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Proposal from knightcontest.com

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The People's Times

Primary Contact Name

Richard Wyles

Describe your project

The People’s Times is initially focused on Wellington, New Zealand, a city of approximately 180,000 people. The newspaper component will use an open source platform (Drupal) specifically designed and configured for a community of users to easily publish, manage and organise a wide variety of content. The platform will be highly configurable and feature rich including collaborative authoring environments, podcasting, picture galleries, blogging etc. This is not just another ‘citizen journalism’ proposal however. While the act of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, and disseminating information for and beyond their communities is core to the People’s Times there are two other key components to the platform that demonstrate significant innovation and an understanding of what underpins successful online community initiatives. Firstly, clubs, societies, sporting teams, community groups, resident’s associations and other forms of non-profit organisations will have free access to a simple and intuitive Interactive Noticeboard where local information can be placed and read – e.g. cancellations, things to do, club meetings, children’s sport results, local events etc. This is achieved through a combination of simple to use web authoring technology, a taxonomy for entries, tags and RSS to syndicate the information to different web locations. Secondly, the Community Hub section of the People’s Times will support a range of Web 2.0 functionality that empowers each community to manage their own online communication suite, including forums, Chat, Blogs, Document management, member management, Request a Community etc. An additional benefit is that local communities are provided with opportunities to establish horizontal (peer to peer) linkages regionally, nationally and even globally for information sharing and collaborative initiatives. My People’s Times will enable Users to create and configure their own page layout on a dashboard interface. Software components will be open source meaning the platform is replicable.

Primary Contact Email

richard@flexible.co.nz

Organization or Business Name

Flexible Learning Network Limited

Who would want to use it and why?

To understand the need for this development, consultation with a broad range of community groups was considered essential. In addition to desk-top research, a survey and correspondance with specific communities was undertaken. Registrations of support have been far higher than expected, indicating a real need for the service. Analysis of the responses shows a good cross section of community groups are supportive of the project. The survey results illustrates that this project appeals to both rural and urban community groups. Hobbies, clubs, resident associations, and sporting bodies are well represented. Many of the responses urged quick development (“We need this now!”. In summary, The People's Times will be used by a very wide cross-section of our local communities focused on Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand.

Why are you the best person or organization to develop this project?

Richard Wyles has vast experience at project managing large innovative web based projects. Richard is leader of eNetwork Education project the conceptualisation and implementation of a network of provision across the tertiary education sector. The scope of this initiative has the potential to deliver a revolutionary impact to the education sector and knowledge economy throughout New Zealand and internationally. Previously Richard led the New Zealand Open Source Virtual Learning Environment Project, involving a consortium of 20 universities, institutes of technology and polytechnics. His work with the Moodle Learning Management System, since early 2004, has gained Richard international recognition as a thought leader in eLearning technology circles, and speaks regularly at international conferences. Moodle is now one of the most widely deployed LMSs internationally and is firmly established as a key eLearning platform in New Zealand, both in education and corporate training environments.In early 2004, Richard led the development of Eduforge (www.eduforge.org), to support the sharing of ideas, research outcomes, content and e-learning software for e-learning. Eduforge now hosts in excess of 200 projects from throughout the world. In addition to his work with eLearning, Richard has been at the forefront of New Zealand’s use of digital technologies for the past decade including being Internet Business Planner for Fairfax’s award winning newspaper website – Stuff.co.nz. His work here was recognised at the highest levels – please see attached letter from Rupert Murdoch. The project partners provide the organisational capacity that underpins Richard’s ability to lead this project. Catalyst IT (www.catalyst.net.nz) specialises in open source developments and have some 80 programmers. The Open Polytechnic is supporting the project in the areas of information literacy, community support and training materials.

U.S. State

Country

New Zealand

What potentially bigger thing might happen if everything went perfectly and the stars all aligned?

