[Project-managers] IMPORTANT Information for PMs: PLEASE READ

[Ted Ralphs]

Brian Borchers wrote:
> First obvious question.  After we put up this XML file, what happens
> to our current Wiki?

I guess I need to explain a little more about the purpose of the 
auto-generated project info pages. This is NOT meant to replace anything 
the PMs are already doing. It is simply meant to be a uniform entry 
point for all projects that directs users to the "real home page" (wiki 
or static). IN other words, it is going to do the job that the current 
project listing (www.coin-or.org/projects.html) is doing. The "real home 
page" is still where most users will go directly once they have found 
their way there, but since different PMs want us to direct people to 
different locations, it was getting difficult to maintain the links in 
the projects list. Our solution was to let the PMs actually designate 
(through the XML file) where they want people to be sent from the 
COIN-OR page in order to get to the most relevant pages about their 
project. The XML also contains information we would like to have for 
other purposes, and this way, all information about a project is 
self-maintained by the PM. Previously, we were maintaining a database of 
project information ourselves from which the projects.html page was 
automatically generated. Now this will be replaced with the XML files. 
The XML files allow us to maintain some basic project information in a 
standard location and a standard format and also ensure that a certain 
minimal amount of information about each project is always available.

The bottom line is that these pages are really just meant to funnel 
people to the project pages efficiently and make maintaining the project 
listing a lot easier. Hope this helps explain things. We sent around a 
draft of the XML template a few months ago and asked for comments. 
Everyone seemed happy then, but please let us know if you see any 
problems with this plan now. It is not set in stone yet.

Cheers,

Ted
-- 
Dr. Ted Ralphs
Associate Professor
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Lehigh University
(610)758-4784
tkralphs at lehigh.edu
www.lehigh.edu/~tkr2