Call for Proposals: NARST Website Redesign

Transcription

1 Call for Proposals: NARST Website Redesign Prepared by: Ad Hoc Website Provider Committee: Diane Jass Ketelhut Scott McDonald (Chair) Kelly Ryoo William Sandoval Hsin-Kai Wu Randy Yerrick (ex officio) February 1, of 6

2 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING CALL FOR PROPOSALS Overview NARST: A Worldwide Organization for Improving Science Teaching and Learning Through Research is seeking the services of an experienced website design team to engage with us to research, redesign, develop, implement, and offer maintenance options for its website. This is an open call for a project that will involve the design team working to assess the organizations needs, migrating the content of the existing website where necessary, along with the development of new tools, products, content and features as required by the NARST organization, its Board and leadership. The current functions of our existing website are to inform and educate people regarding NARST activities; maintain an e-commerce enterprise for conference and memberships; facilitate and support conference organization, including: submissions, review, and planning; provide a private and secure collaborative space for Board and Committee activities; and support the social networking efforts of the NARST leadership. Our goal is to continue and expand these services through a modern and responsive web presence. It is critical for the long-term success and accessibility of the NARST website that vendors see this as a relationship and the work on the site as a complete design and development process. We anticipate that as part of the proposal the vendors will describe a plan to work with the NARST leadership to understand the needs of the organization and deliver a site that supports our current needs, as well as providing flexibility to support our future needs. Finally, it is absolutely essential that NARST own everything produced during development, in particular underlying source code, entity-relationship and entity-flow diagrams, and all relevant documentation of the site and its development. Organization History NARST is a worldwide organization of professionals committed to the improvement of science teaching and learning through research. Since its inception in 1928, NARST has promoted research in science education and the communication of knowledge generated by the research. The ultimate goal of NARST is to help all learners achieve science literacy. NARST promotes this goal by: 1) encouraging and supporting the application of diverse research methods and theoretical perspectives from multiple disciplines to the investigation of teaching and learning in science; 2) communicating science education research findings to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers; and 3) cooperating with other educational and scientific societies to influence educational policies. Goal of the Project We need the site to serve our international membership, as well as the general public. We need a secure, responsive, and accessible environment that communicates about our organization, while also supporting the work of its globally distributed membership. 2 of 6

3 We anticipate visitors to our website would include teachers, researchers, policy makers, and the general public seeking to learn more about science education research. Our membership is approximately 1700, more than 25% of whom live outside the United States. Our Facebook presence demonstrates less than half of the 1700 members are currently active in social media and, of that number, less than 8% of those involved in social media are above age 55. Our social media events and announcements attract anywhere from 2000 to 10,000 hits. We redesigned our website 6 years ago. Since that time the NARST leadership has expanded their use of the site employing third party tools to provide functionality for blogs, social media, podcasting, file storage and sharing, webcasting, and collaborative workspaces. We would like to integrate tools to support these functions into the new website. One piece that is critical to the new site is consideration of our current seamless member directory, login, and proposal system, which is connected to an e-commerce model for dues and conference fees. This functionality is central to the existence of the organization. We include examples of three areas of need that have emerged as a result of increased use of online tools to support the organization work: 1. Need for a shared calendar and notification system. The board and their respective committees need these calendars to be specific for the task and not to be included in the online calendar made public for the entire membership. This calendar system may incorporate existing software (Outlook, ical) and needs to have subscription capabilities for small groups. 2. Need for document sharing, secure file management, and collaborative space. Building a record of past committee work, forms, deadlines, policies and other important history of committee work that is highly confidential but also needs ubiquitous access from all committee members is essential for passing on institutional history. As such members assigned to new committees each year need to be able to log in as members, see their membership within specific communities, upload and download confidential files, and share comment threads which are shared only by committee members. 3. Need for a blog along with other social media. The need to update and sustain conversations around critical issues is essential for the Board of Directors to be accountable to the membership. The President (at least) needs to sustain a robust blog thread with members to address issues, communicate with outside agencies, and bring a general public face to our organization. The site would need to provide a seamless integration across social media platforms, including visibility on the primary website for social media streams. 3 of 6

