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ADEC CTO Report. Progress on ADEC Technical Initiatives. ADEC E-Store. http://estore.adec.edu. ADEC E-Store. Opened in April 2004 Implemented using open source osCommerce e-commerce platform (http://www.oscommerce.com)
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ADEC CTO Report Progress on ADEC Technical Initiatives
ADEC E-Store http://estore.adec.edu
ADEC E-Store • Opened in April 2004 • Implemented using open source osCommerce e-commerce platform (http://www.oscommerce.com) • All credit card and private information secured by high-grade AES-256 SSL encryption by Verisign • Payments accepted using via Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, check and purchase order • Showcases products, courses, workshops, conferences and other items produced by ADEC member institutions
A Few Numbers • Since opening in April 2004: • 1,000,000+ visits • 750+ customer accounts established • 800+ orders placed • 1,300+ items sold • $65,000+ in revenue for ADEC members
E-Store Offerings • Currently offering 100+ products from 10 ADEC member institutions • Offerings include videos (VHS and DVD), online courses, computer software (available via CD-ROM and immediate download), conferences and workshops • 95% of products on the site can be purchased directly from the E-Store secure server • Items from multiple institutions may be included in a single shopping cart for purchase
How to Participate • Selling products and services via the ADEC E-Store is a benefit of your ADEC membership • Three ways to participate: • Advertise your products and services on the E-Store website and let ADEC process your payments • Advertise your products and services on the E-Store and link to a purchase page on your own online store website • Post a banner ad on the E-Store website
ADEC Processes Payment • Customer adds your products and services to their E-Store shopping cart • Customer checks out and completes credit card, check or purchase order payment via secure on-line transaction • E-Store notifies you that the product or service has been purchased and should be shipped (if appropriate) • Once every month, you receive a check for the gross revenues from your product/service sales
Link to Your Online Store • Customer learns about your product/service from a page on the E-Store website • Customer clicks a link at the bottom of the page and is redirected to a URL you designate on your own online store website
Banner Ads • Displayed in the upper-left corner of the E-Store website • Server cycles through ads as the customer clicks through the site • Banner ad links to a URL of your choice
Banner Ads, Continued • Currently running four banner ads on the site • Since initially posted, ads have received an average of: • 200,000+ views • 5,000+ clicks • Ads must be 480 x 50 pixels in JPG, PNG or GIF format (animated GIFs are OK)
Future Developments • Non-English product pages, products and services • Acceptance of PayPal for payments • Downloadable e-documents and media products • Pay-per-view , digital “tokens” for one-time or unlimited access to streamed content • Increased participation by ADEC member institutions
Staff • ADEC • Steven Conn, ADEC project lead • Chris Klosowski (REU fellow from Northern Michigan University), HTML author and graphic designer • Louisiana State University • Fred Piazza, LSU project lead • Sam Razzi, software developer • Sandy Fiser, graphic designer
February Meeting • Steven Conn and Chris Klosowski met with Janet Poley and ADEC staff in Lincoln • Re-arranged the menu structure to move more frequently accessed items to the top • Re-designed and simplified the home page • Made final decisions vis a vis content areas that were not addressed in 2006 meetings at LSU • Demonstrated using the CMS for ADEC staff and conducted a basic training session
Left to Do • Programming • Implement site search • Implement RSS feeds • Content • ADEC-specific metadata • HTML authoring • Management • Move server to hosting center at UNL IANR • Live in May 2007
E-Answers http://e-answers.adec.edu
E-Answers • “Google” for ADEC member sites • Focused on content that answers questions for a broad, public audience • Initially implemented and hosted by the University of Florida • Assumed by ADEC in November 2004 • Implemented using ht:Dig search engine (http://www.htdig.org)
A Few Numbers • Currently crawling 400,000+ documents at 50+ ADEC member sites • Averaged 40,000+ searches per year in 2005 and 2006 • Has already performed 30,000+ searches in 2007 as of April 27
Future Developments • Move to the Nutch search engine (http://www.nutch.org) • Higher-performance search engine • Implemented in Java (not Perl) • “Show me more like this one” • Clustering and taxonomy support
ADECnet • Currently have 38 self-funded ADECnet sites • 2/3 still have “Gen 1” Tachyon hardware which is now officially “unsupported” • In 2006-7, 6 sites have upgraded to “Gen 2” equipment (cost approx. $2,500) • Will be offering sites “EverCare” maintenance for $55/month, will cover equipment replacement (parts and labor) after 60 days • Are in discussions with Hughes Network Services, LLC as a possible alternative vendor
Questions? • Contact Steven R. Conn, ADEC CTO703-861-5223steven.conn@adec.edu