The web is ideal for idea sharing, but the WCMS can be awkward and many common tools like Word and LaTeX don’t produce accessible or web-friendly content (required by all Ontario Universities). Additionally, STEM faculty often use equations, which can be challenging to integrate into web pages.
OnlineProfileBuilder (also by our group) makes stock profile pages, but does not allow much freedom of expression.
We’ve created a versatile system for professional web content generation including Blogs and general information pages, it’s named OnlineScholar.
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Free for UWaterloo faculty and staff
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Easy to use
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simple and standardized authoring language (ASCIIdoc)
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displays the formatted output instantly as you type
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one can convert from other formats, eg. MS-Word complete with tables with about 90% format compatibility
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TeX (LaTeX) styled equation editing – displays edited equations in real-time
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Attractive pages
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Accessible content – E.g. supports screen readers
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Both mobile and computer friendly output
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Ability to delegate creation to anyone else in UW community (need WatIAm, supports co-op students, grads, staff, others)
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SEO – Search Engine Optimzied (published pages will appear in Google)
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content is in a standards-compliant format, and can be converted to other formats for the future
See the Three Minute Tutorial for a quick overview showing all major feature. All these documentation pages are demonstrations of this tool in use.
Once satisfied with the output, faculty can link to their new page from OnlineProfileBuilder, the format is https://onlinescholar.uwaterloo.ca/published/WatiamUserid
To convert a file from MS-Word to ASCIIdoc, use pandoc. After installing pandoc (with APT or homebrew or Windows installer) type the following, then cut and paste into your Online Scholar document and upload any images as managed assets.
pandoc input.docx -f docx -t asciidoc \
--wrap=none --markdown-headings=atx \
--extract-media=outputfile -o outputfile.adoc
