Qwidget ready for testing

[slawlor]

At Jacque's request I've set up the Question Point Qwidget chat box on TNCC's website. We've tested it here and it seems to work well.

If anyone wants to take a look and play around with it, it's on a test homepage here <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.tncc.edu/library/indextest.php">http://www.tncc.edu/library/indextest.php</a><!-- m -->

Note that it's only functional when someone from the VCCS is signed in to QP. Otherwise it shows a message saying chat is not available.

I have volunteered to be the Qwidget administrator, so if any of you want this on your own websites, I can set it up and send you the code to past into your pages (which will, of course, require the intervention of whoever manages your website). There are some options for size and color of the box which I'll send to whoever is interested.

~ Susan

[tcassidy]

I am so excited about this, I tested it just now and this happened:

1. The gadget was active so I sent this question from the TNCC chat widget on the TNCC page Question: Qwidget: Is it a qwidget yet?

2. The gadget noted that my question was submitted, and nothing happened.

3. I logged in to LRCLive because I am nosy, and there was no one from VCCS staffing the chat, but the question I submitted did pop up for me to answer, it looked like this

--
Note: Patron's screen name: Library Patron
Question: Qwidget: Is it a qwidget yet?
Tara C: Librarian 'Tara C' has joined the session.
--

Two things

The gadget identified patron-me as a TNCC student to librarian-me. Would this change depending on what college library page the gadget is accessed from?

And, I thought if the gadget was active that meant there was a VCCS librarian online? That was not the case this afternoon. How does that work?

[slawlor]

Answer #1 - Yes, the qwidget will change the identifying information depending on what college is using.

Answer #2 - it isn't supposed to be active if no VCCS librarian is signed in, so I'm not sure what happened yesterday unless you just managed to catch it in between shifts or something. It looks like you were logged in just after 3 pm, and there should have been VCCS staffing at that time.

Let's see how things go as other folks play around with this. And I'm planning to force the issue by playing around with it myself, you're welcome to join me.

~ Susan

[jdessino]

Just to expand on answer #1, the Qwidget has to be created for each college at the institution level. Then the code placed on the web site. Once we get it working correctly, Susan has agreed to create the Qwidget for any college that wants it. j

[jdessino]

Ok, I checked that someone from the VCCS was covering LRC Live. There was coverage. I went to the Qwidget box and it said that chat was available. I entered my question, and chatted with the librarian.

When that librarian went off duty at 3 pm nobody came on after her. I went back to the test page and the Qwidget box was a solid color and it said: Chat is not available at this time. Please check the library homepage for links to LRCLive Reference.

So, Susan's explanation seems reasonable. Maybe Tara sent her question just as someone was signing off. Otherwise, perhaps Tara has a magic aura that confused the Qwidget. We need more people to test it out and report their results.

added a couple minutes later: hit refresh. On the refreshed screen, the Qwidget very briefly displayed as available before returning to it's unavailable status. It wasn't long enough to enter a question, but it might support the theory that there is a small delay before the Qwidget knows for sure if anyone is available.

[infoprobh]

Web managers can also add code that will make the box collapsible. The html is here: http://wiki.questionpoint.org/Qwidget+Tips

Beverly

[slawlor]

I spent a fair amount of time working with that collapsable version and couldn't get it to work. Our college webmaster said that it would take some kind of intervention at the system level to get the javascripts to function. That seems a little extreme to me though, may be that he just didn't want to mess with it. Have you tried it?

~ Susan

[tcassidy]

OK, just tested again to see whether the gadget recognized when a VCCS librarian is / is not available to chat and am pleased to report that it does (In spite of my magical aura .

[infoprobh]

Susan, I got it to work but I need TCC's id code. I'm still doing some fine tuning but you can see it on http://www.tcc.edu/lrc/revamp/

Be sure to put <script language="JavaScript" src="collapse.js"></script> in the HEAD section of your document. And you need to Download this javascript file, collapse.js, and put it in the same directory as the page where you will put the collapsible Qwidget: http://www.askus247.org/collapse.js
Beverly

[infoprobh]

Susan,
Well, I sort of got it to work. In fact, I created an icon. However, I'm not convinced that the collapsible box is the way to go. If I were a patron I think I'd rather have one place to click.... Ask A Librarian, and then when I got to that page the chat box already be open. I dunno, maybe it would be useful to embed it in the site but our navigation already contains a link to Ask A Librarian on each page.

Keep it simple? You can see it on http://www.tcc.edu/lrc/revamp/
Beverly

[jdessino]

I think having the Qwidget chat link embedded will make a difference. Here are two reasons why:

1. The student panelists (from 4 different colleges) at the recent Tidewater Consortium workshop on marketing and PR said the biggest reason they don't use the resources on their library's web site is because they don't want to have click down to another page to get to what they really want.

2. The reason that the Qwidget only works when there is a VCCS librarian online and does not go to the 24/7 coop is because the Qwidget generates so much traffic for the sites that use it that the QuestionPoint servers and the 24/7 librarians can't handle the added traffic. Right now they have a trial going on with certain schools to see if the Qwidget can go to the coop. The only schools that are eligible are those who answer 75% of their own questions. jacque