The bigger thing that we intend to happen is that the People’s Times takes the concept of citizen journalism to a new level of maturity, delivers an easily replicable model and one that is civic centered. At a fundamental level, the People's Times is designed for shared outcomes, learning across other organizations, communities and individuals. Increased intra and inter-community connectedness is a major goal of the project. The platform and model is entirely replicable and we believe the People’s Times will be a reference model for other geographic communities to adopt. We have had similar experience when in 2004, we started further development on Moodle, an open source learning management system. Moodle installations have grown from 350 to over 30,000 worldwide in just three years. The People’s Times will leverage the successful open source content management system Drupal. At this stage we have already secured funding for $120,000 further development of this open source platform. We believe a similar revolutionary impact is possible with the People’s Times and Drupal. Many citizen journalism initiatives are attempting to be disruptive to main-stream media. In contrast, the People’s Times will certainly support citizen journalism publishing but it is the Community Hub and Noticeboard that differentiates this initiative from others. It might be argued that citizens are already creating, accessing, using and sharing digital content using commercial social software sites such as MySpace and Facebook. However these sites focus on the individual as the centre of orbit, and are not designed as fit-for-purpose to support grass-roots communities. The People’s Times framework embraces the power of Web 2.0 technologies to deliver services around the community grouping as the focal point, not the individual. The Noticeboard area will leverage RSS extensively to provide free feeds of important community content. We believe the stars may well be aligned in that a fit-for purpose platform is available to be extended to meet our goals.

How will you be able to measure whether or not your project has really made a difference?

The most robust evaluation method possible is for the communities themselves to evaluate the project, and for the aggregated survey results to be published on the People's Times itself and made available to other communities and other similar projects to learn from. The People's Times will offer a fully featured online Survey tool freely available for use by any community, including for their own evaluation purposes. Evaluation ultimately belongs with community peers and it is their degree of satisfaction that will drive the uptake and growth of communities on the People’s Times. Our plan to measure whether or not the People’s Times has really made a difference includes the following: - At the outset of the project, the objectives and evaluation criteria will be clearly published on the People’s Times and any documentation made available to potential and participating community groups using the Creative Commons Share Alike license. - A fully featured online survey tool will be offered as part of the People’s Times suite of services. - The People’s Times Evaluation Survey will list the aforementioned published objectives and ask users to score how well from their perspective the People's Times meets each one, plus give an opportunity to provide comments. - Survey responses may be anonymous as it will be made clear that analysis and comments will be published and openly available on the People’s Times. This level of openness will be an underlying ethos for the management of the People’s Times. - Surveys will be made available at regular quarterly intervals for the timeframe of the project and beyond. In addition, a Non-User Evaluation paper based survey will be sent to community groups not using the People’s Times. The intent of this survey is to uncover whether there are latent requirements not being met, levels of awareness regarding the service and any other factors to be noted in overall project evaluation.

Web site

http://www.flexible.co.nz

Requested amount from Knight News Challenge

$400000

What unmet need does your proposal answer?

There are numerous tangible and intangible barriers to community groups leveraging online communication and publishing tools. Lack of resources, training, knowledge and experience, awareness and know-how of possible open source applications all create a situation where the broad-based need for our citizens to be active participants in the digital society is currently largely unmet. To fully understand the need for this development, consultation with a broad range of community groups was considered essential. A letter asking for feedback on the project was developed and mailed to a very wide range of community organisations . The letter outlined the project objectives and discussed some of the areas of development being considered. It included an opportunity for feedback and suggestions plus the opportunity for community groups to receive regular updates if the project is successful with seed funding.Registrations of support have been far higher than expected, indicating a real need for this service. Alpine Clubs, Anglers Clubs, Astronomical Societies, Brass Bands Association, Businesswomen’s Network, Camera Clubs, Car Clubs, Embroiderer’s Guilds, Genealogy groups, National Sporting Bodies (e.g. Athletics NZ and NZ Orienteering Federation), Neighbourhood, Community and Residents Associations, Outdoor Pursuits, Stamp Collectors Club / Philatelic Societies, Tramping Groups are types of community groups who have have indicated formal support for the People's Times. 56% of survey responses were from resident's associations, indicating a very high uptake in this category. While Web 2.0 and open source technologies are the enablers for the People’s Times framework, it is confidence and support that are the key critical success factors of the project. Therefore a key focus of the project is to build confidence across as broad a base as possible. Community groups registering to use the platform will receive an Information Pack for each of their members, online support, and step-by-step guidance on how to utilize the tools available.

