OOS Community Web Site RFP
Summary
The Ottawa South Community Association (OSCA) would like to contract for the design, building & maintenance of a new web site for the community of Old Ottawa South. The web site should be technically sophisticated in that it enables maximum upkeep by volunteers and minimum maintenance by the contractor. However, this is a website managed and operated by a non profit organization and as such the proposal will need to balance cost against the desire to facilitate maintenance by volunteers.
Dates
Issue RFP: May 15, 2001
Indicate a willingness to respond to the RFP: Immediately
Respond with a proposal for design and hosting: 3 weeks, by June 1, 2001
OSCA to settle on contract: June 12 meeting
Contractor to provide analysis; present design, navigation and
maintenance suggestions July 30 2001
Significant detail
(including Fall Program & Events module) online: Sept 1, 2001
Full detail online, tech report delivered,
start of year’s maintenance: Jan 1, 2002
Background
The Web Site Sub-Committee of OSCA has been charged with managing the redesign of the OSCA web site to make it useful to the residents of Old Ottawa South, OSCA’s members and board members as well as the public in general.
After OSCA’s experience of the last two years, the sub-committee has identified Ease of Maintenance and Update as being the main goal of this web site redesign. The new site must be built to enable two or three volunteers to do all maintenance and update of content in less than one-to-two hours of work, each, per week. It is not the intention to (re) build this site all at once but to add content as it becomes available and as details are worked out.
Requirements
Technical Requirements
In order to achieve ease of update by volunteers the Web Site Sub-Committee expects that contractors will need to implement server side scripts to deal with the necessary interactions. In general these scripts will be used by a select few; those responsible for the week-by-week update of content (Content Masters). In the case of the Upcoming Events and Issues section we hope to have citizens post their events, subject to the approval of the Content Masters.
Scripting needs to be available specifically for the Events, Business Directory and Content Management Modules, Master List of OOS resident e-mails.
One of the deliverables will be a copy of the scripts and a technical description of the requirements of their functioning. The quality of the description should be such that a technician of equal knowledge could implement the site in the absence of the original contractor. OSCA is to have right of use of any proprietary code written for this contract.
Design Requirements
Graphic Design
As one of the main goals of the OSCA is for the community to project itself to it’s residents and to the greater world, the graphics on the site should be reflective of both the physical community and the people. This could include both a map siting the community in Ottawa, Canada and photographs of the physical space; it’s people and activities. Some of these photographs could be provided; others might need to be taken by the web developer. A combination of photographs and graphics could be employed --we are looking for advice and guidance.
It would be essential that whatever design requirements are recommended that they be developed in a manner that facilitates quick loading times for all browsers and computers.
Navigation
OSCA members and the community at large represent both sophisticated and unsophisticated users. Navigation should essentially follow the site layout, facilitate access to the information through at most three clicks and be intuitive to the least sophisticated user.
Site Layout
Site layout should conform to the content of The Essential Guide to Ottawa South with special emphasis placed on Upcoming Events and Issues and The Ottawa South Business Directory. In addition there is currently a major fund-raising effort ongoing for renovation and enlargement of the Ottawa South Community Centre, The Fire Hall, and it should have a prominent presence on the site.
Help, Site Map, Search
and Contact must be available from the Home page. A possible site map follows. Attached in the Appendix is an information architecture that lays out the headings and subheadings with requirements.Home
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-
- The OSCAR (Community Newspaper)
- Upcoming Events and Issues
- Program Information and Registration
- OSCA Information and Activities
- History and People
- Community Services
- OOS Business Directory
- Related Links
- Similar to current site
- Exhaustive listing of all local businesses –" between the bridges" only
- Things to Do
- Services and Resources
- For the Kids
- Recreation and Fitness
- Our Heritage
- Our Community
- Mapping Project
- Board
- Description, contacts & meeting schedule
- Minutes
- Sub-Committees
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- Description, contacts & meeting schedule
- Reports
- CRC
- OSWATCH
- OPC
- ECOS
- Finance
- Web Site
- Other?
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- OSCA (private) Communications Area
- Create a poll
- Discussion/posting space
- Create and conduct moderated discussions
- Collaborate on documents
- Current Program Guide
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Web Site Content
The OSCA website committee will provide the content. Content for the new site would come mainly from an updated The Essential Guide to Ottawa South, a document written and printed in 1998-99 and updated in 2000 under the editorship of Peter Wells. The Essential Guide can be found on the current OSCA web site
(
http://www.oldottawasouth.com/essential_guide/index.html)
in pdf form. The Web Site Sub-Committee will be organizing an update of The Essential Guide to ensure the currency of the information going into the new site. Content will also come from: The OSCA site will point to OSCAR content but the building of each issue on the web is the subject of a separate contract. Maintenance As stated in the summary, ease of content posting by volunteers is of primary importance. We hope for proposals that will successfully provide that service. Given such a site, maintenance should only consist of checking and ensuring the smooth technical functioning of the site. In addition the maintainer is required to supply a monthly report of site usage. The contractor will have to evaluate and describe what he will have to do to ensure the smooth operation of the site, given the level of automation that the contractor is providing. Hosting Magma Communications will provide hosting. Training for Users The web site is being set up for interactive content addition. It is anticipated that from one to three Content Masters will be working to keep the web site current at any time. These will be volunteers and will come and go. The successful contractor will have to provide manuals and/or training to enable those volunteers to do their work. At the beginning there will be one volunteer Content Master and the contractor will work out training procedures with him. Evaluation Criteria The proposals will be evaluated on the following basis: Design -20% Navigation --20% Technical Specification and Maintenance- 45% Training Proposal-15% Instructions to Responders What to Submit-- Written proposal --6-8 pages with budget outlining all costs, can be submitted by e-mail References--names of two references for work completed of a similar nature Contact Suzanne Potter --Design and Navigation questions, management, relationship with OSCA. 730-0359
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Jake Morrison --Technical considerations, maintenance etc. 730-0366;
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,
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Appendix: Information Architecture The following are the top-level categories and subheadings that are to be used for the website.