Tech Forum

So, the new version of LUWS has been progressing quite nicely. We've got the Calendar with Resource Scheduling (still being improved, but already worlds better). We've got the Ward/Stake/Leadership Directory (Hooray! Again, superb.) Both have some messaging capabilities that will be improved as time goes on. That leaves two major portions of LUWS still to be updated and replaced:

1. Lesson Schedules
2. News and Information Pages

I have no idea if any of that has been developed already, though I suspect not. When it will be developed, I haven't a clue. I am not a church employee. I am not in any position of authority (priesthood or otherwise). But, here's a couple of thoughts to see how much interest can be generated in completing these things.

Perhaps the Lesson Schedules part of the website could be integrated with these pages:
http://lds.org/manual/relief-society?lang=eng
http://lds.org/manual/melchizedek-priesthood?lang=eng

If someone's logged in, they won't just see where to study, they can see (if the Bishop/Stake President has chosen to post it, or delegated a counselor, clerk, or the Website Administrator to post it):

• The EQ/HP/RS President's study recommendations for the 1st Sunday (if they got around to posting it, or having their secretary post it)
• Which lesson should be taught from the Gospel Principles Manual on the 2nd/3rd Sundays (remember it changes from stake to stake due to stake conference)
• Which talk(s) will be discussed on the 4th Sunday
• Whether there will be a combined meeting and how to prepare for the lesson on the fifth Sunday.

Everything should include links to the source talk or the lesson in the manual.

Perhaps, when an Elder or High Priest is logged in, a spot on the home page could say:

Next week's lesson in Priesthood (1/8/2010) will be on Fasting (Chapter 25 of the Gospel Principles manual)

Or, in for a Relief Society sister:

Next week's lesson in Relief Society (1/8/2010) will be on Fasting (Chapter 25 of the Gospel Principles manual)

Do something similar for the Sunday School lessons.

Another good place to put the lesson schedule as well as the meeting schedule would be a special calendar in the new calendar app that could:

• automatically pull in the meeting schedule from the MLS submitted info
• Provide the framework for local leaders to update the lesson schedule (eg the events/lessons are there by default but can be modified by local leaders)

Where else could the lesson schedule integrate well with lds.org? Where would it be most intuitive? Where would it be simple to implement?

As far as implementation goes, any ideas on how such data could be stored/retrieved? ie: what should the xml/xquery look like? (lds.org uses MarkLogicand XQuery to store and serve the many magazines, manuals, other documents, and general website stuff) Any XQuery wizards out there want to write some sample code to create a page that pulls in lesson data?

Happy to Help,
Jacob Floyd

PS My views don't necessarily represent the official opinions of the church - by using this site, I agreed to that in the terms and conditions. Just remember that.

I am also interested in how the lesson schedules and the news & information will be migrated from LUWS to the new web site. Another function I am curious about is the missionary section, listing missionaries serving in the ward and missionaries serving from the ward.
Dana

I have not seen anywhere yet where the lesson schedule is posted. Am I missing it somewhere?

jwilles wrote:I have not seen anywhere yet where the lesson schedule is posted. Am I missing it somewhere?

They are not posted yet. I have asked the product manager over that site for a clarification on when that will happen but have not heard back yet. I will follow up and post what I learn.

We are preparing to kick off our first development sprint for the lesson scheduler. As we finish the cleanup for the 2.0 Calendar release, we will have more resources to put toward starting this project.

The whole project has not been scoped yet, so I don't have a guess as to when we'll be ready for a beta release, but know that we are moving forward.

jdcr256 wrote:We are preparing to kick off our first development sprint for the lesson scheduler. As we finish the cleanup for the 2.0 Calendar release, we will have more resources to put toward starting this project.

The whole project has not been scoped yet, so I don't have a guess as to when we'll be ready for a beta release, but know that we are moving forward.

That's good to know.

However, given that the new lesson scheduler can't possibly be completed in time for stakes and wards to enter 2012 lesson schedules when they would like to (that time is now for many stakes), I think the question is when the existing LUWS lesson schedules will be updated for the 2012 curriculum.

aebrown wrote:That's good to know.

However, given that the new lesson scheduler can't possibly be completed in time for stakes and wards to enter 2012 lesson schedules when they would like to (that time is now for many stakes), I think the question is when the existing LUWS lesson schedules will be updated for the 2012 curriculum.

I just had the SS president ask about posting 2012 lesson schedules. Haven't heard yet from stake for RS/Priesthood lessons, but I am sure they are coming. I would like to be able to post something in the old system until the new is ready for 2012

jhowell2000 wrote:I just had the SS president ask about posting 2012 lesson schedules. Haven't heard yet from stake for RS/Priesthood lessons, but I am sure they are coming. I would like to be able to post something in the old system until the new is ready for 2012

The new lesson schedules module will not be available until sometime in early 2012. It's still an open question as to when (or even if) the 2012 lesson schedules will be available on the classic site. The last I heard from the product manager over that area was "I'll see what we can do on this one."

jhowell2000 wrote:I just had the SS president ask about posting 2012 lesson schedules. Haven't heard yet from stake for RS/Priesthood lessons, but I am sure they are coming. I would like to be able to post something in the old system until the new is ready for 2012

I think our stake has decided to post them on the stake calendar as an "all day" event, with the url to the lesson on LDS.org in the event description. Two HUGE DRAWBACKS!
1) Very tedious and time consuming
2) No link ability! BIG, BIG Drawback.....You can paste a url into your event body to the lesson, and ask people to copy and paste the url to their browser line, but I don't see that being done by some users very effectively.

Although that doesn't mean we won't do it....
I could see an import of an ICAL file useful, if we all had the lessons on the same days, but we don't.

kisaac wrote:I think our stake has decided to post them on the stake calendar as an "all day" event, with the url to the lesson on LDS.org in the event description. Two HUGE DRAWBACKS!
1) Very tedious and time consuming
2) No link ability! BIG, BIG Drawback.....You can paste a url into your event body to the lesson, and ask people to copy and paste the url to their browser line, but I don't see that being done by some users very effectively.

Although that doesn't mean we won't do it....
I could see an import of an ICAL file useful, if we all had the lessons on the same days, but we don't.

I've got leaders in our stake wanting to do the same thing -- post lesson schedules in the calendar. I'm still hoping the Church will update the lesson schedule in the classic web site so we can continue to use it until the new version is released. Not looking forward to entering Sunday School and Priesthood/RS lessons in a calendar overlay.