Thursday 31 January 2013

RFP Drupal 7 Migration and Redesign


RFP Drupal 7 Migration and Redesign 

Project Summary

Ohio Christian University currently has a Drupal 6 website, which will be migrated (not upgraded) to Drupal 7 as part of a redesign process. The site will require a revised information architecture, new design, Drupal theming, new feature development, and performance optimization based on the results of this process.
All wireframes, designs, templates, and other deliverables created as part of the project will become the sole property of Ohio Christian University.

Goals

In general, we want our website to be a first line of communication with external audiences, especially prospective students, alumni, and donors. The goal is to enable visitors to quickly find the tools, resources, and information they need to reach a decision to enroll or support the university, no matter their starting point. Specifically, the site should help us achieve the following high-level organizational goals:
  • Increasing Enrollment
  • Improving the quality and volume of social media interactions
  • Building relationships with Alumni and Donors
  • Providing a centralized outlet for news and events

Audience

Visitors to our site may not be highly technical, so we want to make sure we’re not overwhelming people with technical “bells and whistles.” We are targeting the following types of visitors to our website:
  • Prospective Students
    • Traditional Undergraduate
    • Adult & Graduate
    • Post-Secondary (High School) Students
  • Alumni
  • Existing and Potential Donors
  • Churches
  • Local Community
  • Media & Press
  • Anyone looking to learn more about OCU

About Ohio Christian University

Ohio Christian University (OCU) was founded in 1948 as Circleville Bible College for the purpose of educating clergy for the Churches of Christ in Christian Union. While remaining true to its founders' vision, Ohio Christian University has expanded its outreach by becoming accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association and the Association for Biblical Higher Education and adding associate, bachelor, and master's degree programs in disciplines such as agribusiness, business administration, disaster management, psychology, and substance abuse counseling.
The university currently offers traditional (residential undergraduate) programs, onsite and online degrees designed for adult learners, and post-secondary options for high school students. By implementing online and hybrid (classroom and online) delivery methods for education, OCU has adapted to the changing landscape of technology. However, there has not historically been a matched effort to optimize web applications and services that exist outside the learning environment. This project will produce an updated website to serve the university’s external communication and marketing needs.

Site Information - Statistics

We are using Google Analytics to track site analytics. On a monthly basis, we average about 110,000 visits, with 30,000 unique visitors to www.ohiochristian.edu. SEO is performed in-house.

Structure and Content

Existing content will be reused as much as possible. An in-house team will review and revise for both SEO and marketing purposes. We expect to automate migration of content to the new Drupal site.
A primary concern is information architecture and navigation. The site structure has historically been driven by internal processes and structures (e.g. areas of responsibility). We believe a user-centric architecture and navigational structure would better support organizational goals. Editorial permissions and workflows will need to be established for departmental users to maintain content based on taxonomy.

Design & Theming

The redesign will include a new look and feel which reinforces the university brand while appealing to a broad demographic. We need to consistently present a broad array of information, customized for various degree programs and delivery methods. To be effective, the OCU website redesign must feature intuitive navigation, clear conversion paths, and an improved graphical user interface. A responsive, mobile-first, progressively-enhanced design pattern will be used to ensure the site can be viewed on a wide array of devices, including those yet to be created.

High Level Functionality

The following is not a comprehensive list but represents current and proposed functionality expected of the project.
  • Support for downloadable attachments and embeddable media, including images, audio, YouTube video
  • Social media integration, e.g., Facebook login, image galleries derived from social streams, one-click sharing
  • Podcasts, podcast archives, with iTunes-compatible RSS feeds
  • AJAX-enabled slideshows and web forms
  • Context-enabled themes, layouts, and views
  • Aggregation and publishing of news and event feeds, with filterable views
  • Restricted access for creation and management of content (using Workbench modules).
  • Geolocation services and zip-code based location search
  • Online enrollment application form with heavy use of conditional and nested-conditional fields and entity references (e.g., degree programs, locations, recruiters). Submissions to be stored and pushed to Student Information System (third-party API).
  • Feed course schedules from SIS with entity references to course content type.
  • Administrative roles: Admin, Content Editor, Authenticated Users, others as needed.
  • Content types: Basic Page, Article, Degree Program, Course, Event, Media, others as determined in requirements gathering.
  • Views: News, Events, Degree Programs, Course Schedules, Related Content, others as determined in requirements gathering.

