Progress on ADEC Technical Initiatives

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:

1.
Advertise your products and services on the E
-
Store
website and let ADEC process your payments

2.
Advertise your products and services on the E
-
Store
and link to a purchase page on your own online store
website

3.
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


ADEC Website/CMS

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


0
50000
100000
2005
2006
2007*
E
-
Answers Searches

Searches
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 CTO

703
-
861
-
5223

steven.conn@adec.edu