Soul Beat Africa and The Communication Initiative

Soul Beat Africa and The Communication Initiative

 

The Brief

 

Anja and Shereen sent the following brief to me after the most recent consultative group meeting:

 

That everyone in the meeting do their homework and visit and become familiar with all the websites and what each had to offer. This included JHU and their K4H platform, AIDSNexus and Soul Beat Africa.  To help with the process each of the organisations were asked to put together something that highlighted the features of their website with the help of actual links.

 

At Shereen and Anja’s request this document and its online version seek to meet that requirement. There are a number of sections to guide you through the process:

• Overall Background;
• Portal processes;
• Soul Beat- CI relationship;
• Impact; Focus and Engagement;
• Content Knowledge;
• Social Networking and Dialogue
• User Roles and Relationships
• Aggregation;
• Administration;
• and some overall observations re: platform choice.
  

Please click on the links to access example pages.

A. Background, Performance and Impact

 

Soul Beat Africa and The Communication Initiative are integrated online communities, social networks, and knowledge-sharing spaces for the community of people working on major development issues and foci such as HIV/AIDS with a particular interest in communication and media initiatives and strategies such as Community Radio and Edutainment , among others. Across all of the development issues and foci there is a significant, priority emphasis on strategic thinking and research and evaluation - from impact data to methodologies .

 

This process has been guided over the past 11 years by a diverse group of Partners who come together to debate their perspectives on major development issues and challenges, make the major strategic decisions in order to implement the above principles into action, and develop working relationships to pursue their common objectives related to changing development policies and improving the revenue base for this work.

 

This network consists of over 75,000 (and still growing) members from all over the world who connect with each other and contribute their experiences, ideas, and opinions through the website. 65% of this network is based in so-called developing countries. 70% of network members are communicators/media; 30% are policy makers, funders, technical experts in other areas.

 

B. Portal processes - Soul Beat- CI relationship

 

Soul Beat Africa – focused specifically on African contexts, initiatives, and thinking - is managed and controlled directly from offices and by staff in Johannesburg, South Africa through an agreement with Soul City. All major strategic decisions are made by this group in Africa for African conditions. This manifested through the administration controls that give them full access to all parts of the process and control over what happens and does not happen. This is a unique part of the portal processes – there can be overall initiatives and as part of that, regionally managed initiatives with full local control and decision making power.

C. Impact

Related to Soul Beat Africa and The Communication Initiative overall:

• Based on a 2006 Network Survey [2,335 respondents]:
  • 86 % had used The CI to improve their work;
  • 49% had initiated an exchange and dialogue with peers prompted by a CI 'item';
  • 88% of that group regarded the exchange as positive for their work; and
  • 61% of the overall sample rated the CI as a 7 or better on a 10 point scale with 1 being "of no value" and 10 being "extremely valuable"...
  • ...with 84% rating The CI a 5 or better on that scale.
• The 2009 survey data has just been received and full results will be communicated soon – one example of data from that network survey includes:
  • 33% of the sample group of SBA/CI network members had contacted someone else in the network. That would equate to 13, 359 people over the past year. And 61% had contacted people 2 to 10 times - so somewhere in the range of 26,000 to 130,000 contacts for the purpose of network members improving their work
• Thus far, 45% of the ratings that users complete on knowledge summaries in response to the question "How useful did you find the knowledge and contacts on this page to your work?" were a 5 for "Awesome" [other options are Poor, OK, Good, Great]. There are over 60,000 votes registered within these ratings to date.
• In the past 12 months, on over 400,000 occasions users have accessed the external links associated with each knowledge summary - this is the in-depth source knowledge - you have to be very interested and engaged to go that deep in The CI process.
• All trends are up - 35% growth in site use when comparing the two most recent 12 month periods; 6,000 plus new network members over the past 12 months; subscribers outmatch un-subscribers by a 25 to 1 margin; and an overflow of knowledge from the network to be included on the website.

 

We include these insights as obviously it is important not to look at platforms in isolation from a) how they perform at scale – new and pilot processes are very different and b) the feedback received from an actual network about added value. The above feedback is very brief – much more data can be provided.

