Kevin Adcock, Senior Project Officer (Marketing and Education), Web Services, Queensland Department of Primary Industries, 80 Ann Street, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia. Phone: +61 7 3239 6684 Fax: 61 7 3239 0860. adcockk@dpi.qld.gov.au
Colleen Gravatt, Senior Project Officer (Content), Web Services, Queensland Department of Primary Industries, 80 Ann Street, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia. Phone: +61 7 3239 3099 Fax: 61 7 3239 0860. gravatc@dpi.qld.gov.au
John Tipler, Senior Project Officer (Information Framework), Web Services, Queensland Department of Primary Industries, 80 Ann Street, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia. Phone: +61 7 3239 6685 Fax: 61 7 3239 0860. tiplerj@dpi.qld.gov.au
World Wide Web, site construction, design, support, training, marketing, client focus, infrastructure, content, management, research, technical support
The emergence of the World Wide Web as a popular medium for the distribution of information has led many businesses to venture into the development of their own Web sites as a means to market their products and services. But as many disappointed organisations have discovered, creating a Web site that is worth visiting is a bit of a hit-and-miss affair unless you really know what you are doing. Getting repeat visits is even harder.
Before embarking on the creation of a Web site, the following questions should be answered:
The answer to these questions will help to determine the structure, function and technological sophistication of the site.
In this paper, we examine the issues that have been addressed by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) [HREF1] in the creation of its Web Services Project. We will describe the use of the Web by departmental staff and clients and explore the reasons behind the structure of the DPI Web Services team. We will then examine our progress in delivering the project's objective which is to create the premier Web site for Queensland’s primary producers and allied industries.
Since the Department first explored the use of Web technology, interest in the World Wide Web has grown enormously. Whereas it was once unusual to hear of the Web in everyday life, it is now actively used by businesses to promote their objectives, and television and print advertisements are adorned with the ubiquitous URL.
In parallel with this technological development, the business needs and directions of the Department have changed. The Department of Primary Industries has been providing information to Queenslanders from 1887. Since that time the needs of its clients have changed considerably and the Department has always endeavoured to keep pace with these changing needs.
A recent internal report which reflects the findings of several audits and reviews showed that there should be increased emphasis on helping primary producers to be more profitable and competitive by providing useful information. It also recommended publishing information in all appropriate formats and using all appropriate means of disseminating that information, including developing technologies such as CD-ROM and the World Wide Web.
Other reports such as the Queensland Rural Regions Advisory Council (QRRAC)(Wilson 1996) and the Queensland Regional Equality of Access (Q-REAP) Benefit Assessment Study (Wilson 1995) found that rural clients valued the information which was frequently on offer. However, because they lived and worked in remote areas they were severely disadvantaged by the policy of client self-help strategies and by out dated and out-moded telecommunications systems. These studies found that clients were prepared to seek and use quality information provided that it was made available in forms and by means which they could readily access.
In response to these findings and to government policy the Department of Primary Industries Web Services Project was established in October 1996 under special funding, as part of an Enhanced Client Information Services Strategy. The project will run for three years and during this time, project staff will set up and manage client-focused DPIWeb services to provide DPI clients with a new means of finding relevant information, as well as providing DPI authors with another medium for delivering information.
The Project goals include utilising the WWW to supplement the Department’s management and delivery of information to clients and to focus on providing Web content which is of a high quality, is relevant, and is easy to access. To make it accessible the team’s goals include training for the Department’s authors and their clients. A marketing strategy actively promotes the site at the community level.
The challenge for the Department of Primary Industries and the Web Services Project team is to turn the question "If we build a Web site for our clients, will they use it?" around to:
"How do we build a Web site so our clients will visit, and return?"
The DPI Web Services Project team is working to develop a successful, fully operational Web-based Information System with all its components parts - market research, products and services development, information management (access, retrieval delivery, archival), marketing, review and evaluation - that is used by both information providers and information users.
To assist the team to answer the challenge, a client reference group have been established. This reference group comprises representatives from rural organisations, industry and the rural community and provides advice at management level and also reviews the progress of the project.