Additional Needs - Workflow


Site is currently maintained by a single developer and production code is modified directly after testing in a development environment. We would like consulting/training to establish version control and development-staging-production workflows.

Performance optimization


The site is currently hosted on an 8GB Rackspace Cloud Server. Overall performance and availability are acceptable, but we need help to make the best use of server resources.

Constraints - Proposed Timeline

We would like to begin this project as soon as possible and have a target completion date of 60 days after the project starts. This target represents a complete launch date, preceded by a 2-week beta period. Complete documentation and training materials for non-technical users and administrators will be provided no later than 15 days after site launch.

Budget To be determined.

Infrastructure

The new site will be built using Drupal 7 and stable contributed modules where available. We are not currently considering other CMS or proprietary frameworks.
The objectives of this project are focused on the primary domain, www.ohiochristian.edu, which is intended for enrollment, fundraising, and external communications that build awareness, community impact, and brand recognition for the university. Integration with other systems will include LDAP authentication, posting application data to the student information system, in- and out- bound feeds with intranet (also Drupal 7), and some shared configuration with the intranet.

Internal Staffing

We have one in-house designer/developer assigned to the project; however, other responsibilities preclude full-time availability to the project.

Vendor Selection Criteria

We would like to have all proposals by no later than February 6, 2013 so we can make a decision to go with a specific vendor by February 20, 2013.
When selecting a vendor for this project, criteria for evaluation will include:
  • Experience migrating content between Drupal versions
  • Experience and willingness to train in development-staging-production workflow and best practices in a small team environment
  • Proven ability to develop or extend Drupal modules
  • Proficient with server configuration and performance optimization in a LAMP environment (CentOS)
  • Holistic approach to an organization’s web presence (e.g., insight into integrating social media platforms, campaign tracking mechanisms, etc.)
  • Initial cost and fee schedule for future development or enhancement projects
  • Willingness to share work with the Drupal community

Contact Information

Please direct all responses to this RFP and/or any questions to:
Renee Handy
Senior Designer & Webmaster
Ohio Christian University
webmaster@ohiochristian.edu

Sunday 27 January 2013

Request for Prooposal Website Design, Mainenance and Training Services

THE CITY OF MAUMEE Request for Proposal Website Design, Maintenance, and Training Services

I. Introduction

The City of Maumee (Maumeelis reduesting proposals from interested vendors to perform.‘ I website design, training, and maintenance services required to update and operate its existing website: www.maumee.org.

This Request for Proposal (RFP} outiines the basic information and services sought by the City of Maumee. Please submit four copies of the proposal to the address listed below no later than Noon, February 15, 2013:

John iezak
Administrator] Safety Director
City of Maumee
400 Conant Street
Maumee, OH 43537

Any questions reiated to this RFP may be submitted, in writing, to Mr. Jezak at the above address or by email at Jezak-iohn@maumee.org.

Maumee shali not be liable for any costs incurred by the respondents in response to this RFP, any costs incurred in connection with any discussions, correspondence, or attendance at interviews or meetings.

Ail material submitted in response to the RFP shall become the property of Maumee, and may be returned only at Maumee's option. All materials received shall be considered public information and shall be open to public inspection.

ll. Background

The City of Maumee is an Ohio municipal corporation situated in northwest Ohio. A Approximately 200 fuil and volunteer/part-time persons comprise its workforce. The City of Maumee is a state-funded public employer, in good-standing with the State of Ohio.