4 Technical and Functional Specifications Hosting, Maintenance and Development The website must be hosted by an industry-standard provider that can offer maximum uptime and reliability, and retain functionality during times of peak demand, such as conference submission deadlines, and annual conferences. The server must support the installation of third-party web-based applications, and allow full administrative access to the site for security, customization, and control of features. During the development period, a live, private (obscure, non-indexed) version of the site should be available for the organization to test and preview. Upon approval, the development site must allow seamless migration to existing domain (NARST.org). It is the preference of NARST that the site be developed using open-source software, such as PHP and Python. The site s source code documents should be well annotated and organized for ease of maintenance, and editing by third-party developers, if required. Content Management System and Analytics The site must have a graphical Content Management System that allows for editing of the site content, and creation of new pages and URLs. Using the web-based CMS, the end user should be able to edit pages, posts, promotional content, images, and use a media manager to upload and link files for download. We welcome recommendations for the appropriate CMS platform. The CMS must support multiple levels of permissions, so users can access and edit specific pages. The CMS must allow for the creation of both public and members-only content areas. The publishers must have easy-to-read analytics regarding site usage. Design and Accessibility Utilizing an editable style sheet (CSS), a master document profile shall be established so that end users can create common design elements without writing HTML or CSS code (Headers, sidebars, links, blockquotes, images, captions, hyperlinks, etc.). A WYSIWYG preview must be supported. Custom CSS should also be supported within the document editor. The site s design must display appropriately on all modern browsers and mobile platforms. A dynamic template optimized for mobile browsers is requested. The site must be designed for accessibility so persons with visual and mobility impairments can navigate the site. 4 of 6

5 Applications The site must support a shopping cart system for membership enrollment and renewals. Reports of membership enrollments and payment history shall be accessible and allow for importing into Microsoft Excel for accounting. The site must support members-only access to content. The site must allow third-party integration of video content through the CMS, including YouTube. A calendar feature must be included Persistent editable sidebar content is required that can be hidden as needed The site must continue to support the conference submission system. Conference participants must be able to create submissions, upload documents, and edit their submissions as needed. The system must prevent editing and submissions after a deadline, which is established each year. Reviewers must be able to upload reviewed papers to a participant s submission area. Custom form creation must be provided The website must be designed to provide integration with a platform-independent webinar system Qualifications The successful design group must have substantial experience in website design, development, implementation and maintenance and have a history of success from a number of different referenced and public organizations. We are looking for proposal that come from groups that engage in a full design and development process with their clients and see this proposal as the beginning of an ongoing relationship. Only proposals that clearly indicate NARST s ownership of everything produced during development will be considered. Proposal Instructions Applicants will need to provide a strong history of successful clients, references, and a portfolio of comparable sites. Finalists will be invited to host a live demonstration to the Ad Hoc NARST Website Provider Committee and then will bring at least three viable proposals to present to the full NARST Board for a final consideration before the final contract is awarded. Proposals should be sent to Dr. Scott McDonald (narstweb@psu.edu ). The deadline for receiving proposals electronically is March 8th, Specifically, proposals should include: 1. Project plan and timeline with a methodology for the design, development, maintenance, and hosting 2. Description of the final product 3. Estimated budget 4. Qualifications, including prior work examples 5. Personnel and their relevant experiences and credentials 6. Client references 5 of 6

6 Timeline February 2016 March 2016 March/April 2016 April 2016 Solicitation of Proposals Deadline is March 8th, 2016 Initial Proposal Evaluation Completed - Finalist Chosen Additional Materials Submitted and Live Demos Completed Finalists Presented to NARST Board for Consideration Contact Information Respondents/proposers with questions or concerns are encouraged to contact: Dr. Scott McDonald Associate Professor of Science Education 146 Chambers Building University Park, PA narstweb@psu.edu of 6