 

D. Focus and Engagement

Soul Beat Africa and The Communication Initiative support people to:

- share, learn from, and debate each other's programme experiences, strategic thinking, and evaluation and research results;
- identify relevant support for their work through materials, training, events, awards, funding opportunities, jobs, and consultancy support ; and
- consider, review, and debate relevant strategic and policy issues through contributing and commenting on policy blogs, voting and commenting on polls (see right column), discussing topics of interest through discussion forums (and launching soon, a newly developed “groups” process), and reviewing the change theory and planning base that underpin and guide their actions.

These processes are essential for improved programmatic action, national and local decision making processes, and the development of improved, supportive policies at the international level.

Over the past 12 months [September 08 to August 09] there have been 3,000,000 individual user sessions with multiple page views per session on the portal [Google Urchin stats]. 70% of site use is from developing countries

The network has contributed over 35,000 knowledge summaries.

In the past 12 months, users accessed the links to the original and substantive documents, articles, and external websites 300,000 plus times.

 

E. Content Knowledge Functionality

 

1.    Numerous Content Types – examples:
-    Pages
-    Webforms/Polls
-    Events
-    Comments
-    Contacts
-    Authors
-    Etc.

2. Numerous content templates – examples:

-    Programmes
-    Strategic Thinking
-    Training
-    Materials
-    Events
-    AwardsThis
-    Evaluations
-    Impact Data

3.    Integrated Platform – it is possible to segment content – can include all content in several different websites, with one click.

4.    Peer Ratings and Comments – supports peer review and comment by the network - 85,000 completed to date; these can be customised.

5.    Top 10s - by Rating and by Access (see bottom of page) - builds user perspective on their view of added value.

 

6.    Extensive taxonomy - over 300 codes with capacity to add more through both core taxonomy and freetagging – this allows filtering by region, development issue, communication tool, communication approach, organisation involved, MDGs, etc. These can be added to and customised based on future requirements.

7.    Theming - supports different designs for different knowledge – e.g.: HIV/AIDS in Africa, Edutainment in Africa, Development Policy Blogs, C-Change Picks - can make the pages look like whatever is required while still maintaining integrated base.

 

8. URLs – can set up very different URLs – customised to what is required while maintaining integrated base.

 

9.    Direct submission - users can submit directly.

10.    Free-tag taxonomy – allows direct submitters to add their own taxonomy.

11.    Content can be divided into specific Section Views - these support people finding what they want as quickly as possible - the columns are flexible and are taxonomy driven.

12.    Personalised, filtered lists - through the ability to filter/select by region, development issues, communication tools and communication approaches.

13.    Advanced Search - a number of different configurations are possible.

14.    Blogging

15.    Inclusion of Images

16.    Inclusion of Videos

 

17. Full RSS feeds

 

18.    Connection to other services and sources of information through the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to material from Youtube, Flickr, Yahoo, Google, Amazon and hundreds of other sources.

19.    The capacity to share data to other sites and services through the same technology so that people can be made aware of the information; or, use the material in the best way suited to them.

 

NB: a) there are hundreds of modules and other items of functionality available depending on requirements; b) you will see all of the above within the Soul Beat but it is all core functionality and can be applied to any separate site[s] with different URLs (while still being integrated with other sites); and c) these are evolving an improving all of the time.

 

F. Social networking and dialogue

 

[Note: you will need to be logged in to the CI’s Development Networks website in order to view many of the links below]

As part of its strategic development, The CI has just implemented the base and beginnings of full social networking process. There are details and insights below. As with the other processes, please note that all of this can be themed so that its design and presentation and branding and URL are unique and refer, in this case, to, for example, the Southern African AIDS Knowledge Portal.

Central to this process is that people within the network – we have 15,000 as an initial group, many of whom are in Southern Africa – can search the network and seek contact with people with whom they wish to have a dialogue or seek support and ideas. This process is all user-driven. 

 

Additionally, users have the ability to...

20.    Create Group Discussions - any user can start a discussion.

21.    Select the type of access for their groups:

1. Open access
2. Moderated access (approve membership, approve posts) groups
3. Private (invite only)
4. Closed.
   

 

 

22.    Tag their groups with taxonomy of their choice.

23.    Join or Request Membership in groups created by others. Depart groups at the click of a button.

24.    Add their own Posts.

 

25. Construct and edit their own profiles - difficult to show due to confidentiality.

26. Utilise their own personal navigation block and functionality.

 

27.    Comment on posts from others.

28.    View all of their “Unread” posts in one location, at one time.

29.    Create their own Polls.

30.    Note online (and offline) Events.

31.    Upload Files/documents to each group.

32.    Flag content within groups as “inappropriate”. This content will then be reviewed by CI staff and dealt with accordingly.