The City of Maumee seeks proposais for a product and services, on an annual basis, subject to renewai, to perform website design, training, and maintenance services.

lli. Proposed Tasks

The primary goal of this project is to replace the current website with a new and improved website. The new website will be easier for users to navigate, more efficient for City staff to manage, and provide a wide variety of services to the citizens of the City of Maumee. The vendor wili provide the City with an information ready, turn-key website that City staff can immediately begin to move information into. The updated website wiil also allow users to ...


For more information about the RFP, Please visit: http://www.maumee.org/Website-RFP.pdf

Wednesday 23 January 2013

Citizens League Website Redevelopment Request for Proposals 2013


Citizens League Website Redevelopment Request for Proposals

The Citizens League involves people of all backgrounds, parties and ideologies to create and advance solutions for Minnesota.

Citizens League Mission

We build civic imagination and capacity in Minnesota by:

  1. Identifying, framing and proposing solutions to public policy problems;
  2. Developing civic leaders in all generations who govern for the common good; and
  3. Organizing the individual and institutional relationships necessary to achieve these goals.

Citizens League Values
1. We believe in human capacity: the power and potential of all citizens.
2. We believe in democracy and good governance.
3. We believe in civic leadership and active citizenship.
4. We believe in good politics and political competence.
5. We believe in institutional accountability: that all institutions must sustain these ideals from one generation to the next.

Website Redevelopment: Project Scope and Functional Requirements

The current Citizens League website was instituted in 2005 and uses the Movable Type 
publishing platform. It was refurbished in 2012 for an updated look, but we seek a complete overhaul using the information architecture and wireframe design developed in 2012 http://share.axure.com/7CV5WB/ as the starting point.
This starting point was developed in consultation with Padilla Speer Beardsley, who worked with us in 2012 to identify three potential membership personae we have identified which are compatible with us, based on our mission and values, and to which we are orienting our communications efforts in 2013 and beyond.
Among the services we need from a redevelopment partner are: 

  • Design
  • Front end and back end development
  • Content entry and testing
  • Launch and training
  • Hosting and maintenance


Proposal deadline is Feb. 4. We plan to select a redevelopment partner by March 4.
Please submit proposals to:
Communications Manager Larry Schumacher
lschumacher@citizensleague.org
651-289-1074



Tuesday 22 January 2013

RFP for Drupal Upgrade Project

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Request for Proposal (RFP) for Drupal Upgrade Project

The Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums (COFAM) is the organization that oversees and manages both the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, along with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, a department of the City and County of San Francisco. 

We seek proposals to provide services to upgrade our website so we can make use of recent advances in Drupal and related technologies.

PROJECT SCOPE
Build and test Drupal 7 development, staging, and production environment on our servers. Upgrade our website from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7. Upgrade current Zen subthemes to Zen 7.5.


Retain most of the current branding, content, and information architecture, but use responsive design to enable our website to display appropriate formats on devices ranging from mobile phones to tablets to full-sized monitors. The Marketing Department will provide guidelines for changes to design as needed.


Build a mobile application on top of the Drupal back-end that provides logistical information about the Museums (hours of operation, ticket prices, location, etc.).


We wish to upgrade and revise our current site, www.famsf.org and sub-pages, not including

  • tickets.famsf.org
  • shop.famsf.org
  • deyoung.famsf.search-collections
  • legionofhonor.famsf.search-collections
The new website must be compatible with current versions of all major browsers, including but not limited to Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, Firefox.
The mobile app must be compatible with at least

  • Current iOS devices including iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, iPad Mini.
  • Current Android smart phones and tablets.
  • As many other current mobile devices as practical, such as Kindle Fire, Nook, Windows 8 phones and tablets
We expect this work to be completed in approximately three months starting as soon as possible. Proposers who require more information should contact Scott Plakun, Senior Consultant for Information Technology, at 415-750-8901 or via email at DrupalProject@famsf.org.

