Today is the primary day for this year's annual statewide conference and I've just completed the first session, which I selected in order to get a better understanding of how to use our new online meeting management system, BoardDocs. You might be interested to know that most of Loudoun's representatives here coordinated prior to today's sessions to minimize overlap, so that most of the sessions offered today will be covered by at least one board member and we can share notes. My notes here on this blog will serve as my notes to colleagues as well as to the public on the sessions I attended.
Anyhow, regarding BoardDocs, I was pleased to see that this system is advancing in its capabilities, and I expect that LCPS will make use of more features as we get further along.
Below are a number of notes, but the biggest thing I learned about that I think members of the public will like to see is the Scoreboard. I'll add the link to my blog site over on the right. The Scoreboard will show you, for the current meeting, where we are in the agenda and what has happened previously including votes.
Click this link and as of the time that I'm writing this you'll be taken to the end of our last meeting and see the results of voting on the question of inauguration day as a school holiday.
News Stories can be on RSS Feed, which is nice but our main website already has a new RSS feed.
Fairfax schools uses the News Story sesction to answer budget questions
Public data is available in XML format for inclusion in existing main website, which could be helpful but given budget restrictions I wouldn't expect to see too many advances in that main website over the next few years.
Committee meetings and their documents can also be in BoardDocs.
Draft agendas can be available to board members while still in draft.
Current Item link on toolbar once meeting starts, so everyone can quickly get to the current page
Scoreboard Lite follows agenda and indicates current item
Clerk can post the vote right away, showing in Scoreboard Lite
MP3 file of discussion can be attached to a single agenda item
Podcast interface available as well
A new version is due for release next summer, and will include:
- Video embedded in agenda items
- Drag & Drop agenda item movement & creation
- WSYWIG in-browser item editing
- Agenda item list shows currently selected agenda items
- Searchability within just the current meeting
- Speed increases
- New printing features
- New look comes
- Master Calendar