Implementing a local government web site

Following on from an earlier article relating to selecting a Content Management System, I would like to take the time to describe the steps involved in taking your Content Management System (CMS), and implementing a fully functioning web site that is capable of meeting the demands of local government. I would like to base this on my own experiences of implementing a new web site for East Northamptonshire Council. As the project spanned over twelve months from inception to going live, I won’t give a detailed blow by blow account, as this would be too much information, so I’ll stick to the key points.

Nailing the requirements
You need to have a very clear idea of your requirements. To give you an idea of the sorts of things you may want to consider, please read my article on selecting a Content Management System. This is not exhaustive, but hopefully will get you started considering what you need from your CMS. You may also want to consider whether you want an open source solution. There are many very good open source CMS suppliers offering a wide range of functionality. If you are considering this type of solution, then read my article which describes some of the areas you may need to consider with this type of solution.

It took several weeks before the requirements document was signed off with everyone’s approval. There were many areas that needed to be considered and included in the document, as different people would be involved with the CMS, and from different areas of the organisation.

· ICT would be tasked with administering the CMS (setting up users, tailoring the LGNL, creating appropriate landing pages, creating the necessary work flows, setting image sizes)
· Communications would be tasked with creating news stories and press releases, ensuring the web site followed the corporate style, that it represented the needs of the local citizens by including relevant content
· Content editors would be tasked with creating the content that would be put onto the web site. They come from all areas of the organisation, and are responsible for uploading content for the service area in which they work. For example, a content editor working in the Environmental Health service area, would upload content for that service area.

Everyone needs to be satisfied that their requirements have been fully considered during this process. You will need to get people round the table to discuss their requirements, so that others can give their opinion. We had several requirements that were initially deemed to be important, but during discussions were eventually discarded or amended in the light of input from others.

Never underestimate the value of opinion from a carefully selected group of interested people!

From our requirements, we could then proceed to the next stage of the project, and begin selecting suitable CMS suppliers.

Selecting the CMS supplier
There are many CMS suppliers out there in the market place, and the quality is very high. I used various comparative web sites at first to get a feel for what was on offer. We were looking for a non open source solution. Specifically, we were looking for a Microsoft based solution (SQL Server, Internet Information Services, .NET Framework), as these were the technologies we had in-house to provide local support, as well as to extend and develop the CMS further in line with fluctuating demands. As the primary development resource at the council, it was important that I could use the technologies provided by the CMS. This immediately narrowed the list of candidate CMS suppliers.

Looking through the list of those who were left, we looked to see which of the remaining suppliers had experience of developing web sites for local governments. The requirements of a local government web site are different in many ways to that of other web sites. Local government web sites need to implement a standard taxonomy, or list of services that they offer. What this means is that a service provided by one local authority should be located in the same area of the web site as another local authority. So bin collections will be located in the same area of all local authority web sites. They also need to comply more strictly with standards such as WAI conformance. This allows that web content is accessible to people with disabilities, such as visual impairments. This process also narrowed the list of potential CMS suppliers even further.

Eventually, we had a list of candidate CMS suppliers who offered systems that we could extend in terms of technology, and had experience of the local government sector. That list included:

· Immediacy
· Jadu
· Red Dot
· Goss Interactive
· Contentsis

We arranged demonstrations with each of these suppliers, with an invited audience of people from across the organization. This would give us a good cross section of opinions afterwards. We also had a marking scheme in operation, and marks were awarded by those who would be attending all of the demonstrations. This included myself, the web developer and other key personnel. This would ensure that we were awarding marks against each of the suppliers consistently, as they were being awarded by the same people using the same criteria.

Each of the suppliers were given the same set of scenarios to demonstrate with their products. They were free to deviate from the scenarios to demonstrate other areas of their product, but they each needed to all demonstrate as a bare minimum the set of scenarios that we had given them. This too would allow consistency, as each supplier would have to demonstrate the same elements within their product.

Having a standard set of scenarios, and a standard marking scheme, would bring fairness and consistency to the marking. It would also allow us to demonstrate how and why we had selected the successful candidate if this ever became necessary.

In the end, we selected Jadu as our CMS supplier. There were several reasons for that decision:

· They offered both an open source and a Microsoft based solution, allowing us to leverage the power of either development platform. Additionally, they offered a means of taking native PHP code, and compiling this into .NET Framework code using their own Phalanger compiler. This was a truly unique offering, giving us the best of both worlds.
· They had a deep understanding of the local government web site space, with many of their clients coming from local government, including the award winning Manchester City Council web site.
· From my own perspective, it was clear they understood technology. For any company involved in building systems, you need to have people who are passionate about technology. As a self confessed technologist, it quickly became obvious that the people at Jadu were passionate about technology. This was a crucial factor, as without the drive to move forward technologically, your investment would quickly become obsolete.
· Under the ICT Partnership, East Northamptonshire Council also provide ICT support to Borough Council of Wellingborough. The latter were already using Jadu, and so this would enable the two councils to share skills, and reduce the number of systems in use across both local authorities.