The Web Services Project team structure addresses content, infrastructure, and marketing and education issues. Overall direction is provided by a Manager and administration support by an Administrative Officer.
Figure 1. Structure of DPI Web Services
Web Hosting services are provided by staff of the Department's Information Systems Section.
The information content component of the Web Services team consists of a:
The purpose of the position of the Senior Project Officer (Information Content) is to develop and implement activities which:
The information content team is working with the Senior Project Officer (Information Framework) to develop standards and the quality infrastructure necessary to achieve excellence in the publishing of departmental information on DPI’s Web site. This translates into putting an information management infrastructure in place and developing the DPIWeb site user-interface.
The information content team is working with the Senior Project Officer (Marketing and Education) to develop the Web authoring skills of staff and to evaluate client feedback on information content and delivery.
What are we doing to achieve these outcomes?
An "Information Map" provides a way of thinking about information access (pathways to our Web resources). Departmental information commitments are to both:
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public awareness, information and communication provided by departmental business units and institutes and non-governmental industry agencies |
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corporate information systems (Human Resource Management, Financial, Legal, Records), datasets etc. |
Inherent in these information commitments are issues of authority to access and security. Consequently, the Department has split its information and Webs into two - the intranet holds information for internal users; information authorised for both internal and external use is placed on the Internet beyond the firewall.
The Information Scan was undertaken to:
Together, the information map and scan have been the basis for the development of the DPIWeb site’s structure and pathways.
The objective in producing these standards is the delivery of high quality publications on the DPIWeb site and to ensure the high quality of the DPIWeb site as a whole. Users must feel confident that the information delivered has been researched and packaged with care, and is accurate, timely and relevant. Well presented information will contribute a great deal to that confidence. As well, the Department is just as much legally responsible for information delivered via the Web as it is for its print publications.
Consequently, authors need to apply the same high editorial and design standards to Web publications that DPI Publishing Services requires of its print publications.
The current standards and practices for DPI print publications remain the basic guidelines for Web publishing. These include Queensland Government’ and Department of Primary Industries’ corporate identity standards and recognised editorial conventions.
Web publishing procedures and guidelines are currently outlined in a "Working Paper [HREF3]" . These will be further refined and developed over the next three months (May to July).
Web Services are developing procedures to facilitate author review and updating of Web pages, and maintenance of the functional integrity of the document. The Department has a responsibility to provide current and up-to-date information to its clients. This responsibility falls to authors as providers of the information.
There is a need for the Department of Primary Industries, as a government agency with responsibilities to the public sector, to apply established publishing procedures (as defined for print publications) to its Web publications. Obviously, these may need to be modified to adapt to the Web medium eg. design principles relating to image, colour and layout will be different but overall, control and rigour is desirable for quality assurance.
The information framework component is supervised by a Senior Project Officer who works closely with the staff who manage the Web servers. The purpose of the role is to:
The team inherited a pilot Web site which was relatively unstructured and which was inconsistent with standards in general. The site contained some 35 000 objects, 2 700 html files and 344 000 lines of code.
It was necessary to carry out a general review of the site, to scan the files for errors and anomalies and to rebuild both the physical and logical structures. It was also necessary for the Senior Project Officer (Information Framework) to work with the Web Hosting staff and the Senior Project Officer (Content) to develop standards, policies and procedures to ensure consistent development of the site, and to ensure consistency of all material developed in the future.
In developing the framework for the Web site it has been necessary to consider the needs of Web Services staff, authors and clients. It has also been necessary to consider the needs of the Department's Information Technology specialists, especially in the area of network security.
Such issues as baud rates over urban, inter-urban, eastern seaboard and far western communications links have been considered. For example, while it could be assumed that Brisbane would be uniformly served by relatively high speed links, anomalies such as analogue exchanges in inner city suburbs do exist. Other issues which were considered were the likely standard of PC, monitors, video display cards and modem speeds.
