Home > About Us > Advisory Group > July 2003 Advisory Group notes

Draft Advisory Group 25 July 2003 meeting notes

Room 101, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington

Attendees: Rakiihia Tau, Kaeti Rigarlsford, Peter Sykes, Georgina Johnson, Ross Bell, Ruth Gardner, Stephen Blyth, Bill Dashfield, Don Manunui, Emily Kratz.

Apologies: Vaine Hosking.


1.  Welcome

The meeting opened with a karakia by Rakiihia Tau.

2. Minutes and Matters Arising

The notes for the 12 March 2003 were accepted as a true and accurate record of the meeting.
Moved Rakiihia Tau, Seconded Peter Sykes: Passed

3. Website performance: update

Bill tabled a paper outlining trends since December 2002. Key points to note are:

  • Overall upward trend indicating 4% growth in visitors, pages viewed per visit and files downloaded
  • Visits in June dropped by 17%, the number of visitors was 6,828. 
  • Similar drop in the number of updates received from visitors. 
  • Links is the most viewed section. The number of links is growing by 1% per month.

There is often a falling-off of both visitors and new content some months after a re-launch. Effort needs to be put into publicising the site to potential users, researching and reinforcing what keeps existing users coming back, and developing new content.

4. Website developments: ‘How-to Guides’

There have been limited progress expanding the number and breadth of ‘How-To Guide on the website since the March 2003 meeting.

The proposed approach to further development is to:

  • Work with other government agencies to negotiate involvement of their staff as specialist editors. A paper is being prepared for the inter-agency MDS, CEG and CDG senior officials group. Once these agencies have considered a proposal a wider group of agencies will be approached.
  • Contracting with specialists in different fields. CDG has made budget provision to contract with up to eight editors. Progress on working with editors will be made following outcome of the approach to other agencies.

A plan is in place make progress.

Suggestions were put forward to:

  • Explore resources on a Queensland Government website.
  • Include legal structure materials from Te Wananga o Aoteoaroa
  • Link directly to the Gaming Society lists on the DIA website.

Issues identified for the Long-term plan included review processes for ‘How-to Guides’, and presentation of material in Te Reo and other languages.

Advisory Group members expressed dissatisfaction at the lack of progress and asked for a report on progress at the next meeting. 

5. Webguide: proposed online resource

As part of a Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FoRST) research contract the University of Waikato have agreed to create a practical guide for community groups wanting to use of the Internet. The handbook will provide guidance on electronic publishing and promote knowledge transfer between groups. It is being collaboratively developed by the University, 2020 Trust, Communities Online Trust, CEG and CDG. Other parties may also contribute.

The groups have agreed that the most appropriate place to host the ‘webguide’ is on CommunityNet Aoteroa. Issues addressed by the Advisory Group included:

  • Measures and / or processes to ensure that content is quality assured and meets the needs of the website’s target audience. 
  • Clarification of any decision-making and accountability processes. A formal agreement with other parties to the ‘webguide partnership’ may be required. 
  • Decide on requirements for consistency of design within in any new pages. There may be some variation as we experiment with different online tools (eg a weblog) and coding (eg cascading style sheets). 
  • Measures to ensure a kaupapa Mäori approach is incorporated into the development process and final product. 
  • Implications of inaccurate advice leading people astray. A check needs to be made about legal liability associated with quality assurance and technical accuracy. 
  • Clarification about who will maintain the site: we do not want to end up with a stranded orphan.

The Advisory Group agreed with the concept of hosting of the ‘webguide’ subject to the following conditions:

  • A written agreement be entered into to ensure a clear record of roles and responsibilities. It was considered appropriate that the webguide partnership be the owners of the document/ resource. There will be not any editorial control, provided the guide adheres to website policies and demonstrates it is meeting terms of the agreement.
  • The agreement should cover:
    - measures and / or processes the webguide partnership will take to ensure that the content is quality assured and meets the needs of the website's target audience.
    - specification of measures to ensure a kaupapa Mäori approach is incorporated into the development process and final product.
    - maintenance and review procedure: the webguide partnership would be expected to not only create a handbook or guide, but commit to reviewing and maintaining its accuracy for the period which it is hosted. 
  • The webguide look n' feel will be consistent with CommunityNet Aotearoa design and the design consistent with the existing standards.