Migrating content
Once we had made our selection, we then met up with the team to go through the project – timescales, milestones, tasks etc. Jadu have a very well documented project management framework which is issued to all their clients to give them a detailed description of what will be involved. Luckily, they go through this with you at the start of the process, and indicate the key milestones along the way.

We now needed to migrate the content out of our current CMS and into the Jadu CMS. We initially investigated the possibility of automating an extraction, so that we could populate the Jadu CMS using content from our current CMS. As the two systems were radically different, it would have taken as long for Jadu to write the necessary scripts, than for us to plough ahead and migrate the content manually. However, as it turns out, the vast majority of clients prefer to migrate their content manually. This gives them the opportunity to clean up the content as part of the migration process – remove unwanted content and update existing content. What we didn’t really want was to blindly migrate our old content over to the new system, so the migration would help act as a housekeeping exercise.

The content editors were all briefed on what was expected of them, as they would be migrating the bulk of the content. It was a large task, as many had vast amounts of content on the web site which would take considerable time to migrate. So the next logical step was to arrange training for them on the new system. There are two levels of training – webmaster and content editor. Myself and several others had the full two day webmaster training. This covered all aspects of the system, including the administration and more technical areas. The content editors would receive the half day training which would cover the necessary steps involved in adding content (documents, downloads, news, events) to the system.

This process was initially estimated to take six weeks, but we soon realised we needed to change the timescales as the work was simply taking longer than estimated (that’s why they’re called estimates).

Testing
Despite several setbacks, problems and issues, we eventually managed to migrate our content over to the new CMS. We arranged internal testing, with staff from one service area testing the content of another service area. We used standard tasks extracted from SOCITM (the Society of Information Technology Management) who produce the excellent Better Connected report each year. This report ranks and assesses local government web sites, and gives advice on how they can improve. So using this as the basis for our testing made sense.

We tested each page also for:
· Spelling and grammar
· Writing for the web (short, punchy sentences and paragraphs, use of bullet points, breaking down a document into multiple pages)
· Broken links
· Use of images
· Use of page supplements
· Use of landing pages
· Layout and overall look / feel of the page

Communication is absolutely critical!
One of the key components along the way was a high level of communication. I arranged and chaired regular meetings with the content editors, to get their feedback on any issues and problems they were experiencing, as well to as to go through the latest project updates with them. With a project of such scope, that affects the entire organisation, and requiring input from all service areas across all levels of seniority, communication was far from easy. Keeping everyone up-to-date was very difficult. Different people wanted different levels of information. Some only required brief updates, some required detailed updates. It really pays dividends to have a formal process of communication in place:

· Who will send out the communications?
· Who will receive the communications?
· How often will they be sent?
· How will they be sent?

Having a process in place whereby these questions are satisfied will be of immense benefit.

Going live
On the day, the process we were to follow would be:

· Jadu perform pre go–live checks in the morning
· Once complete we then change the Domain Name System (DNS) record to point to the new web site and take the current web site offline (and place a suitable offline web page in its place)
· Jadu complete their pre go-live checks and give us access to the site for testing (the general public still see the offline web page)
· Once we have tested the web site to our satisfaction we give Jadu the go ahead to make the web site live to the general public

We had put together a test schedule for the period during which we had access to the web site. This was not to test the content (which we had already done), but to test areas of the site that may have been affected by making the web site live. This would allow us to perform targeted testing when we only had a brief window of time.

Conclusions
There are many areas of the project that I have omitted for brevity, including the integration with the back end office systems, coming up with the look of the new web site, as well as the many issues that were encountered along the way. That aside, the key points made here still apply.

Make sure you get your requirements signed off with the consensus of a group of interested people who are capable of arriving at the final document.

Spend as much time as you need (or as you can afford) researching the CMS market. Find out what is available, what the differences are between the many products. We sought the opinion of other local authorities to see what CMS they used, and what they thought of it. There is nothing quite like a recommendation!

Ensure you have clear channels of communication. This is vital to the success of the project. With so many different people involved from so many areas of the organisation, you will be quickly swamped without a proper process of communication in place.

What makes a good local government web site?

There are many benchmarks which describe what factors constitute a good government web site. Perhaps one of the most widely known and respected is the Better Connected report from the Society of Information Technology Management (SOCITM).