Similarly, the questions of which version of the popular browsers users might be operating and whether users are loading the many plug-ins available were addressed. It was decided to build a site which could be accessed by Netscape version 3.x and above and Internet Explorer version 3.x and above. The Department's largest market segment, the rural community, is in the early stages of adopting Web technology and the team believes that it will be purchasing current technology including browsers capable of retrieving pages from such a site.
The decision has been made to build a site using frames in the first instance. This will be replaced by a more advanced site utilising systems such as Java and/or VB scripting in 6 to 12 months time when skills and time permit. Using frames in the short term has provided the team with the ability to build extensive navigation aids which are necessary in such a large site. It has also assisted in meeting the deadline of a new site within six months. Standards were set which restrict total file sizes (text plus images) to a maximum of 40K, and preferably 20K - 30K. This is negotiable with authors but exceptions will be made only in special cases. Images are restricted to 20K wherever possible and must carry alternative text tags to assist clients who wish to turn off images. These restrictions are in the interest of the best possible download speeds.
The team has also used techniques such as designing an image which is 1 pixel deep by 110 pixels wide to tile the background of a 110 pixel wide frame. Another technique is to use as many standard, small images as possible so that clients are not constantly downloading images but using and reusing images from cache wherever possible.
To provide a consistent means of labelling files and to provide for extended functionality with search engines the team has adopted The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set [HREF4]as the standard for labelling contents and is combining this with CAB Abstracts [HREF5]to ensure consistency of keywords in the meta tags.
The marketing and education component of the Web Services team consists of a Senior Project Officer. The purpose of the position of Senior Project Officer (Marketing and Education) is to:
This purpose is to be achieved through a number of strategies which were identified in our business plan:
In order to address these strategies a number of activities have been developed and implemented.
The Community Internet Programme (CIP) was developed by Kerry Cody and Colleen Gravatt (Cody & Gravatt, 1997) before the inception of the Web Services Project. The programme focuses on training primary producers in the use of Internet services and products. It uses an educational curriculum that has been designed to increase understanding and develop skills in the use of electronic information using the Internet, and to enable participants to train others in their own communities.
The pilot CIP, a series of "Specialist Classes" was held at Longreach between May and August 1996. This was preceded by an Internet Open Day in May 1996, following which expressions of interest were called for attendance at the "Specialist Classes". The classes were convened one day a month over three months with Internet access as a prerequisite in between.
Among the recommendations for future client Internet training were that
Web Services has implemented these recommendations.
The DPI’s Internet Open Days were developed by Kerry Cody and other staff of the Department’s Library Services. These days are open to all members of the community free of charge with computers and Internet access made available to participants via the Department’s network. The days consist of five, ninety minute sessions to introduce the Internet, explain some of the tools, and give attendees hands-on experience with the World Wide Web.
The first Internet Open Day was held in St George on March 8, 1996 (International Women’s Day), with many of the attendees subsequently nominating to participate in the National Farmers Federation’s "Farmwide [HREF6]" project.
Staff awareness sessions are similar to Internet Open Days - the primary difference being that they are aimed specifically at DPI staff. The usual process is to run these two activities in conjunction; staff awareness sessions are run on one day, with an Internet Open Day on the following day.
The specific policies and procedures that need to be addressed in preparing material for DPIWeb require that all authors must be conversant with these policies and procedures. To that end, an author training programme is required. This programme covers the corporate Web philosophy, structure of DPIWeb, elements of good design, practical considerations for creating Web content, basic HTML, recommended and supported software for Web authoring, quality assurance, and procedures for posting finished material to the Web.
The Author Training Programme is aimed at both authors internal to the Department, and authors external to DPI. A number of external authors will be contracted by the Department under a Standing Offer Arrangement (SOA) to be finalised during May 1997. Companies listed on the SOA will be contracted from time to time to create material on behalf of various areas within the Department which may not have the resources or expertise to create the material themselves.
The DPIWeb can be promoted to both the professional online community and to rural and industry clients through attendance, and presentation of papers or the mounting of displays and demonstrations, at suitable workshops, seminars and conferences. The aim is to reach our target audience in large numbers through single events.
The purpose and activities of Web Services must be marketed both internally to staff and externally to Industry and primary production clients.
