<p>Introduction:</p>
<p>UNDP India has a Joomla based web site up. While the web site is attractive to look at the decision makers at UNDP India have decided to raise the bar and make the UNDP India web site even better. The international UNDP templating system allows country offices to modify their websites within the parameters of certain templates. This gives the country office scope to be creative and innovative with their web sites.</p>
<p>The biggest change that is described in the TOR is the move away from the currently bright and colorful (Almost Rajasthani) look and feel, to a more conservative look and feel that repositions the organization. This more academic look and feel would not occur on the home page, but in the practice area pages. This is coupled with the creation of a knowledge repository for the web site. The knowledge repository takes the website from Web 1.0 to 2.0, where the website is no longer an online brochure, but an interactive respository of serious research.</p>
<p>Technical Approach:<br />The precise changes to be made are listed in detail in the Scope of Work section; therefore they will not be repeated here. There are three types of work to be accomplished which are listed below:</p>
<p>&nbsp;1) Cosmetic changes to the home page where certain additional sections are added and the design of the home page is modified, to include this additional sections. This also includes the resizing of the animation.<br />&nbsp;2) The complete repositioning of the practice area templates to make them more conservative, serious and academic</p>
<p>&nbsp;3) The largest component of the work is to transform the UNDP India web site into a knowledge repository of substantive issues on development in India</p>
<p>An approach to each of the above is listed below:</p>
<p>1) Cosmetic changes to the home page:</p>
<p>It is not appropriate to make cosmetic changes without a larger picture. Rather than trying to make these changes haphazardly, NC will proceed by creating design options for the home page. These design options will be created based on an initial brain storming meeting with the client. Here the needs of the client will be understood. Moreover, yet unthought-of possibilities will be explored and put on the table. All this new information will be discussed by NC and UNDP, further the target stakeholders who will be using the site will be identified. Based on the above process a picture will emerge regarding how the home page of the web site should be created. Design options will be created. All the cosmetic changes that are listed including the resizing of the animation, the fitting in of the sections listed in the scope of work and such changes will be done, within the scheme of a new top down design created for the home page. It may be that the new design is similar to the existing design; however this new top down design process will create a nice well balanced look and feel for the home page, which will not be possible, if the current page is merely adjusted to fit in the new sections here and there.</p>
<p>2) The mandate is clear. The practice area pages need to be repositioned from the current bright and colorful, to a new research oriented, conservative, more academic, look and feel. This highlights a shift in the overall thinking of the decision makers at UNDP and fits in hand and glove with the new vision for the UNDP website, to transform it into a knowledge repository. A repository is used by more serious researchers, further it is a functional thing. Whereas a website (specially the web 1.0 type websites) are more like brochures. So what we are talking about is to make the UNDP website a repository from the current informational website.</p>
<p>Once again the various templates will be looked at in the initial brainstorming meetings and while only conservative academic templates will be evaluated, even within these, the best ones will have to be short listed and finally one will be selected for deployment.</p>
<p>3) The largest component of this proposal is to covert the UNDP web site into a knowledge repository. While this would normally be straightforward, the fact that the website is currently deployed on the Joomla cms implies that the means and methods of accomplishing this are limited to what is supported by Joomla. New Concept is adept at Content Management Systems and has created web sites using Joomla, Drupal and Mambo.</p>
<p>The benefit of using a CMS is that they come prepackaged with a whole range of functionality which can be turned on without much work. The weakness is that the degree of customization that a CMS allows is limited (this is a cost for prepackaged functionality. Being prepackaged, it is available out of the box, but it is only so customizable)</p>
<p>Before the knowledge repository is built, it must be architected. Before it is architected it must be envisioned. Once again the transformation of the UNDP website into a knowledge repository centered about development issues in India (Particularly relevant to the MDGs) must start with brain storming meetings where ideas are discussed at the top level. This will bring new ideas and possibilities to the fore and these can be incorporated into the design process.</p>
<p>Once the ideas are on the table, a structure for the Knowledge Repository (KR) will be recommended. In essence the key to a KR is that information must be archived in an organized way and it must be accessible in very intuitive ways. There are several basic aspects of a KR that must be present. These include:<br />&nbsp;1) The classification of the knowledge into topics or domains. Various content will be available through the various programmatic domains<br />&nbsp;2) The storage of the content in a database and the access of the content through the web site. In this case, this will happen through Joomla. The KR capabilities of Joomla will have to be taken into account. Since this is the already deployed CMS, the KR can only be built within the constraints of what is supported by Joomla. <br />&nbsp;3) A Search feature must be present. What is knowledge if it is not it cannot be found when it is needed? Joomla supports search and other such features.</p>
<p>However the precise form that this knowledge repository takes is of utmost importance and NC will play a pivotal role in recommending the "right" structure for this kR.</p>