April 16, 2020
By Albert Wu
In Fall 2019, the InCommon Federation launched a new consolidated Federation documentation wiki. This new wiki re-organizes materials developed over the years to make things easier to find and navigate. This is an integral part of our continued effort to make the InCommon Federation easier to use. The first phase of the new wiki work focused on improving content taxonomy and navigation.
Throughout 2020 and beyond we will continue to improve content accuracy and readability. In addition, look for new content designed to help new and prospective InCommon community members get started in the Federation.
Read on to discover key new features in the new InCommon Federation wiki.
New Documentation Dashboard
One of the first things you will find when visiting the new Federation wiki is a brand new documentation dashboard. The dashboard groups materials by topic and provides an organized way to browse and find content, and has a dedicated search box at the top.
The dashboard also displays important announcements in the Federation community.
One of the first things you will find when visiting the new Federation wiki is a brand new documentation dashboard. The dashboard groups materials by topic and provides an organized way to browse and find content, and has a dedicated search box at the top.
The dashboard also displays important announcements in the Federation community.
Activity-Driven Content
The new Federation wiki organizes content based on specific activities a community member might perform when working with the Federation. It is designed to help the reader get things done quickly. This organization is particularly visible in the layout of the dashboard. For example, the “Using metadata” section (or volume) contains all articles that explain how to work with the InCommon metadata.
The dashboard will be also updated to emphasize important activities. With the recent call to action to support the Research & Scholarship Category, we’ve updated the dashboard to highlight instructions on how to enable seamless research collaboration by supporting that category.
Improved Navigation
To help readers quickly locate relevant materials, we’ve added new navigation aids on article pages:
The Jump to links on the top of an article page lets the reader quickly skip to the section they are looking for within a longer page.
The “In this section” links provide quick links to other pages in the same section of the wiki.
The “Related content” links highlight other materials related to the topics covered on a page.
The old wiki is going away
With the new wiki in place, we will be retiring the old Federation wiki in the coming weeks. Please update your bookmarks to point to https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/federation/.