After several months of preparation, we now finally have a
draft available of a public website for ECCO. You can reach it
on the old address: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ECCO/, but as you'll
see, it offers a lot of new information and functionalities.
Editing
Most importantly, the text is fully editable by
ECCO-members! This means that any one of you can make changes,
corrections or additions to the information that is there, at any
moment, from any place, and with a minimum of effort.
This should allow us to have a website that is always
up-to-date, constantly improving and expanding, without major gaps,
that really reflects our joint, collective ideas, and that offers a
very flexible tool for on-going collaborative development. This is
made possible by the use of an open-source "wiki" platform
(like in wikipedia, the online
editable encyclopedia).
While the web is viewable by all, to edit you need the following
login (only for ECCO members -> do not pass this on to
others!)
user: ECCO
password: mediators
The menu items on top of the main panel tell you how to use the
wiki. Click "help" for explanation, and "edit"
for seeing the source text and making changes in it. Don't be afraid
to change someone else's text, since the software keeps track of all
revisions and allows us, if need be, to fully restore earlier
versions, by clicking on the "history" button.
Layout
In addition, the website has a new layout, which is meant to
be simple and esthetic, compatible with the new general layout
guidelines for VUB webpages
(http://aivpc41.vub.ac.be/ieco/website.html), and characteristic for ECCO. We are still working on
that layout, so any suggestions for improvements are welcome. We also
made a first attempt at creating a representative logo, but this
should be further streamlined.
The adoption of the wiki and of the VUB template imply a number
of constraints. E.g. Nathalie suggested to move the ECCO name and
logo to the left, and the VUB name to the right, which would indeed
be more logical, but that would be against the VUB guidelines (though
we probably won't follow the full guidelines anyway, as they are
meant in the first place for Dutch speakers looking for information
about VUB organization rather than an international audience
interested in our research).
Nathalie also suggested to move the wiki icons (for editing
etc.) down to the bottom of the page, as casual visitors are not
supposed to use them. We indeed plan to do that, and moreover make
them less noticeable, but haven't yet found out where in the wiki
code this can be changed. Perhaps Mixel, who is an expert in the
Squeak programming environment that underlies this (s)wiki, may need
to look at it.
We also need to fix the width of the wiki panel to match the one
of the title panel above. Moreover we plan to make the text style of
that panel similar to the one of the left menu panel, which follows
the VUB style sheet, but that will again imply some intervention in
the wiki code.
Content
Apart from suggestions for the layout, we especially hope that
you will add to the content of the webpages, and especially check
your own information. For example, you can add/edit short biographies
for yourself via the members page, or add publications and working
papers that are relevant to ECCO on the respective pages. You can
also delete or add your name on the ECCO-projects listed on the
"research" page, or suggest recommended reading at the
"bibliography" page. Or you can add an abstract of your
upcoming talk to the seminars page...
If you prefer not to be listed here, you can also simply remove
your name. While the web is publically accessible at present, we
haven't made any publicity for it yet, so in that sense it doesn't
yet represent an "official" site. Once everyone is
satisfied with it, the website will be publically announced together
with the official registration of ECCO as a VUB research group. For
the latter, the most important thing is the list of members that will
be listed on the application form, and that will mirror the one on
the web. So if you prefer not to be listed as an ECCO member, either
"core" or "affiliated", please let us know!
Having an informative and user-friendly website is an important
step in getting our research recognized, so I hope you'll like what
you see and contribute to further improving it!
--
Francis Heylighen
"Evolution, Complexity and Cognition" research group
Free University of Brussels
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
Francis Heylighen
"Evolution, Complexity and Cognition" research group
Free University of Brussels
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