PROJECT DELIVERABLES
 
Task Role and Collaborators Target time-frame
Build and test Drupal 7 development, staging, and production environments on COFAM Windows servers Lead the effort, working with Webmaster and IT Department. February, 2013
Install and test existing website in Drupal 7 development environment Provide expertise and consultation to Webmaster and Web Developer. February, 2013
Replace function of modules utilized in Drupal 6 but implemented differently, or not available, in Drupal 7. Lead the effort, working with Webmaster and Web Developer. March, 2013
Upgrade custom sub-themes as needed. Lead the effort, working with Webmaster and Web Developer. March, 2013
Optimize the website’s use of Responsive Design Provide expertise and consultation to Webmaster and Web Developer. March, 2013
Build a “logistics” app in a generic mobile development tool such as Phone Gap Provide expertise and consultation to Webmaster and Web Developer. April, 2013
Migrate new website to staging and then production Drupal 7 environments; test; deploy. Provide expertise and consultation to Web Developer and Webmaster. May, 2013

Documentation and training to be provided by contractor for each task as appropriate.
Contractor will work primarily within the IT staff. Direction will come primarily from the Director of Information Technology, working closely with the Director of Marketing.
Contractor will work closely with the IT Operations staff, a Web Programmer (TBA), and the Webmaster (in the Marketing Department).

Organizational stakeholders will review and provide feedback on creative design and overall look and feel. Prior to the site’s formal launch, we will have agreed milestones and corresponding periods of testing to ensure site functionality and stability.

REQUIREMENTS
Contractor and all personnel who work on the project must have:

  • Strong expertise in Drupal 7.
  • Strong written and oral communication skills.
  • Ability to work effectively with minimal direction in a complex matrix organization.
  • Ability to be attentive to details, service, available budget and deadlines
PROPOSALS SHALL INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
  1. A letter of interest. The letter should provide three references with addresses and current telephone numbers and a brief outline of accomplishments that demonstrate the responder as qualified to provide the required services.
  2. Responder’s background. Provide summary of the responder’s background, its focus, principals and scope and nature of services routinely provided.
  3. Resumes. If your proposal is to assign multiple individuals to the project, provide a resume of each key staff member to be assigned.
  4. Pricing. Provide hourly rates for staff proposed for this work or an overall project price.
If selected, firms will need to agree to hold harmless the various entities associated with the management of the Museums, or to provide evidence of insurance as follows:
  1. Worker's Compensation (limit $1,000,000)
  2. General Liability (limit $2,000,000)
  3. Automobile (limit $1,000,000)
  4. Professional Liability Insurance ($2,000,000)
Commercial General Liability and Business Automobile Liability Insurance policies shall be endorsed to provide the following:

Name as Additional Insured: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums, The Fine Arts Museums Foundation, Trustees, Officers, Directors, Agents and Employees of all the above listed entities; the City and County of San Francisco, its Officers, Agents, and Employees. Proposals are due by 5:00 p.m. on January 31, 2013 and should be submitted via email to DrupalProject@famsf.org.

EVALUATION CRITERIA
The materials submitted in response to this RFP must establish the qualifications of the proposer to perform the scope of work. COFAM will conduct interviews with the firms after proposals have been received and reviewed. The award of the contract, if it is to be awarded, will be to the proposer(s) whose proposal complies with all the requirements prescribed and presents documentation of the best overall qualifications to provide Drupal upgrade services in the least amount of elapsed time at the best price. Such award, if made, will be made within thirty (30) days after the submission of the proposals.


AWARD OF CONTRACT
COFAM reserves the right to reject any and all proposals and/or waive any irregularities in any bid proposal received. COFAM shall notify the successful proposer and will issue a contract for the work. If requested, a certificate of insurance shall be submitted to COFAM within five (5) business days of execution of the contract.


I look forward to receiving your proposal.

