The Digital Preservation Coalition empowers members with new Joomla website developed by Cyber Media
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
We are proud to announce the launch of the new website of The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC). As part of their newly adopted strategic plan, The DPC set out in 2009 to overhaul their nine year old website. The main aim of the project was to empower members to directly contribute to the site, and to encourage interactive and collaborative working amongst members through more effective use of Web 2.0 technologies.
We were selected for this project on the strength, flexibility and value for money of the proposed solution. Based on Joomla, one of the most accomplished, user friendly and popular Open Source Content Management Systems available today, the new website achieved all of the DPC’s objectives, and more.
As a fully fledged CMS, Joomla addressed most of the DPC’s requirements out of the box (such as site search, user management, search engine friendly pages, content editing tools, etc.), and met all other requirements with the addition of specific extensions (such as twitter integration, member database, event registration, etc.).
The core functionality provided by Joomla, and the plethora of tried and tested extensions that are available, enabled us to keep development to a minimum, thus keeping implementation costs and timescales in check. Furthermore, following the open source ethos, Joomla’s technical requirements are low, and hence a suitable platform was configured for minimal software cost.
The site features a contemporary design and revised navigation, improving usability and enabling users to quickly locate information. Conforming to the usual industry standards, the site offers a range of features to both users and administrators. Functionality includes:
- A search facility
- A ‘focus space’ for DPC member logos on the home page progressing cyclically and linking to their websites
- Automated ‘popular articles’ and ‘latest news’ lists
- An on-line registration facility for conferences and/or events
- A database of members and projects which can be edited directly by members
- A members area which enables members to upload share and annotate content directly
Behind the
scenes various tools are provided to facilitate the efficient maintenance of
the site, including tools for embedding content from remote websites (such as
Twitter, RSS feeds and blogs); allowing DPC staff to edit the website;
facilitating identity management; allowing syndication of content, etc.
About The Digital Preservation Coalition
The DPC is a not-for profit membership organisation whose primary objective is to raise awareness of the importance of the preservation of digital material and the attendant strategic, cultural and technological issues. It acts as an enabling and agenda-setting body within the digital preservation world and works to meet this objective through a number of high level goals. Its vision is to make our digital memory accessible tomorrow.
