Overview

The CommonSpot content management system software, from PaperThin, runs in a ColdFusion environment on a Windows server, and uses an Oracle back-end database. It provides for template-based Web site construction, with access control at the site, subsite, sub-subsite, page, and page-element levels. Ohio University Web pages are being migrated into CommonSpot from a number of other servers, including the VMS Front Door server. Any of the more than 21,000 pages and documents that are still on the older, "VMS Front Door," server are accessed with such URLs as

"http://www.ohiou.edu/policy/"

while any of the more than 13,000 pages and documents on the newer, "CommonSpot Front Door," server are accessed with such URLs as

"http://www.ohio.edu/bicentennial/"

Any attempt to access a page from the wrong server will result in a redirect to the correct server.

News and Announcements for Page Authors

We will keep the most recent few items here, currently active and newest first. As problems are resolved, or other problems are detected, we will let you know by updating this page. Older items are available from our archive page.

May 7, 2008

The process of copying updated files from the authoring server to www.ohio.edu has been obstructed since shrtly before 5 pm on May 6. Now that someone has brought this problem to our attention, we will remove the problem item, but it will take a while for the systems to catch up on the backlog. No further action by page authors is required, just time for the automatic processes to complete.

May 5, 2008

There will be an emergency authoring freeze Monday afternoon, May 5, 2008. The freeze will start at 3:07 pm and conclude as soon as the work is completed. This directly affects only the CommonSpot authoring server, but the reason it is necessary is that the public, read-only server (www.ohio.edu) is offline and being repaired. As soon as normal operation is restored, authoring will be re-enabled.

April 18, 2008

There will be an emergency authoring freeze Friday morning, April 18, 2008. The freeze will start at 11:45 am and conclude as soon as the work is completed, likely before 1:00 pm. This affects onlyl the CommonSpot authoring server. As soon as normal operation is restored, authoring will be re-enabled. The authoring freeze Saturday morning, announced on April 15, as described immediately below, is for different work, and will proceed as planned.

April 15, 2008

There will be an authoring freeze early Saturday morning, April 19, 2008. The freeze will start just before 1 am and conclude as soon as the work is completed, likely by 9:00 am. The CommonSpot Front Door servers, both authoring and read-only, are scheduled to be completely offline for software service for much of the time between 6 am and 8 am. As soon as normal operation is restored, authoring will be re-enabled.

The VMS Front Door (www.ohiou.edu) will also be offline for software updates during this period of time.

March 13, 2008

There will be an authoring freeze early Saturday morning, March 15, 2008. The freeze will start just before 1 am and conclude as soon as the work is completed, likely by 9:00 am. The CommonSpot Front Door servers, both authoring and read-only, are scheduled to be completely offline for software service for much of the time between 6 am and 8 am. As soon as normal operation is restored, authoring will be re-enabled.

February 16, 2008

There will be an authoring freeze early Saturday morning, February 16, 2008. The freeze will start just before 1 am and conclude as soon as the work is completed, likely around 8:00 am. The CommonSpot Front Door servers, both authoring and read-only, are scheduled to be completely offline for software service for about half an hour between 6 am and 8 am. As soon as normal operation is restored, authoring will be re-enabled.

January 18, 2008

There will be an authoring freeze early Saturday morning, January 19, 2008. The freeze will start just before 1 am and conclude as soon as the work is completed, likely around 8:00 am. The CommonSpot Front Door servers, both authoring and read-only, are scheduled to be completely offline for software service for about an hour between 6 am and 8 am. As soon as normal operation is restored, authoring will be re-enabled.

December 19, 2007

There will be an authoring freeze early Friday morning, December 21, 2007. The freeze will start at 1:30 am and conclude as soon as the work is completed, likely around 8:00 am. The CommonSpot Front Door servers, both authoring and read-only, are scheduled to be completely offline for software service for about an hour between 6 am and 8 am. As soon as normal operation is restored, authoring will be re-enabled.

November 15, 2007

There will be an authoring freeze early Saturday morning, November 17, 2007. The freeze will start at 5:00 am and conclude as soon as the work is completed, likely around 8:00 am. The CommonSpot Front Door servers, both authoring and read-only, are scheduled to be completely offline for software service for about an hour between 6 am and 8 am. As soon as normal operation is restored, authoring will be re-enabled.

October 15, 2007

PaperThin has confirmed that Windows Internet Explorer on Vista will not work reliably with the current version of CommonSpot. If you are using a laptop or desktop computer that is running Windows Vista to author CommonSpot pages, use the FireFox browser instead of Internet Explorer!

Delayed Updates

PaperThin staff have identified a problem that intermittently obstructs the transfer of updates from the authoring server to the public server. Once obstructed, all updates are stalled until we intervene manually. The system does not notify us automatically that updates are blocked, but we do have a tool that permits us to confirm such obstructions.