Very truly yours,
Scott Plakun
Senior Consultant for Information Technology

Request for Proposal - Website Redesign


Request for Proposal:  Website Redesign

Requested January 14, 2013
 Proposals Due: January 30th, 2013
  
Submit Proposals to:

Miriam Ticoll, Executive Director, HSICT, c/o Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto, 9 King’s College Circle, Toronto, ON M5S 1A5   miriam.ticoll@utoronto.ca


Table of Contents 

I.    About Us.................................................................................................................. 3

II.   Request for Proposal (RFP) Overview................................................................. 4

III.  Budget and Deliverables........................................................................................ 5

IV.  Notes........................................................................................................................ 6

V.   To the Extent Funds Allow.................................................................................... 6

VI.  Proposed Project Timeline and Milestones........................................................ 7


The Health Science Information Consortium of Toronto (the Consortium) is a collaborative non-profit organization whose members are libraries in hospitals, research institutes and public health departments in the Toronto area and beyond.   The Consortium facilitates access by health and allied health professions to evidence-based health information in a range of healthcare settings.

Established almost two decades ago, the Consortium now includes 37 member institutions within and beyond the GTA, and is the largest health consortium of its kind in Canada.  The University of Toronto Library is a founding member and an ongoing sponsor.

What We Do

The Consortium is engaged in a number of activities, all designed to achieve consistency of access to quality evidenced-based health information by health care providers in our member institutions.  We:

·         Negociate group licenses and subscriptions to premium electronic health information resources (databases, journals, ebooks, etc.) on behalf of our members to reduce overheads and save licensing costs;
  • Collaborate to provide instruction to health and allied health professionals on navigating new technologies and searching evidence-based health databases;
  • Facilitate sharing of information and  resources across 37 libraries;
  • Provide ongoing continuing education for health information professionals.
Our Members

The Consortium membership currently stands at 37 institutions, including the University of Toronto. Ten member libraries are located in teaching hospitals fully affiliated to the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine and 14 of our member libraries are in community affiliated hospitals; the remaining 12 members are a mix of community, research and public health libraries in and around the GTA.


This Request for Proposal (RFP) is intended to establish a relationship with a partner who can ensure that the Consortium website meets the needs of both members and the Consortium administration.  Current site is at: http://hsict.library.utoronto.ca/

A.   Overall Goals

The selected vendor will collaborate with the Consortium to:
·         Move the existing site from Plone to the Drupal platform hosted by the University of Toronto Libraries
·         Integrate the existing Directory database into the site
·         Enhance the members’ side of the site to improve functionality, accessibility and usability and to integrate administrative tools to streamline admin functions and reduce manual collection of information
·         Facilitate the collection and updating of data from our members - institutional/contact info, IP addresses, products subscribed to etc.
·         Add capacity to organize meetings/invite and track attendees
·         Add capacity for members to store, share and edit documents
·         Introduce the capacity to generate invoices

B.   Site Functionality

The selected vendor will collaborate with the Consortium to create a new Drupal-powered website for the Consortium with the following features:

1)    Directory of the 37 member libraries, including for each:
              i.        Contact information (address, phone, email, fax) for several service points within each library
             ii.        Key staff and their contact information
            iii.        List of all e-resources to which each institution subscribes, which can be queried and browsed by resource title, publisher or by institution.
            iv.        List of all print journals to which each institution subscribes, which can be queried and browsed by resource title, publisher or by institution. This list is maintained by batch data upload via a delimited text file

2)   Ability to manage information about Consortium e-resource subscriptions.
Currently, the Consortium office manages approximately 25 e-resource subscriptions for its 37 members, and must track information about current subscriptions and their status for each member(price of subscription, whether they are subscribing, cancelling or, considering, etc).  Desired functionality would include ability to generate summary reports by member, product, or subscription status.

3)    Ability to generate print and electronic invoices based on subscription information

4)    Simplified site maintenance which allows easy updating by non-technical staff and members.

