The Web call on Thursday, September 1, 2005, was attended by Crispin Stutzman (PPRC), Peter Johnsen and Danielle Cook, Jen. Shoemaker and Laura Estes (Peaks to Prairies), James (YongSeok) Choi (P2RIC), Thomas Vinson-Peng (Southwest Center for Zerowaste), Tyler Rubach (GLRPPR), Terry Huss and Curt McCracken (WRRC), Nate Bisbee and Andy Bray (NEWMOA), Prabin Kanel and Jean Waters (P2Rx), and Beth Anderson (EPA).

Action Items

• Be prepared for Scott’s triage of your site, looking for search engine visibility
• Install program directory updates when available

Announcements

Proposed News Scope standard is posted, http://www.p2rx.org/AdminInfo/NewsCom/index.cfm

Scott is going to do search engine triage this month

The NAGs (nominally aggressive goading) questions were asked. Have you updated your Topic Hubs?  Have you done your link checks? Have you installed the Topic Hub admin updates (Prabin e-mail of 8-15-05)? Have you installed the program directory updates (Prabin e-mail of 8-26-05)?

Center	Updated T. Hubs	Checked Links	T. Hub admin updates	Prog. Dir. updates
NEWMOA	Yes	Yes	Yes
WRRC	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
GLRPPR	Yes	Yes	Yes
Zerowaste	Yes	Yes
P2RIC	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Peaks	Yes	Yes	Yes
WRPPN	Yes	Yes	Will do	In process
PPRC	In process	In process	Yes

The program directory updates could not be completed by any center except WRRC and P2RIC, who worked on it together, because there were some files missing when the software was posted.

The question was raised as to whether we should eliminate THSV (topic hub subject vocabulary) from programs directory? This field is found in the keyword_authority table.  The THSV is a subset of the entire list of keywords.  Prabin explained that as far as he knows, we had included it originally so we could associate programs with topic hubs. Centers were to associate a program with a word from the THSV list if that program had expertise that would relate to that topic hub. The original list of 60 or so THSV words were chosen based on the initial list of Topic Hubs centers expected to write.  This method didn’t really work out, so we’re associating programs with Topic Hubs explicitly now. (Remember from a previous modification, we can associated programs with a Topic Hub from the Topic Hub admin page, or we can associate Topic Hubs with a program from the Program Directory admin page.) We’ve already eliminated the THSV field from the Topic Hubs.

The THSV field could be used to generate metatags for the program directory.  (Currently, Prabin wrote the software so that metatags automatically generated for the programs directory include the following fields:  keywords, program type, organization name, program description, and services.) Since they are just keywords, though, we could keep the association with the words but keep it in the keywords table.  Prabin proposes we get rid of THSV all together. If Centers want to associate programs with keywords, they can.  Prabin can include the keywords when dynamically generating the metatags.  Andy doesn’t think the THSV is meaningful enough to hold onto the list. Crispin noted that as a Web group, she suspected that we’ve had this conversation before, but she couldn’t remember the details.  Jean will attempt to review archived minutes to see if that’s true. 

There was a reminder that currently the keyword lists for Topic Hubs and Program Directory are the same.  These lists are kept synchronized by a procedure coded and installed at the Seattle Web workshop, May 2005.  Jean suggested that a center other than P2RIC should try adding a new keyword and see if the review procedure still works.

On a roll-call vote, all centers voted to eliminate the THSV.

The question was raised as to including a free text field for centers to describe programs.  This field could be included in metatags and would be searchable.  There would not necessarily be uniformity among or within centers, however, in the use of or language contained within this field.  Andy advocated that we could capture what people put in this field and eventually use it to build our thesaurus.

On a roll call vote, all centers agreed to add a free text field to the programs directory for keywords. 

Several center’s treatment of the news was highlighted.  WRRC has a national news icon that opens a box containing the national news headlines.  Peaks has the national news box on their home page.  GLRPPR and PPRC both display news but not the P2Rx national news.  Jean just wanted to encourage centers to display the news by showing different ways the various centers display news.  On P2Rx, in addition to the national news box, there is a page that displays the headlines from every center.  This information is gathered every time a user opens this page.  The five most recent stories headlines are displayed.

Tyler reported on the usability study they did with the GLRPPR advisory board.  They looked at the Topic Hub/Sector resources page that Jean has been modifying.  Tyler said the folks liked the expandable abstract on the list of resources.  They didn’t like just the “+” sign, but liked the “+ abstract” function.  Jean mentioned that Deb Jacobson had previously reported that she thought the whole exercise was very useful.  It not only gave her insight as to how people look through a site, but it familiarized the GLRPPR advisory board with some of the resources available.  She said people pretty quickly used “cntl F” (control find) if they were looking for something, or they’d use a search engine.

In a follow-up from the Seattle meeting, we discussed changing, deleting, and adding program types in the programs directory.  The background was that some of the items we use as a “program type” really is an “expertise.”  It’s confusing for the users.  Also, we’d like to honor John Calcagni’s request that we have an easy way to access a list of all the P2 programs.

On a roll-call vote, all centers voted to accept these changes, pending approval by admin.

Key: Suggest using yellows as “Program Type” and oranges as “Are you also a…” (same screen so no need to reprogram)

Consultant (73)	Use?
Educational Institution (182)	Use
Energy Efficiency Program (66)	Delete (under Expertise)
Energy Program	Add (for official programs, like state energy office)
Federal Government (95)	Use
Foreign Governments (25) ****SEND LIST***	Delete!!!
Industrial Assessment Center (1)	Use (add “IAC”)
Industry Association (43)	Use (change to “Industry and Trade Association”)
Local Government (111)	Use
Manufacturing Extension Program (84)	Use (add “MEP”)
Materials Exchange (72)	Delete (under Expertise)
Non-Profit (260)	Use
Pollution Prevention Program	Add (for “official” P2 programs)
Professional Association (14)	Change to Prof & Trade Assoc
Recycling (69)	Delete (under Expertise)
Small Business Assistance Program (91)	Use (add “SBAP”)
Small Business Development Center (101)	Use (add “SBDC”)
State Government (222)	Use
Tribal	Add
Vendor (37)    *** SEND LIST ****	Delete