April Update to the Beta Site

April Update to the Beta Site

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3R Project
Beta Site Update

Today there will be a new release to the RDA Toolkit beta site. The release will go live in the evening in North America. Part of the release is still in a testing phase and will follow in a week or two. An announcement will go out when the follow-up release is live.

This release includes the stabilized English language version of the RDA standard. This marks a significant milestone in the 3R project as the standard is now ready for translation and evaluation by policy statement authoring groups. Learn more about the English language stabilization from the RDA Steering Committee’s announcement.

The release includes several additions to the site that will roll out over the next couple weeks. 

  • Citation Numbering– this will be part of the follow-up release. The citation numbers are used for print references to RDA content. More on how this will work when it is released. 
  • Print PDFs– print PDFs of each page will be available and accessible from a print button with the follow-up release.
  • Publication Dates – publication dates for each page are now found at the bottom of the page.
  • Help– a help guide that provides tips on how to use the beta Toolkit will be part of the follow-up release.
  • Administrative Site– a redesigned admin site will be part of the follow-up release. The new admin site will give staff managers more control over site settings for their staff and profile management. An in-depth post about the new admin site is coming soon.
  • Breadcrumb navigation– a breadcrumb navigation has been added to RDA instructions in order to provide more navigation choices for the user. It was expected (and widely promoted) that a visual browser would be added the toolkit as a key navigation option. However, mock-ups of this tool revealed major questions about its viability and utility for users. For this reason, the visual browser project has been shelved. In the coming months the Toolkit development team will look to improve the breadcrumb navigation and explore better ways to allow users to navigate the Toolkit. 

The release includes several fixes to the beta site. 

  • Corrected highlighting on touch screen tablets to open the popup toolbar.
  • Search terms are now highlighted in results.
  • Improved filtering of search results.
  • Popup boxes may now be moved by a clicking on the box and dragging it to a new position.

In regard to the accessibility of the beta site, significant improvements have been made but work continues. After the May follow-up release, the site will undergo accessibility testing by a third party and further remediation will follow. The goal of meeting the AA rating of the WCAG standard remains.  

This release does not change the beta status of this Toolkit. Work on 3R continues as the focus shifts to development of translations and policy statements. The original RDA Toolkit remains the official version of RDA until 3R is declared complete. Learn more about the transition plan for the beta site.

Over the coming months users can expect both the follow-up release in May and a new release sometime in August or September. Also RDA Toolkit will hold a free webinar on May 10th that will provide an overview this release and the direction of RDA and RDA Toolkit. This webinar will be followed by a program of online orientations to specific 3R Topics that will run in July and August. More on those webinars to come. 

You can find the German translation of this post here.