chris – Could also use icons to direct users to sections that are important but not easily found and not heavily used.

  1. Maximum number for home page

Not determined at this time; will revisit once the other pages on the site (specifically Contacts and Programs, Resources for Research Managers, and Task Force pages) have been reviewed.

  1. Request for High Value of Research Icon
  1. Type of page

Chris – there are alternatives to icons to bring attention to a particular section – could highlight text on the home page in What’s New

Sue – highlight HVR winners for six months; promote new HVR competition for six months.

  1. Traffic

NL – Can use Google Analytics to identify pages with the highest traffic. High-Value Research page has been the 3rdmost visited page, after home page and roster.

Rick – Maybe we need a larger group to help evaluate the site; post a link to a survey on the site and get opinions and suggestions.

NL – Would be a custom application; may not be easily done in SharePoint.

4. High Value Research Page Icon

  1. Is there enough traffic to warrant an icon on the homepage?

Not determined definitively; this question is tabled until we have completed our review of the other pages of the site (although we will keep it in mind as we proceed).

B. Review potential icons designed by Rick?? TBD

NEW BUSINESS

5. July Meeting—Last year we met on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings 7-8am in a separate room with breakfast and also phone and computer access. Is there group interest in having one or two morning meetings at Madison? If so we could get a lot accomplished within that hour or two, and we’ll need to request the facilities ASAP. We currently have the placeholder Natassja sent for Tuesday morning.

Sue – Conduct of Research is meeting during breakfast on Wednesday, July 23.

**We will plan to meet on Tuesday only, July 22,7:00-7:50 a.m. Cynthia will request a room for our meeting (maximum of 15 people is estimated). Natassja will send out an Outlook invite once the details are set.**

6. Mentoring Admin TF is working on a new mentor/mentee checklist

A.We expect changes needed on the web site—where is it mentioned and what’s appropriate

i. from “About RAC” link on About SCOR/RAC page

NL created a new link on the “About SCOR and RAC” page to the RAC mentoring program. Sue – the link is asking for a password. NL will look into that.

ii. New Member Handbook

Include a link to the mentoring page? Possibly in the opening section “First things first”. NL will write a first draft for inclusion.

iii.RAC 101 presentation

We should consider including a mention of the Mentoring page in RAC 101 slide presentation; this needs to be addressed by the Admin Task Force.

7. Task Force pages.

A.Members: The Task Force Member Spreadsheet is a recent item that Allison and Dale have created a new process to manage. However each TF has a list of members some of which include other non-RAC members. It doesn’t reconcile with the spreadsheet and I am not sure it’s worth the effort to duplicate the information.

Allison – didn’t realize the membership list was also on each Task Force’s page.

CH – will be easier to update one spreadsheet than each task force page.

Sue – non-RAC members are not currently included on spreadsheet.

Allison – they could be added to the spreadsheet. She will create a separate sheet listing all members and friends of each task force; there will be a separate tab for each task force to help task force Chairs update their lists more easily.

  1. Content review schedule
  • Task force pages will be reviewed as a group, then alphabetically (Admin, CCTF, and so on).
  • Resources for Research Managers page needs to be reviewed.
  • Contacts and Programs page needs to be reviewed.
  1. Structure – unique vs. consistent (We will discuss this during the next call)

NL suggested that we invite all the Task Force chairs to our next meeting to discuss their respective pages. If Cynthia concurs, NL will send an Outlook invite to the other Task Force Chairs (who aren’t already in our group) so they can join us on the call if they wish.

8. Update on RAC 101 Webinar (NOT STARTED)

9. Clarification of RAC Duties/Responsibilities (NOT STARTED) (include primary and secondary responsibilities)—put this info somewhere on the website?

10. Adjourn

For discussion at our next meeting in June:

  • RAC Task Force Pages
  • AASHTO Technical Service Programs (TSPs)—CEO brochure and other info available; should this be listed somewhere on SCOR/RAC website? RPPM Website? TRB Funding Guidebook? Where?
  • Research Organization Chart—Changes
  • SCOR Roster—Non-voting vs. voting members and Executives role (voting or non-voting?)