ACTION: Stephen to reply to University group with conditions and then return to advisory group if there are any major changes. Also to look into free copyright with restrictions.

6. New Website features: progress report.

Bill presented a paper “CommunityNet Aotearoa: a scoping of refinements, enhancements and marketing”. This paper was a detailed look at web site enhancements discussed at the previous Advisory Group meeting, for ‘regionalisation’ and for increased interactivity.

Regionalisation

  • Regional filtering will allow visitors to choose to view news, events, jobs and ‘classifieds’ on a regional, as well as national basis. It will also encourage local ‘ownership’ of content and potentially tie in with the National Information Networks project.
  • There will be 17 regional categories, matching the regional split of the Links section. To avoid having empty pages, the 17 regions will initially only be viewable in larger groups, such as Upper North Island, Central and South Island. These will be split further as volumes grow.
  • For consistency of operation, the web maestro will decide whether each item is of regional or national interest.

Increasing interaction

  • Virtual communities (or communities of interest) take time to grow and become established. Email list serving was recommended as the best way of supporting these groups in the initial stages, avoid the risk of empty pages and the additional resources needed for web based options.
  • Discussion forums and Chat rooms require more visitors and support resource to be viable, though they can be useful and may be trialled for specific short terms event. 
  • Weblogs and RSS news feeds have great potential and should be experimented with.

Incremental improvements and content

  • Many small improvements (tweaks) to usability and accessibility have been identified.
  • The focus on adding and updating content will be maintained.

Marketing and consultation

  • Marketing activities should be carried on to continue increasing the number of community visitors to the site. This will focus on increasing Panui circulation and ‘click through’ from Panui to the web site. It will also include web marketing, and promotion with and at community events and other community organisations. These activities will take time rather than money.
  • Nominated CDG field staff will be consulted, and an on-line survey carried out of Panui and CommunityNet Aotearoa readers will measure satisfaction and gather specific information to inform implementation of the changes.

Budget and timescale

  • The Regionalisation and some tweaks will require Intergen to make changes to the CMS system. For speed, flexibility and cost reasons, the interactivity improvements will be done on another server.
  • It is expected that changes can be implemented by November within existing budget. 

The Advisory Group supported the plan. It also requested that an email list be set up for the Group.

ACTION: Bill to implement the plan with Intergen, and both personally and with the Web Maestro for non-CMS aspects. Also to set up an email list for the Advisory Group.

7. Long-term Plan preparation

Don facilitated a Long-term planning process.  Paul Curry, CDG General Manager, joined the meeting to be updated on progress with the Long-term Plan. A general discussion with the group took place.

At the end of the meeting it was agreed that Stephen Blyth put together notes into a draft format. The Advisory Group agreed to meet to complete the planning process on Wednesday 13th August (via videoconference) subject to availability of the facilities. Draft plan to be circulated prior to the meeting. The process and timeline for consultation with community organisations will be discussed at the meeting on 13th August.
 
ACTION: Stephen to circulate draft Long-term Plan, and confirm meeting arrangements

8. Connecting Communities Conference, 3-5 November, Wellington

The Connecting Communities conference is bringing together a range of stakeholders to explore current community ICT projects and discuss ways of connecting communities. The event will have practical focus and be used to tease out practical initiatives to support community organisations. It is important that CommunityNet Aotearoa have high visibility.

Stephen indicated that CDG would support attendance at the event by Advisory Group members. The exact nature of this would depend on individual circumstances, but could cover registration fee, travel and accommodation.

ACTION: Advisory Group members to liaise with Stephen about attendance.

7. Next meetings

Dates for the next meeting will be set on 13th August.