[wilhelmtux-discussion] Would you take a look at http://www.scuoladecs.ti.ch:8080/index.html, please ?

[Claude Almansi]

Hello Zäme

http://www.scuoladecs.ti.ch:8080/index.html  is the official school site of
canton Ticino. Its Webmaster, Egon Mari, presented it this afternoon at a
course for asst librarians in Bellinzona. I knew it is a weird site alright,
but some of the things Egon said rather worried me: Apparently, several
pages are in proprietary format (Excel for instance). But I'm not very good
at analysing sites.

Scuoladecs used to be something with a strange status, because the DECS
(Education, Culture and Sport Dept  of Ticino) couldn't care less about the
internet. Recently the DECS insisted on putting its logo on the page, so
this is an official site of the cantonal govt.

I remember Alex mentioning a similar problem with the site of the city of
Zurich, but isn't it worse for a cantonal site?

It's not Egon's fault: his hands are tied because politicians here still
understand nothing about computers, though the Dept claimed the page. So he
can't use the programs he wants, but the ones imposed by the CSI  (the
blokes managing the cantonal network) through the cantonal authorities. He
can't even install a free Google inner search engine, or a free counter (it
WOULD be useful to know how many people visit the place, whether from the
schools or from home etc). There is no way he can get rif of the :8080 bit
in the URL, which means that subpages have awfully long URLs. He only works
part-time, hence the non html, proprietary pages.

They've put "teaching units" under password because they have vague fears of
copyright issues: either these teaching units are made of stolen stuff, and
putting them under pw won't make things better, or they are honestly made by
teachers, and then the Dept should pay the authors or get permission. Etc...

What I have in mind is a triangulation: if some of you would be so kind as
to point some of the things that are technically wrong in the site's
accessibility and compatibility, I could then forward your remarks to Egon
and he could use the assessment to get leverage on the politicians and the
CSI's technocrats.

It has worked in the past with other official sites (universities'). Worth
trying, no?

Being forced to do a botched job is unpleasant, so I would like to give Egon
a hand. But even more than that, this is the bl00dy official school site of
the Dept of Education, and it should be up to Internet standards.

Thank you in advance

Claude

Claude Almansi
claude.almansi at bluewin.ch
www.adisi.ch