A Potential Design for a Prototype Online Communication and Collaboration Platform

September 9, 2011Sarah Jones

Digital Library Services

Background

The Problem

Transportation planners and public health agencies are not working together effectively for regional development planning.

Background

A Cause for the Problem

There are barriers that keep them from working together effectively. One barrier relates to communication and collaboration.

– Transportation/regional level - fed laws require public input (environmental, minorities, community, etc.)

– Public health - input/planning has been lacking

Being overly dependent on automobiles → consequences, e.g., obesity.

Background

Hypothesis

Providing online tools will help them overcome the communication and collaboration barrier.

– provide an online destination for them to communicate, collaborate and share data amongst themselves

– use outputs from that destination to communicate with and engage the public

Background

This project

Provide a prototype online communication and collaboration platform with a set of tools that will address the barrier to transportation planners and public health agencies working together effectively.

Components of the online destination 1

Data storage and access• Hosting

– Self-hosting by the agencies– Professional data center hosting - commercial vs. non-commercial

(e.g., the UTA Data Center in Fort Worth)

• Value-added services (e.g., data search / parsing / analysis / visualization software)

• Security, privacy, protection of licensed content

Components of the online destination 2

Options for online communication:• Forums• Chat• Email• Meetings• Organization blogs• Individual blogs

Components of the online destination 3

Options for online collaboration:• Shared documents (text, presentation, spreadsheet,

whiteboard, desktop sharing)– e.g., Google docs, join.me, Dabbleboard

• Photo/image/video sharing– e.g., flickr, YouTube

Components of the online destination 4

Future options for providing a public-facing product:• Information sharing with the public

– e.g., news, agency blogs, individual staff blogs

• Gathering input from the public– e.g., through polls, blog or news comments, surveys

Back-end development requirements

• Data storage and access solution(s)– Whose servers? Who pays?

• Choice of web development platform– Local or commercial hosting with regular HTML– Use of a CMS, e.g., Drupal, Joomla, WordPress

• Integration of 3rd party web apps into the local user interface (e.g., the forums, chat, shared documents, etc.)

Support and maintenance requirements 1

• Data storage and access solution(s)– Who provides staffing? Who uploads new data? Who manages

the data selection and updating process?

• The web pages– Who provides staffing? Who manages, creates, updates

content? Who ensures content integrity?

Support and maintenance requirements 2

• If there is a public-facing portion of the web site:– Community manager (the public face/voice of the site/project

to the public)– Content strategy

• Unified marketing/public relations presentation of the agencies involved and of this particular project

User Interface Considerations

• Principles of User Interface Design (an entire field of study in itself!)

• Some places to start:– 10 Principles of Effective Web Design– User Interface principles in web design– A List Apart: Design– Key principles of user centered design

Issues related to overall management

• Who is/are the champion(s) for this project?– Enlisting support in the participating agencies– Cheerleading to maintain interest and participation among

individuals in the agencies

Questions and Discussion

Contact me:

Sarah JonesLibrarian, Digital Library ServicesUniversity of Texas at Arlington Librarysjones@uta.edu