Some of this marketing is achieved via the activities outlined above, but some specifically targeted marketing actions must also occur. These range from online methods such as registering with search engines to more traditional activities such as the production of flyers and advertisements.
The existence of DPI Web Services and its charter was heralded with an Internet Breakfast for Industry in December 1996. Many industry leaders were given a demonstration of the World Wide Web and briefed on the aims and objectives of the Web Services Project at this breakfast, which was hosted by the Department’s Minister and Director-General. Invitees unable to attend were posted an Information Statement outlining the initiative.
This breakfast was instrumental in creating a demand for the services of the team. We have received many requests for further information and training.
A mobile training room consisting a thirteen laptops, server, printer, concentrator and projection unit has been purchased. The process for the conducting of Internet Open Days and staff awareness sessions has been revised and documented, so that regional staff may run these sessions. We are using an ActiveX component - the Microsoft Agent [HREF7] - to deliver a fixed presentation as part of the overall session. Web Hosting staff are able to make minor modifications to this script prior to each open day, thus ensuring it is tailored to suit each venue. We have conducted Open Days at Kingaroy and Applethorpe, attended a workshop at Dalby and assisted with a workshop in Toowoomba. The Internet Open Days have been very well received, with most sessions fully booked, and extremely positive feedback from participants. Industry organisations are now starting to coordinate their education campaigns with us.
The Agent technology is also being used for special presentations. The generic process for conducting one of these presentations has been documented, however as these are one-off activities, the script must be extensively modified for each event. The advantage of using the Agent technology in these situations is that the script can run in a continuous loop, freeing up the staff on hand to answer enquiries. This approach was trialled successfully at Primary Industries Week in the Queen Street Mall in March 1997. We also used a combination of the Internet awareness session and a special presentation to reach a large audience at Beef '97 in Rockhampton in April 1997.
Following the success of Primary Industries Week we have been requested by industry to provide a special Internet Open Day for the dairy industry. This will be held during July 1997. We have also been invited and agreed to attend the Queensland Graingrowers Association Annual Conference in Toowoomba (July) and the Queensland Rural Women's Network Annual Conference in Chinchilla (September). Our presence at these conferences will include Internet awareness session using our mobile training room.
The first of our author training days will be conducted in early June. We have trialled the policies and procedures for authoring by conducting a special update day for existing authors. This day was received very well and will be the basis for the training of new authors.
On the first of May the new DPI site was opened.
Our clients have been given their first look at the DPI Web site of the future, while our authors have been given their first view of the new guidelines and principles under which they will operate. Over the next few months Web Services will be helping our authors to transition their existing content to the new site and training new authors in the ways of the Web. The Web infrastructure is coming together, providing the framework to support clients, Web management and authors . Working parties have met, industry consulted and partnerships have been forged.
However much has still to be done and while a start has been made there are still many challenges to be met. We believe that we have built the foundations of a Web team which will provide our clients with sustainable services, including advanced features such as online commerce and access to the Department's many databases.
Our programme of paper presentations at conferences is well under way, with presentations at Online Ondisc, Dairy Prac 97 (July), and AusWeb 97 (July).
Cody, K. and Gravatt, C., (1997). "Queensland's Department of Primary Industries' Internet Training Scheme for Primary Producers in the West Region of Queensland", Information Online & On Disc '97 Conference Proceedings pp 399-404.
Easdown,W., (1996). The Role of the Internet in Rural Communities, Draft Occasional Paper, The University of Queensland.
Wilson, D., (1995). Socio-economic Development Impact of a Proposed Enhanced Queensland Digital Telecommunication Network, vol. 1. A Queensland Regional Equality of Access (Q-REAP) Benefit Assessment Study for the Queensland Information Industries Board.
Wilson, D., (1996). Regional Information Technology and Telecommunications User Needs Study, vols 1 & 2. Reports prepared for the Queensland Information Policy Board.
Kevin Adcock, Colleen Gravatt, John Tipler ©, 1997. The authors assign to Southern Cross University and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grant a non-exclusive licence to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers, and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the authors.
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