Penn State Live: A peek under the hood

Through the launch of Penn State Live, found at http://live.psu.edu (no www necessary), the Department of Public Information has consolidated several news Web sites into one comprehensive source of news and information from throughout the Penn State system.

"For years our office has maintained several Web sites using static HTML documents -- a general news site aimed at an external audience, one targeted to faculty and staff, another one for research news. In addition, many colleges, campuses and other units have set up their own news Web sites. It has been difficult to tell people where they might find all the news they were seeking," said Bill Mahon, assistant vice president for University Relations and director of Public Information.

"Now, it's easy. The Department of Public Information has consolidated the University's news into one comprehensive site, with a very simple address: live.psu.edu."

Penn State Live, coupled with the comprehensive and expandable Penn State Newswire system, will serve as the University's official, round-the-clock source for Penn State news. This is information that already can be obtained via e-mail, the Web and RSS syndication. Eventually, the site's headlines and content will be available through cell phones, PDAs and tablet computers.

Penn State Live is built upon the information that is distributed daily through the Penn State Newswire system, combined with additional stories and announcements, still photos, video and audio clips.

The site is managed through an integrated, home-made, Web-based story editor, which allows editors to edit stories, assign them to various Newswires, set release dates, handle subscriber issues, create or remove Newswires, and post to the live.psu.edu Web site from any computer with a Web browser.

"News on the site is updated throughout the day and even on the weekends, so there often will be something new on the site anytime a user logs in," Mahon said.

One feature of the site is 'In Motion,' which provides streaming video from a number of sources, including material produced by WPSX-TV and programming developed by Melisande McCrae in Public Information.

Still Life is a snapshot of the University, featuring photo stories of events, classes and life taking place at University Park and at other Penn State locations.

"Live also works as a quick-stop link to information of ongoing interest," Mahon said. "The Hot Topics section includes links to information about the University's state appropriation and operating budget; our teaching, research and outreach initiatives related to homeland security; and our environmental conservation efforts. We've made a real effort to find ways to display different kinds of important information in ways our audience will appreciate."

Doug Stanfield, coordinator of information technology in University Relations, was project manager for development of Penn State Live, which is built on a combination of technologies that offer low-cost, powerful and flexible solutions. By conserving resources and using free, yet powerful, software tools, the University was able to invest in the talents of Penn State people to put the project together.

"The creation of this site would not have been possible without the efforts and dedication of three alumni over several years, two of whom worked with us as students," said Stanfield.

Alumnus Philippe Hajjar wrote the original Newswire management system approximately five years ago while completing his master's degree in computer science and engineering. The Penn State Newswire (http://newswires.psu.edu/) has grown to more than 127,000 subscribers in more than 50 countries since then.

Joe Knapp is a programmer who worked in University Relations before he graduated this past August. Using the experience gained with that first system and incorporating advances in some underlying technology, Knapp rebuilt major elements of the system into its current form. He has continued to work on the project from his home in Philadelphia, even though he has another full-time job and "spends a fair amount of time on his skateboard." Knapp, who takes a strategic view of what software should do, has been instrumental in shaping the concepts and architecture for the Penn State Live site.

The site's graphic designer, Jason Tremblay, works in the Department of Integrative Arts http://www.inart.psu.edu/ and has been accepted into the MFA graduate program in the School of Visual Arts. Tremblay created the overall look and feel of the site, and also did some of the JavaScript, Flash and PHP programming. He created a modified, site-wide Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) that controls the typography and layout and maintains consistency from page to page. He also created the multimedia streaming capability, set up photo page templates and implemented other features for the site.

"The underlying components of this system are known as 'DAMP,'" Stanfield said. "These letters stand for Darwin http://www.apple.com/macosx/technologies/darwin.html, Apache, mySQL, and PHP and/or Perl, all free technologies that run on Mac OS X and other platforms, including BSD Unix, Linux, and Windows.

"A similar acronym will be familiar to those who use Linux as a server -- 'LAMP'," ( http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2001/01/25/lamp.html )he added. These are not new tools to anyone who's been working on the Web for any time, but what is exciting is that they are now available for use on relatively small-scale servers, such as those in departments like ours. They are powerful and scalable tools that allowed us to keep costs at an absolute minimum while building a service that can be economically scaled up to meet future needs."

Apache (http://www.apache.org) is a Web server application that runs more than 65 percent of the world's Web hosts. PHP ( http://www.php.net/ ) is a general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML, and mySQL (http://www.mysql.org) is a free, open-source database.

The only costs incurred in the site's development were for a scheduled upgrade to the server software and the labor costs of the programmer and site designer. There was no need for new server hardware, no annual or recurring licensing fees, nor any large, up-front software purchasing costs. These factors mean the average cost of the site will be much lower over time.

For information about the project and site architecture, e-mail DougStanfield@psu.edu.