We expect the conference to run from 9-5pm on Thursday, July 12 and from 9-1pm on Friday, July 13. Lunch will be served both days. We also invite you to join us for dinner in downtown Beloit on Thursday evening at 6pm.  To register for the conference, please complete this form.

Session Descriptions

Design Responsively (Amanda Frisbee) The 5 step "program" to get your site mobile. Mobile apps vs responsive sites. Responsive design and its variations. New ways of CSS thinking. Reason implementation for easy content management. Responsive design in action!

Deployment with Git (Ben Wilbur) Learn how Ben and Steve worked to make Luther's Reason deployment process as painless and streamlined as possible by mimicking the deployment process of Heroku (git push heroku).

Reason 4.2 for Developers (Nate) The next version of Reason is a significant upgrade that brings huge performance improvements. During this session, we'll dig into the code and database changes that enable these performance gains, and share suggestions for database indexing. Learn about a new setting, REASON_MAINTENANCE_MODE, and how to use it in custom modules. Reason 4.2 introduces super simple integration with ReCaptcha and Akismet - use these to stop comment spam, and discover how to implement these services in your own custom modules. We'll preview the beta javascript powered Thor form creator, and attempt to leave time for general Q and A on issues developers want to discuss.

Social Sharing in Reason (Mark Heiman) Reason 4.3 will make available social sharing features - our starting point will be the publications and events modules. This session will provide a quick preview of what might be coming, and an opportunity for group discussion about how you use (or would like to use) social sharing in Reason. What social services do your faculty, staff, and students use? What are examples of successful uses of social media on your existing websites? What kinds of social sharing integration could we build into Reason that would strengthen your communication with internal and external audiences?

Locks: Controlling what your site maintainers can edit (Matt Ryan) You've probably set up a Reason site, only to have it broken or carelessly rearranged by its site maintainers. Reason's new locks feature allows you to "lock down" many aspects of a Reason site, giving you a powerful tool to make your sites more robust and "userproof". Find out how locks work, and how you can use them to their best advantage.

Reason Pain Points Roundtable (Mark Heiman) This session is intended to be an open discussion that identifies and prioritizes Reason "pain points." The goal of this session is to identify frustrations and help us prioritize development for Reason 4.3 and beyond.

A "pain point" may be one of the following:

• Something you can do but the path to doing it is extremely inefficient.
• Something it seems you should be able to do but cannot (because of a bug or because there is no way to do it).
• Something you repeatedly do incorrectly and then have to fix.
• Something that you find really annoying.

This session will begin with brainstorming of pain points as described by the audience. Once an initial list is established, the pain points will be discussed and ranked by consensus.  Many pain points identified in last summer's conference have been fixed - this is a great opportunity to get your concerns on the development priority list.

Accommodations are listed in order of proximity to the College. We strongly suggest making reservations in advance. Be sure to mention Beloit College when making reservations, as most will offer a special rate.

The Beloit Inn
500 Pleasant Street
608.362.5500
Toll free: 608.362.5500
Website

Fairfield Inn
2784 Milwaukee Rd.*
608.365.2200
Website

Holiday Inn Express
2790 Milwaukee Rd.*
608.365.6000
Website

Quality Inn
2786 Milwaukee Rd.*
608.362.2666
Website

Rodeway Inn
2956 Milwaukee Rd.*
608.364.4000
Website

Econo Lodge
3002 Milwaukee Rd.*
608.365.8680
Website

* All lodging on Milwaukee Road is 5 minutes from campus, by car. Beloit Inn is within walking distance of campus.