One small step

Achieving a huge step forward in or out of class is very rewarding. I’ve blogged about such moments before, and certainly savor them when they come along. But what about the other 99.9% of the time? Well, there are more modest joys that can be found there. On Wednesday, my department’s job bank was shifted to a new system. It was one of those small but pleasant moments: a small step, yes, but a step forward nonetheless.

The job bank itself isn’t new. It’s actually the first thing I knew about UMW. Way back in the late 90s, it was known among preservationists as the place to check for opportunities. But then it wasn’t maintained and suffered accordingly. When I started at UMW, completely overhauling it was one of my first projects. I discussed this at Faculty Academy in 2011.

The new site looked infinitely better than what it replaced (and this was before UMW switched over to WordPress from Contribute. I used UMWBlogs and ported to the UMW WordPress a year later). As I had hoped, people started checking our site again. Now, the job bank is the reason behind about 50% of our web traffic.

So yeah, the changes made in 2010 were huge, and they worked. But that doesn’t mean the system was perfect. In particular, while the interface looked nice for users, it required lots of steps to post jobs. I have no one but myself to blame for that: I really wanted a searchable google map as well as a spreadsheet. But having a google map as well as entries listed by categories on the site meant many redundant steps to post the info. Or at least it did because of my puny technical skills.

One thing I’ve learned in my years at UMW so far: if I have an idea but lack the skills to get it done, I should call on DTLT. So I put up the bat signal and Ryan Brazell answered. Ryan and I met a few times so I could explain the issue and describe my dream solutions. A few weeks later, Ryan had a working replacement. A few tweaks after that, the switchover is now complete. [I’m hoping Ryan will blog on his end to explain the actual programming wizardry that made this work. How ’bout it, Ryan?]

Casual users of the site may not even notice the change. The biggest difference for them is that the table of jobs can be sorted, as opposed to the text list it replaces. For the student aides actually posting all this stuff, on the other hand, the difference is huge. First, posting takes less time. More importantly, jobs are posted in a single place – a google spreadsheet – instead of two (google maps and in WordPress). This means that possible errors, leftover pins, etc. are now a thing of the past. Since multiple students work on the job bank at any given time, this is a welcome change.

So: better quality, easier, faster, looks even better. It’s a small step, yes, but not a bad achievement. This brings me to another thing I’ve learned: the job isn’t really done with the big overhaul. The tweaking and perfecting are more than the cherry on top. Really, the job bank got in such a poor state originally precisely because no one ever focused on small iterative changes. That can of course be applied to all sorts of other situations. Paint a house and the wood won’t need replacing down the road. Don’t paint it and you will come to regret it. Nonetheless, the point remains: those small steps are more than maintenance. They make sure you keep up with changes, and that the site – or façade, or whatever – doesn’t get back-burnered too long. Out of sight out of mind and all that.

Now if you’ll excuse me I feel inspired to improve other stuff. It may be time to reorganize my library…