ATTACHMENT A

AASHTO RAC Website Subcommittee Meeting Notes

Monday, April 28, 2014

1:30-2:30 p.m. Eastern Time

Participants: Cynthia Gerst, Allison Hardt, Amy Schutzbach, Jennifer Slesinger, Rick Kreider, Natassja Linzau, Sue Sillick

ADMINISTRATION

1. Review and approval/disapproval of March 24, 2014 meeting notes (approved with no changes).

2. Review changes made to website from last meeting

A.Peer Exchange Availability

i.Reviewed the form

ii.We requested everyone submit the form as a test

iii.Have Kelly

  1. Add the 2 letter drop down for each submitter's state
  1. do a test extract so we can see the data
  1. Add date field (automatic or typed in)

iv.We need to consider how to process updates

  1. Have all users resubmit every six months
  1. Have users resubmit the form when their data changes

a.Potentially use date field to keep only most recent submission

  1. Have users send an email to Natassja asking for one line of data to be modified

4.Rick raised the issue of whether we want people to indicate how many research peer exchanges they have participated in, or how many peer exchanges (in general) they have participated in. It was decided that we will keep it “generic” and just ask about the number of peer exchanges, regardless of specific focus.

B.Peer Exchange Reports

i.Introductory page & paragraph - list & describe topics

  1. Well done paragraph
  2. Topics - separate page looks great

ii.Asterisked topics

  1. Modify the topic names to include numbers

a.1. Research Project and Program Management

b.3. Research Staffing Needs, Capacity Building, and Skill Sets, etc.

iii.Date sorted in descending order (if free)

  1. Completed just in time - Excellent!!

iv.Next steps

  1. Natassja will revise the how to search instructions

a.Filtering

b.New topics

  1. Send an email to RAC listserv describing the changes, sharing the new How to Search document and requesting RAC members review the database and add any of their missing prior peer exchange reports (and check the topic selections that our subgroup made)

3. Feedback

a.Sample RAC nomination letters

i.Neil (NC) and Skip are pleased with the samples being available

b.Peer Exchange reports

i.n/a

OLD BUSINESS

4. Website Analytics

A.What is Bounce Rate?

i.Percentage of single page sessions

ii.40-60% is average

B.High Value Research: what are entry and exit pages

i.Has a 64% bounce rate, versus 37% for RAC home page

5. Icons for Home Page (BEGUN/NOT FULLY DISCUSSED)

A.Discuss a Policy/Criteria

i.Type of pages

ii.Volume of traffic

iii.Maximum number for home page

B.Request for High Value of Research

i.Type of page

ii.Traffic

6. Research Players Organization Chart (NOT STARTED - However Sue and Cynthia will discuss this during week of 4/28 offline)

A.Review changes made and discuss next steps (Attachment C)

NEW BUSINESS (NOT STARTED)

7. Mentoring Admin TF is working on a new mentor/mentee checklist

A.We expect changes needed on the web site—where is it mentioned and what’s appropriate

i. from “About RAC” link on About SCOR/RAC page

ii.New Member Handbook

iii.RAC 101 presentation

8. Task Force pages.

A.Members: The Task Force Member Spreadsheet is a recent item that Allison and Dale have created a new process to manage. However each TF has a list of members some of which include other non-RAC members. It doesn’t reconcile with the spreadsheet and I am not sure it’s worth the effort to duplicate the information.

B.Content review schedule

C.Structure – unique vs. consistent

9. Adjourn

For our May meeting:

  • Review the updated peer exchange database instructions page (Natassja)
  • Consider Icons - specifically High Value Research request (Rick will draft some icons within our color palette)
  • Update on RAC 101 Webinar?
  • Clarification of RAC Duties/Responsibilities (include primary and secondary responsibilities)—put this info somewhere on the website?