C.     Site Technical Requirements

1)  The site must adhere to the WCAG 2.0 level AA standards (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/) to meet AODA requirements (http://www.aoda.ca/)
2)  The site must be developed in the latest version of Drupal 7 using only contributed modules with no additional customized code to the core or modules
3)   Any contributed modules must be actively maintained and widely used
4)   The U of T Libraries run their Drupal sites on:
           Ubuntu server 12.04 LTS, 64 bit
           MySQL server 5.5
           PHP 5.3.10
           Apache 2.2.22
          The site, as delivered, must be fully tested and compatible with the above platform
5)   The site must be optimized for access by mobile devices; a responsive web design is preferred
6)   The site must incorporate Google Analytics

 
Budget
The Health Science Information Consortium of Toronto is a small non-profit with a lean budget; this website development project will be funded from our special projects fund.     In responding to this RFP we invite vendors to indicate their rates/charges for not-for profit organizations.

Project Deliverables include but are not limited to:  
·         Detailed production schedule with listed milestones
·         Clearly defined web redesign strategy
·         Method of communication for tracking project deliverables, status, and reporting bugs. 

Information Design and Site Architecture  
·         Analyze and recommend improvements as to how information is currently organized, updated, and maintained.
·         Develop a strategy for integrating key administrative functions 
·         Develop an strategy for improving functionality, usability and accessibility of site for members 

Graphic Design and Branding
·         Ensure a cohesive, extensible visual graphic design and identity system for the site
·         Create and deliver wireframe to detail all elements to be included on key pages, and site navigation.
·         Develop and deliver a comprehensive, usable, and forward-looking visual design

Project Management
·         Provide dedicated Project Manager to help lead requirements gathering activities and track project milestones and deliverables and be accessible to the Consortium working group
·         Provide robust Q/A protocols that will assure quality control over all deliverables, including code and print.   

Proposal evaluation
Proposals will be evaluated using the following criteria:
·         Experience on similar, small scale sites. The selected vendor will demonstrate past success in developing extensible design/identity systems and optimizing information design across a site. 
·         Strength of work plan. The selected vendor will submit a concise, articulated work plan that addresses the above scope and includes descriptions regarding account management, project management, and creative processes.
·         The selected vendor will possess outstanding credentials in the areas of visual design, information architecture and technical considerations. The selected vendor will also have a strong grounding in customer experience and delivering user-centric design.
·         Reasonable and realistic cost projections 
·         The selected vendor will submit a competitive Financial Proposal that is inline with the stated budget and appropriate for non-profit organizations.  The proposal should include itemized list costs for site architecture, redesign, software customization and systems testing, project management, etc.
·         Credentials of staff to be assigned to the project. The selected vendor will submit staff bios outlining the credentials and accomplishments of those staff who will manage and participate in this project
·         Ability to meet timing requirements to complete the project. The selected vendor will submit a high-level estimate of time-to-completion, from concept to successful delivery of all desired project deliverables.
·         Previous experience with public sector non-profits and organizations affiliated with the University of Toronto strongly desired. 

·         The Consortium will provide requirements, branding and style guide materials, editorial guidelines, and platform input.

·           Establish a secure staging site to house prototypes and conduct user testing


We are aiming for the launch of the new site in June 2013.

Key milestones:

Selection of Programming Partner (February 15 2013)
·         RFP request posted January 13 12,2013
·         Proposals due by 5PM (ET) on January 30th 2013
·         Proposal review and selection: clarification with design partners   
·         Review by website subcommittee and selection of recommended vendor
·         Present recommendation to Management Committee Approval (February 2012)  

Discovery period (February 15-26 2012)
  • Meetings to discuss requirements and architecture 
  • Design partner project management 
  • Design and branding materials 
Technical Plan Review /Start of Preliminary Development (March 2– March 15 2012)
  • Final review of Technical plan on March 4nd
  • Commencement of programming  March 6th
Alpha site (March 15-April 15)

Beta site (April 15 – May 15)

Launch:  June 1, 2013

Proposals (due January 25th) can be submitted to:
Miriam Ticoll, Executive Director, HSICT, c/o Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto, 9 King’s College Circle, Toronto, ON M5S 1A5   miriam.ticoll@utoronto.ca