The structure of this report follows the criteria for high-quality local authority websites that develop the ideas that websites should be 'useful, usable and used'.

There are many third party services which will routinely crawl over a web site and benchmark it accordingly. Within local government, one of the better know of these is Sitemorse, who provide quality, compliance and availability monitoring services.

SOCITM and Sitemorse are the most widely adopted benchmarks used within local government.
The following is a summary of some of the key factors that make up a good local government web site. This is by no means an exhaustive or definitive list, but instead highlights just some of the key areas

Useful content – Does the website have the information that people are looking for?

A website must conform with all these criteria to ensure that the content is useful.

• Information - Do people find answers to their questions?
• Currency - Can people rely on the site being up to date?
• Links elsewhere - Are people referred to another organisation if the council does not have the information
• News value - Does the content capture people’s newsworthiness?
• E-mail - Can people do business by email with the council
• Transactions - Can people transact business with the council
• Participation - Do people have the opportunity to influence council policies and decisions?

Usability – How useful is the information to find and use on the website?

A website must conform with all these criteria to ensure that it is easy to use.

• Ease of finding - Can people find the site easily?
• Use of A-Z - Can people find their way easily to a specific topic?
  Use of search engine - Does a specific word or phrase generally point people to what they want?
  Use of location - Can people find information easily by using a map or postcode (or other similar)?
• Navigation - Can people rely on a clear and consistent style in finding their way around?
• Design of transactions? - Can people use online forms and other transactions easily?
• Accessibility - Can people use the site if they have a disability?
• Readability - Can people understand what the site says?
• Resilience - Can people rely on the site to be available and working properly

Used – How well used is the website?

It is recommended that each organisation pursues policies that encourage the take-up of their websites under these broad headings.

• Access - Do people have easy free access to the Internet (not forgetting access through intermediaries)?
• Measurement - Are visitor numbers and interactions increasing?
• Feedback - What do visitors think about their experience in using the website?
• Marketing - Are websites being fully marketed to key audiences

These are just some of the many factors that need to be taken into consideration when developing a local government web site. A far more comprehensive list of benchmarks and considerations can be obtained from the Better Connected report produced by SOCITM.

Developing a Web 2.0 strategy for local government

Following on from my earlier post about local government and Web 2.0, I would like to discuss in more detail about forming a strategy for implementing Web 2.0 in local government.

The two main factors to be discussed and agreed upon are what channels you will use, and what you intend to use them for.

However, more importantly, there needs to be a clear understanding of 'why' social media is being implemented. Without a clear appreciation of the benefits and uses of social media, any proposed strategy for its use will fail. What demographic group(s) are you trying to reach, and what do want to tell them?

As mentioned in my earlier post, social media gives local governments a very good vehicle in which to engage with harder to reach demographic groups, such as teenagers and young adults. It can give citizens a voice in decisions that affect their local communities. Social media can provide a two way communication channel, allowing citizens to be both informed (listen), and to have their say (talk). Social media presents local councils with unique opportunities that should be fully utilised.

Different social media channels work better than others for particular types of communication. For providing an 'online community', Facebook / MySpace may be suitable channels. For quick updates in real time, Twitter may be a more suitable channel. There are no rules, and each channel has its own particular set of advantages and disadvantages. Each social media channel should be used to its own particular strengths.

To summarise, any strategy for implementing Web 2.0 within local government should include answers to the following questions:

• What do you want to achieve with social media? Why are you using it?
• What social media channels will you use?
• What do you want to use these channels for?
• What resources do you have? Who will provide the content, who will post the replies, who will moderate the comments and so on.

Adopting Web 2.0 in local government

What is Web 2.0?
The term 'Web 2.0' has been attributed to Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media. He coined the term to refer to the applications and software technologies that promote the sharing of digital information between users.

Web 2.0 is very often used synonymously with the terms 'social media' and 'social networking'. Indeed, they are often so similar that in most cases they can be used interchangeably (and so will this blog).

Web 2.0 represents a group of technologies including blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, podcasts etc. Together, they provide a more socially connected web, where everyone is able to update the information space. This is obviously a much more egalitarian model, and so the web also becomes a good leveller.

Web 2.0 and local government
As Web 2.0 allows users to update the information space, irrespective of who they are, it is therefore more than ably suited to be used within local government, where social democracy is important to its constituents.

The use of social media is one way in which a local council can become more transparent, accountable and possibly even increase it's levels of trust amongst its constituents.

