Category Archives: News

New website for the Drill Hall Library

We’re very pleased to announce the launch of the new Drill Hall Library website which has undergone a re-design and revamp. Some of the new features and changes to look out for include:

  • The library catalogue search function and ‘renew my books’ on the home page.
  • Today’s opening hours displayed on the home page in a digital type format.
  • An easy to access feedback tab.
  • Quick links to common university systems (portal, moodle, CLIC etc) which have been moved to a large footer area.
  • A new menu item added for Staff and Visitors to allow them easy and quick access to relevant information.

Also, please note that the URL of the Drill Hall Library (DHL) has been changed to:
http://campus.medway.ac.uk

Redirects have been put in place to ensure pages are still displayed if you are linking to the old site, however we recommend that you update any links you have to the DHL site.

Student email – upgraded from Live@edu to Office 365

The student and kentforlife email service, Live@edu, has been upgraded to Office 365, and as such we have changed how we refer to the service on our websites.

Please change any links to email

  • for current students (undergrad and taught postgrad) email should say ‘Student email’ instead of Live@edu
  • if linking to the alumni/ex-staff service, please refer to it as Kentforlife.

Details are online at www.kent.ac.uk/itservices/email/student (this web address replaces www.kent.ac.uk/itservices/email/live – re-redirects from /live/ are in place, but please also change any direct links if you have any on your pages).

The actual email login page for the service has not changed and continues to be http://live.kent.ac.uk. However, if you have bookmarked the current Microsoft re-direct to outlook.com you may need to update this to reflect the new URLs.

Service interruption to Chicken streaming server

Dear web publishers,

 A service interruption for the Chicken streaming server has been scheduled for maintenance work on Tuesday 8th January between 8am and 10am.

 During this time access to the streaming server will not be possible and videos shown on departmental websites will not load.

 Our apologies for any inconvenience that this may cause.

 Best Wishes, 

Web Consultancy and Solutions
Requirements and Solutions
Information Services
websupport@kent.ac.uk
http://www.kent.ac.uk/web/
01227 (82)4851

Part time positions available at IS Requirements and Solutions

The University of Kent Requirements and Solutions team is looking to employ enthusiastic part-time web developers, web designers, and web content editors who enjoy using the latest technologies in IT, the web, and media. This is a great opportunity as it offers the chance to develop and support a range of central services, departmental websites and web applications.

Opportunities are available for advancement within the team to specialise in a particular area, supervise other staff, or learn how to become an IT consultant and project manager. Students who have worked on the team have on average achieved a first degree and have moved on to companies such as Sun, Siemens, Blackwell’s, Oracle, and IBM.

Employment: flexible hours 0-20 (will vary according to student workload)
Salary: £8-13 pounds per hour (approx)

To apply, submit a cover letter stating which position you are applying for and copy of your CV. Please include examples of websites you have designed or developed, links to, or DVDs of photography and video work, any technical documentation or code, as appropriate to the position you are applying for. If you have a physical art or photographic portfolio you can bring to an interview please mention this in your application to rs-consultants@kent.ac.uk

Developer duties:

  • Developing and maintaining new websites, services, tools and databases.
  • Providing support for web authors of the university.

Skills required:

  • Proficient in back end programming using PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS and Javascript. Java and Perl knowledge would also be an advantage.
  • Extensive knowledge of Windows, MS Office and of working with computers on a regular basis
  • Experience of testing and evaluating products (preferable)
  • Good knowledge of Dreamweaver (or other web publishing tools)

Designer Duties:

  • Providing support for web authors of the University, designing new websites, web graphics and snippet tools.
  • Applicants without experience or specific web skills but a background in art are encouraged to apply.

Skills required:

  • Skills with Photoshop (or another design suite such as in-design or illustrator)
  • Ability to work to deadlines
  • Skills with interface designs and ability to produce a variety of graphical concepts.
  • An interest in digital display and media planning and capabilities.

Editor Duties:

  • Providing support for web authors and departments of the University, maintaining websites, writing website copy and assisting in the build of websites.

Skills required:

  • Good English writing skills
  • An interest in web technologies and writing for the web
  • An eye for detail and a creative approach to content creation

General Skills needed for all positions:

  • Good command of English and the ability to express ideas and processes clearly
  • Experience of writing/editing documentation
  • Good knowledge of Dreamweaver (or other web publishing tools)

Launch of redeveloped Medway School of Pharmacy website

Dear Web Publishers,

We are pleased to announce the launch of the new Medway School of Pharmacy website. The project aimed to bring the website up-to-date using modern design practices and technologies and focus on image rich and dynamic content whilst staying within the Medway School of Pharmacy branding.

The website can be found here: http://www.msp.ac.uk

Launch of new UELT, Learning and Teaching websites

Dear Web Publishers,

We are pleased to announce the launch of three new websites: UELT, Learning, and Teaching. The UELT website has been redeveloped and updated with a new structure with a focus on the services provided by UELT. Please update any links that you have to the old UELT site with these new links.

UELT website: This hosts corporate information about the department and internal teams including how they contribute to the university, department strategies, staff profiles and detailed information about the 4 teams (which can be found on the about page).
http://www.kent.ac.uk/uelt

Learning website: This site includes a wide range of services based on Learning at the Univeristy of Kent for students and staff.
http://www.kent.ac.uk/learning

Teaching website: This provides a wide range of services and information on teaching at Kent which includes guidelines, rules and regulations and assistance in the form of information and contacts.
http://www.kent.ac.uk/teaching

Best wishes,

Launch of new websites and index pages

Dear publishers,

We are pleased to announce the launch of the following sites and features.