Therefore, if you submit a change, or an entire page, for publication on the authoring server, and your change is visible in Read mode on the authoring server, but the old version continues to be displayed unchanged for more than five minutes on the public server, please let us know right away by one of the following two methods:

• Phone the OIT Service Desk staff at 593-1222

• E-mail the OIT Service Desk staff at servicedesk@ohio.edu

Other Problems

If you encounter other problems with page authoring or access in CommonSpot, please report them promptly, so that we can work with you to resolve them.

• Urgent problems should be reported to the OIT Service Desk staff (593-1222 or servicedesk@ohio.edu).

• Less urgent issues can be reported to webteam@ohio.edu, or by phone to 593-1017 or 593-1016.

Form Issues

Please be aware that the "simple forms" features built in to CommonSpot do provide for the transfer of information from the reader of your page to you by e-mail, but that transfer is not secure. Therefore, never collect sensitive information, such as Social Security or credit card numbers, using such forms.

If you use an HTML fragment to create a form on your CommonSpot page using either of the generic scripts documented at http://www.ohiou.edu/pagemasters/memo85/append5.html, please be aware that the same statement applies, because the e-mails they send are also not encrypted.

Seminars and Documentation

Training for CommonSpot

Academic Technologies offers training at four levels for those interested in learning how to use CommonSpot to maintain Web pages. The seminars use a combination of lecture, exploration, and step-by-step, directed, hands-on experiences. The materials linked below are available for reference and for use by those who cannot attend a seminar.

The "New Pagemasters," "Intermediate Pagemasters," and "Content Contributors" seminars have been taught most quarters since the Fall of 2003. We may teach the "Advanced Pagemasters" seminar on a pilot basis during Summer quarter, 2008.

If you are intested in participating in the pilot offering of the "Advanced Pagemasters" seminar, please contact the Web Team by E-mail to webteam@ohio.edu, or by phone to 593-1017.

Registration for those seminars that are scheduled on a regular basis is by the normal procedures for Academic Technologies' instructor-led training. Students are not generally eligible to attend Academic Technologies' instructor-led seminars. However, if a department plans to hire a student to work in CommonSpot on the new Front Door server, the supervising regular employee should contact the Web Team (by phone at 3-1017 or E-mail to webteam@ohio.edu), to get the student registered for the appropriate seminars. If you have already taken the seminar once, you cannot re-register online, but you are welcome to take a "refresher" course: just contact the Web Team.

New Pagemasters

This seminar is intended for people who have not previously been responsible for a Web site. It includes basic guidance on organization and planning for a new site, and issues to consider when first becoming responsible for an existing site. This will be one two-hour session. Our experience indicates that it is likely to take a bit less than the full two hours.

Intermediate Pagemasters

This seminar is intended for people who have been maintaining a Web site, or who have recently taken the "New Pagemasters" seminar. It provides guidance for the migration process to bring existing sites into CommonSpot. It excludes extended discussion of the issues considered in the New Pagemasters seminar, which we would expect experienced pagemasters to have already encountered. There will be a combination of lecture and hands-on experience. This will be two two-hour sessions, taken in the same week. The pages created during the hands-on parts of the first session will be used during the second session, so attendance at the full first session is prerequisite for the second session.

Advanced Pagemasters

This seminar is intended for people who have already migrated a Web site into CommonSpot, or who have built a new site in CommonSpot. It provides guidance for the process of sharing the site maintenance work with other people, who will have taken the "Content Contributors" seminar, and includes more information on some of the advanced features of CommonSpot. We anticipate that this will be one two-hour session. We are gradually accumulating the documentation for this seminar in anticipation of its pilot offering.

Content Contributors

This seminar is intended for people who will be responsible for maintaining one or more parts of a CommonSpot Web site that has already been set up by the pagemaster. The content overlaps to a large extent with the Intermediate Pagemasters course, but it is presented with a different emphasis and pace. This will be two two-hour sessions, taken in the same week. The pages created during the hands-on parts of the first session will be used during the second session, so attendance at the full first session is prerequisite for the second session. Our experience indicates that the second sessions is likely to take a bit less than the full two hours.

Other Resources

Once you are logged in to the CommonSpot server, you should be able to access the on-line documentation, at http://pages.ohio.edu/docs.cfm. The documents linked from that page are PDF files, some of them quite large (hundreds of pages when printed)!

Credits

The original work developing these pages, including team-teaching the first several months' offerings of the Intermediate Pagemasters and Content Contributors seminars, was done by Sarah Rist (then Sarah Lude) and Dick Piccard. Zeenath Sheikh wrote the first version of the Quick Reference Guide and worked with Dick Piccard to teach many offerings of the Intermediate Pagemasters and Content Contributors seminars. Tasha Knutsen assisted multiple offerings of those seminars, and Peg Ratajik taught both series of seminars multiple times.

Dick Piccard revised this file (http://www.ohiou.edu/pagemasters/commonspot/index.html) on May 7, 2008.

Please E-Mail comments or suggestions to"webteam@ohio.edu".