33.    Request collegial relationships.

 

34. Communicate within this environment with those colleagues accepting their relationship request.

 

35.    Track the contributions of colleagues.

36.    Invite colleagues to join groups.

37.    The ability to Search the network for other network members who have the same interests.

 

38.    All posts, polls, and comments can be sent to users by email or simply viewed online – this is the user’s choice within their profile.

39.    This is just the beginning - there are hundreds of modules and other items of functionality that can be added and used depending on demand and interest.

40.    Language localisation – all standard features of the websites can be translated - there are over 100 languages integral to this platform.

 

G.  User Roles and Relationships

 

There is full configuration available for user roles and relationships – for example:

 

i.    Network member control and access – once logged in, network members can edit their profiles as they wish – subscribing to new e-magazines, joining new discussion groups, etc.

ii.    Complete work flow and permissions control – SBA/CI can control who is able to edit which types of content and which parts of the websites are visible to which types of users. There are many levels of permissions available.

iii.    There are hundreds of modules and other items of functionality.

 

H. Aggregation

 

The Soul Beat/CI process – through its partnership with Daylife – has access to a full scraping and aggregation process. At present this is focused for launch on 10,000 news sites – with more that can be added, including photos, quotes, videos, and social media such as Twitter. But the same technology can be applied to, for example, all quality AIDS sites in Southern Africa, ring-fenced to produce something like the examples below related to AIDS action, policy, thinking, and research.

 

Examples of news pages – to be launched soon – include:

HIV/AIDS

USAID

 

Global Warming

 

UNICEF

 

Malaria

 

Please note:

 

a.    When launched there will be a number of stock pages – about 500

b.    We can create pages on any subject – e.g.: a page that is a combination of ARV, research, Malawi

c.    Users will be able to construct their own pages

 

I. Administration

 

As explained in the beginning, the local control is exercised through the administration process. Regional and local groups get to control how they wish to use the platform – they choose what to use where and how. But by being part of an overall portal – e.g. East Africa; Caribbean; Journalists; Policy makers – there are easy possibilities for gaining cross-fertilisation and synergy while maintaining local control.

 

J. Platform choices

 

Choosing a platform based on what you can see happening now and what you think you require now poses longer term issues. It is only three years ago that hardly anyone had heard of Twitter – and not long before that, Facebook was a mystery to almost everyone. This is a rapidly changing business with huge possibilities - most of which may be unknown at present.

 

Allied to that is the fact that the nature of what may be required for effective HIV/AIDS action may also change – a growing emphasis on community groups or a significant development from the MTCT work for example. So, the platform needs to be able to respond to that changing scenario also.

 

A further consideration is that the portal or CMS technology itself evolves and changes every day. It would be impossible for an agency to keep up with new developments and requirements – but users expect innovation and currency.

 

We chose DRUPAL as the CMS for the following reasons:

a.    It is proven with longevity, stability, and regular updates.

b.    It is PHP-based - Applications built with popular languages such as PHP are more prone to attract developers, and the general pool of PHP developers is very large.

c.    For any Open Source application, its longevity and stability comes from the community of application developers behind it.

d.    In addition, PHP applications can run almost any server environment—usually PHP functionality is available by default.

e.    If the application code is given over for replication by other organisations, it will be easier to find developers adept at PHP - Drupal’s coding language - than those who are good at Java based systems such as Liferay.

f.    HIV/AIDS has a vast range of facets and complexities – the platform will need to be able to respond to those – across development as a whole; this was another important reason for the Drupal choice.

g.    Finally, we did not want to choose a platform that would have a short life span – it needs to last and be serviced and updated and have a steady stream of new modules. This is another reason we chose Drupal.

These are important back-end considerations on which we can provide much more insight and data. 


CONCLUSION

Even though this is long, it only provides a brief glimpse. That old maxim applies – in order to write you a short letter (the all important knowledge summaries, network relationships, and dialogue for example) we have to take a long time (the flexible, sophisticated, and integrated platform that can make this happen). There is no simple magic here. And nothing ever quite works as planned – testing and improving based on real world experience is vital.

Please do let us know if you have any questions.