Some major effort for micro grants

So it turns out the CIS website had some webpage about microgrants that I didn't even know existed. Even once I knew it existed, I had no idea what was going on with it or what its purpose was. Well, I got introduced to it recently because, in preparation for something we'll be unveiling soon (spoiler alert: it's a campaign of some sort), we'll be wanting to feature our microgrant program, and that current page was not going to cut it. It was formatted poorly, had no introduction or explanation, no updates; in fact, it didn't actually have the functionality that was originally intended. So, even though most major website updates are on hold until we get that new website I teased created, it has been my task recently to create a more functional and user-friendly page about our microgrants.

Originally, the page was intended to have all of the awarded microgrants listed by title, with PI and advisor (if applicable) names, a thumbnail image, and links to the associated proposal and any updates. It was the hope that the website content would be maintained by the PIs; as in, they would be in charge of uploading images, updates, and any other related information. I'm not sure what happened, but the page didn't come out that way, so I was asked if I could make the page more functional and able to facilitate easy updating. My first thought was to utilize some sort of wiki for each of the projects, as that would allow for PIs to do their own uploading (thus taking the burden off of me or anyone else). Well, this is still a good idea moving forward, but that wasn't going to help with cataloging what's already done. So, the burden is on us (me + some helpers, I hope!!!) to get everything from the past 8 or so years posted online and appropriately linked.

So far I have been able to reorganize the existing abstracts that were online (and upload them as PDF instead of them existing on their own pages), which were all from this past year. Beyond that, I've simply added placeholders for what will eventually be filled in. This included creating a logo that can stand in for image thumbnails until real ones are added. Creating this page was as much a proof of concept, if anything, as I needed to get something together to see whether it would meet the original requirements. Anyways, you can check out the work in progress here: http://www.cis.rit.edu/micro-grants

It turns out the page as designed is a go, so now everything needs to get organized and linked in. This is a major task... Even getting this far was not at all trivial. Formatting seems to be wildly inconsistent, and not all of the files I have been provided are organized. Add on to that that I have no prior experience with the microgrants program (in fact I really know diddly squat about it) and this was all needlessly complicated. I may have to enlist some help to get this underway because it has already been really time consuming and that was only for abstracts and only for one year. There are hundreds of other files that need converting to PDF; the overall listing that includes titles, PI names, and advisors for all previously awarded microgrants needs to be created; and all those files need to be opened up and searched to find accompanying images for thumbnails. EEK. It would be one thing if this was the only thing on my plate, but this is only one of several major projects I am waist-deep in in the moment. Needless to say, I am feeling a little overwhelmed in general...