School District Issues (was Re: [thelist] design feedback)

Pete Dronzek pdronzek at uswest.net
Wed Aug 30 19:58:06 CDT 2000


At 03:04 PM 8/30/2000 -0800, you wrote:
>Hi, Pete --
>We're enforcing a 4.0+ browser rule for the intranet for security reasons.
>We do have some people in the district that are still working on machines
>that can't support the 4.0 browsers, but every facility has at least a
>couple of machines that can run them, and their numbers are increasing. (We
>have a lease contract with Apple that gets us a thousand new machines every
>year or something.)

We have such a broad range of machines out there (from ancient Macs to new 
Dells), that even internally I can't make any assumptions browser-wise.  To 
finally let myself use at least basic style sheets, I started doing browser 
detection via ASP to churn out different versions for the pre-4.0's.

>Externally, I assume the lowest common denominator, hence the way-low
>graphic intensity and lightweight stylesheet. (We receive federal funding,
>so we're adhering to the ADA.) The external site is spotty at this point in
>terms of design because each shool has its own "webmaster", and while I have
>been educating as fast as I can, some people just get carried away.

Instead of trying to impose any kind of graphic standard on our school 
sites, we instead implemented basic content guidelines and let them run 
free creatively.  It gives each school its own sense of identity, and I 
think it encourages the school webmasters (who are staff and parent 
volunteers) to learn more than if I handed them a template.  Some of the 
sites can be pretty rough, but I'm more concerned that the information they 
contain is accurate and up-to-date.

>When you ask about usernames and ID's, are you  talking about for the
>intranet or for the other users of the external server? Externally, I take
>care of it and it's on a request basis. Anybody can have space on the server
>if they ask. Internally, we have a networking section here in the IT
>department that assigns usernames and passwords when they set up the
>employee's email account.

So I'm guessing that your Intranet and mail server are using the same 
account information, which would greatly simplify things (unfortunately not 
an option for us).  I'd love to have individual Intranet accounts for all 
2000+ staff members, but it's an administrative nightmare.

My favorite password-related incident:

On our Intranet-entry page, it says 'Please Note: Your Password is 
case-sensitive'.  Checking the logs once, I saw what looked like someone 
trying to login using 'case-sensitive' as their password...

>What district do you work for?

Federal Way Public Schools just outside of Seattle - 
http://www.fwsd.wednet.edu.

Pete






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