As stated earlier, Web 2.0 provides an egalitarian playing field, where every citizen can have their voice heard. In a Web 2.0 world, you do not need to be a celebrity, famous or powerful. However, having a web presence is not necessarily the same thing as having a voice, and the two should not be confused. This is where local councils can play a major part by giving their citizens a voice they may not have otherwise. This promotes the ideals of citizen empowerment.

Uses of Web 2.0 in local government
There are many examples of Web 2.0 being used within local governments. Lichfield District Council, in partnership with Jadu Content Management Systems, have implemented a Twitter feed for their planning applications, and developed an application called Twitterplan to allow citizens to receive more specific planning notifications.

Redbridge council used online polls to solicit feedback from its citizens in relation to the closure of Post Offices. Their web site is generally considered cutting edge, whether it is to your personal tastes or not.

One very important trend in the use of Web 2.0 within the local government space, is to engage with a wider, harder to reach audience, such as teenagers and young adults. Through the use of social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, local councils have a far greater ability to engage with these younger demographic groups. Such channels are also more cost effective than the alternatives.

Employee access to social media sites
There still seems to be a mis-conception that using social media sites leads to a lowering of productivity, and so in many places of employment (including local councils), there is a move to ban all such sites. So although the citizens may benefit from the adoption of social media, it seems that its staff seem to be losing out.

This position is misguided. To use social media effectively, you need to engage with it. How can you efffectively use Facebook or Twitter, unless you actively use them yourself.

Thankfully, there do appear to be some forward thinking managers working in local government. To quote David Wilde, Chief Information Officer at the London Borough of Waltham Forest 'For managers it can be difficult to know what exactly their employees are doing. But the organisation needs to be outcome-based, and I don't think we should be using technology to prevent access to social networking sites. If there are staff performance issues, we should address them directly'.

Some guidelines for using Web 2.0

• Don't look at social media as purely about technology. Look at it as about being more effective, saving time and making cost savings. These are issues that citizens will greatly appreciate.
• Think about what resources you have. There is little point having a Twitter feed, or a blog, if there is no-one to respond to the incoming tweets / comments.
• A local government blog should be seen as a council wide communcations platform, not as a side project for a handful of keen individuals.
• Consider a Web 2.0 strategy. What social media channels will be used, and what will they be used for?
• Ensure you have a staff policy on the use of social media sites during working hours.

A day in the life of a local government software developer

I work in local government for East Northamptonshire Council as their Senior Systems Developer. Since April 2008, East Northamptonshire Council and Borough Council of Wellingborough have formed an ICT partnership. What this means is that East Northamptonshire Council provide ICT support to Borough Council of Wellingborough. Therefore my job spans across two local councils.

The purpose of my job is as follows:

• To act as both Council's key system development resource
• To investigate, analyse and design systems that will allow the efficient use and sharing of business critical information
• Increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the ICT infrastructure through the creation of new software and the integration of existing systems
• To create and maintain a customer focused website and intranet across both councils

As well as being the key development resource, I am also the manager of the ICT Development Team, which includes managing the Web Developer.

There is certainly not enough room to describe everything that I do, but some of my main areas of responsibility would include the following:

• Manage the development and deployment of new software applications, systems software and/or enhancements to existing applications throughout the Council
• Ensure that development projects meet business requirements and goals
• Lead on web development projects across both Councils
• Manage the annual development budget
• Manage the Development Team

One of the things I like most about working in my job is the sheer variety of work. I get to use a large variety of tools and technologies including Microsoft .Net, Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server and SharePoint to name just a few.

My background prior to this job was working for software houses in the private sector, where you generally work on the same product or application. In the public sector, there is definitely more scope to get hands on experience in a wider range of technologies, because you are developing a much wider range of applications across a much larger enterprise.

I am currently involved in a very exciting project to replace East Northamptonshire Council's Content Management System (CMS). This is the application that our Web Content Editors and my team use to surrender content to the web site. Our new partner is Jadu. I am also responsible for defining the necessary business transformations, project management and driving the project to completion. Once the web site is live, I will investigate how I can integrate it with Web 2.0 / social media, and leverage the benefits of those technologies.

I am also involved in upgrading the CMS for Borough Council of Wellingborough, using the same partner. This will involve re-designing their web site, and re-categorising their content as they are moving their content taxonomy over to the Local Government Navigation List (LGNL). All local government services are categorised in a standard way to make them consistent between different councils. So a bin collection in Northamptonshire will be categorised in the same way as a bin collection in London. This helps with navigating and searching for content on local government web sites. So changing their underlying taxonomy is not a trivial challenge, as all content will be affected.

Working in local government as a Senior Systems Developer is exciting and challenging in equal measure, and I consider myself very lucky to enjoy what I do.