SECL
http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl

Each of the departments within SECL have a newly redesigned index pages to help promote key areas of content within their site.

SOTSEC (Part of Tizard)
http://www.kent.ac.uk/tizard/sotsec

SOTSEC-ID is a collaborative group of professionals engaged in providing group treatment to men with intellectual disabilities who are at risk of sexual offending.

Culture and the Canada-US Border (CCUSB)
http://www.kent.ac.uk/ccusb

CCUSB is an international research network dedicated to studying cultural representation, production and exchange on and around the Canada-US border. Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, CCUSB comprises core members in the UK, Canada and the USA, with a wider network of European and North American affiliates.

Best Wishes,

Web Consultancy and Solutions
Requirements and Solutions
Information Services
websupport@kent.ac.uk
http://www.kent.ac.uk/web/
01227 (82)4851

Release notes: 11 September

The latest Pantheon web farm update to www-live (release tag 2012-09-06b) includes:

3 core changes
1 theme change

  • Bug fix: Fixed an issue where theme and snippet styles were not loading properly in Internet Explorer
  • Bug fix: We have enhanced the summary3 snippet so that it fails gracefully when presented with bad data (Eg: line breaks)
  • Bug fix: Minor security patch

The latest Pantheon web farm update to www-dev and www-test (release tag 2012-09-10a) includes:

4 core changes
1 snippet change

  • Optimisation: We have made a number of updates to the way that Pantheon generates web pages from published pages. These should speed up delivery of web pages by around 20%.

For those interested, the SVN logs for the above are as follows:

2012-09-06b:

  • [pantheon][core] Extend PostProcessingSnippet, clean up css and remove checking if snippet is empty.
  • [pantheon][core] PostProcessingSnippet: refactor code + add additional alias/types.Improve comments.
  • [pantheon][core] PostProcessingSnippet: call setup per snippet load (init for construct), add error method for warn/dev output & added dev_warn. Wrap calls to setup and run in try/catch errors can be thrown within them. Add clearParams method to empty parameter table settings.
  • [pantheon][core] PostProcessingSnippet: Add backwards compatibility hook (example usage in SimpleSearchBox). Rewrite SimpleSearchBox to use new snippet style.
  • [pantheon][core] PostProcessingSnippet: Add support for named cells + sub attributes are now multidimensional.
  • [pantheon][core] Port twitter snippet to use PostProcessingSnippet
  • [Pantheon][Snippets][Summary3] Fix 500 error when bad xml docs were imported
  • [pantheon][core] PostProcessingSnippet now compatible with elementDefinitions. ParamaterTable parser will no longer run/cause errors if no parameters are expected. Port: IncludeCSS,IncludeJavaScript and IncludeMeta to use new system.
  •  [Pantheon][Snippetor] Fixed bug where some snippets were not wrapped in snippetbox div.
  • [Pantheon][Themes][CCUSB] Fixed missing font issue in IE8
  • [Pantheon][Themes][CCUSB] Fixed social media header alignment bug
  • [Pantheon][Themes][CCUSB] Changed inline-blocks to floats where possible to fix menu in IE7

2012-09-10a:

  • [Pantheon] Added methods which now allow metadata to be displayed – generally cleaned up.
  • [Pantheon][Snippets][ResearchDataGrid] Added snippet to Chronos theme config.
  • [pantheon][core] Add Parser as [Inactive] – rewrite of PostProcessing & ElementParser classes (now with comments!)
    To enable: in template.class.php on line 227, comment out the call to postProccessing & uncomment the call to Parser.
    Parser:

– Rewrite of PostProcessing & ElementParser

– 20% faster on most page loads

– Adds debug date about how page was parsed

– Deprecates weighting system to avoid un-needed pass’s

– Extend HTML object to encapsulate DOM activity for Parser (Add ReadyForParse, ParseSnippets & stillSnippets method)

– Update Element to remove |snippet format as well as <snippet used by old Elementparser. (maintain compatability with both)

– Neaten code for str_replace_once, add debug() as quick method to add debug info that will only show with “?debug_performance”. Allow in_dev status to be overwritten from config (to make local testing easier)

– Add parser to class_map

 

Other: remove some rubbish from decorator & pageHeader.

  • [pantheon][core] Add more documentation to parser. Save is_readable calls on theme’s being loaded.
  • [Pantheon][Core][PostProcessingSnippet] Ensure Profiler is always ended
  • [Pantheon][Core][PostProcessingSnippet] If we warn and exit in child class, dont try and call decorator
  • [Pantheon][Snippets][TwitterSnippet] Commit a disabled fix for Twitter for when its needed.
  • [pantheon][core] Parser now users safer replace-er character. May switch to native tag rendering depending on performance tests.

Release notes: 28 August

The latest Pantheon web farm update to www-dev and www-test (release tag 2012-08-23a) includes:
0 core changes
fixes to 5 snippets
changes to 0 themes

The svn logs of these changes are:

  • [Pantheon][Snippets][Summary3] Upload of Feed component
  • [Pantheon][Snippets][Summary] Fix Unicode issue for Arts site
  • [Pantheon][Snippets][ResearchDataGrid] Initial version of Research DataGrid snippet.
  • [Pantheon][Snippets][DataGrid] Modified syntax of makeDialog for sizes to prevent “px” being added to height and width. Added option to use a javscript variable as a data source.
  • [Pantheon][Snippets][DataGrid] Fixed bug where the getSelectedRow function would modify the json directly corrupting it and preventing further queries.
  • [Pantheon][PG Prospectus] fixed missing feeurl for keyfacts box

There has also been an update to Oil (release tag 2012-08-24-castor) involving some security updates.