Total cost of project, including all sources of funding

$800000

What specific, unique opportunity do you see that will make this project more successful than others trying to fill that general

The People’s Times is at once both micro and macro focused and it is the combination of elements in the overall model plus the skills and experience of the team involved that presents a unique opportunity. We believe the best way to dig for news and act on it is to engage and leverage the collective possibilities of existing community groups. "Many voluntary groups are unable to enter the world of web technology for a variety of reasons usually due to cost and/or inexperienced personnel". "This (The People's Times) intends to assist in avoiding unnecessary duplication of services, especially when competing for government, charitable and philanthropic funding. We believe that a project such as this will allow this to happen." Frances Russell, Executive Director, Community Trust of Wellington. By supporting multiple community groups with the applications that are vital for creating, discovering, using and sharing content, we then have the foundations to collect, prepare and distribute news and information that is meaningful. While communication of opinion and comment are important, the definition of news as information the public expects to be factual and accurate, is a central theme of the People’s Times. Blogging already achieves the online equivalent of a soapbox and this is not the general need we’re trying to address. In contrast to the norm in social software and citizen journalism initiatives where individuals are the focal point, our primary building blocks for identifying, gathering and distributing news are community groups that already exist in physical space. We will be strongly encouraging community groups, clubs, environmental groups etc. to add their distinctive, collective voices to the People’s Times. Increased intra and inter-community connectedness is a major goal of the project. The unique opportunity is to address the needs of specific local communities in a replicable way in order to increase interconnectedness and thereby define, set and reach common community goals.

Expected amount of time to complete project (in whole years):

1years

How will people learn about what you are doing?

Communities that already exist in a physical sense are our primary audience. Our initial engagement and communication plan includes “old-fashioned” but proven techniques such as direct marketing mail-outs, telephone contact and seminars. Community groups registering to use the platform will receive an Information Pack for each of their members, online support, and step-by-step guidance on how to utilize the tools available. Many of our stakeholders that are active in our communities are from an older demographic with, on average, lower levels of ICT literacy. Therefore, the development and distribution of excellent ICT literacy materials to participating communities is identified as a key success factor to this project. The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand is a major center of learning resource design. This capability will be utilized to produce high quality, tested materials to support the community engagement. Please note that the materials will take the form of self-paced "How to" Guide brochures and online tutorial styled Help tools, not formal educational courseware. The Flexible Learning Network will provide specialist advice on the development of the online support material. A key focus of the project is to build confidence across as broad a base as possible. We have also planned a strong engagement model with a pilot group to ensure fit-for-purpose outcomes. The People's Times platform will be developed with a building block approach, using open source modular design and feedback loops at each step from community stakeholders. In other words, the People’s Times will be delivered in an adaptive manner, from an existing, mature open source application (i.e Drupal). Sport and recreation is important to New Zealanders. By engaging with all of our sports communities and providing a useful service with Noticeboard.org.nz (a module of the People’s Times), we are confident of very high levels of awareness. In summary, our communication strategy is underpinned by grassroots engagement rather than the need for overt marketing campaigns.

Do you have any other funding or investment? We’re interested in knowing who else is interested in your project.

We have secured other funding and in-kind contributions from four sources. Firstly, under the auspices of the New Zealand Digital Strategy (www.digitalstrategy.govt.nz), we have secured NZ$200,000 from the New Zealand Government. Secondly, Catalyst IT (www.catalyst.net.nz) have agreed to provide NZ$80,000 in software development, NZ$100,000 in hosting and technical support and NZ$5000 in multimedia design. Even looking globally, Catalyst is a rare organization in that they have a long-held commitment to open standards and open source technologies. Catalyst is the largest New Zealand owned company specializing in open source development and mobile technologies. Catalyst has a diverse and skilled group of around 80 ICT experts and a purpose built hosting facility. Thirdly, the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand (www.openpolytechnic.ac.nz) is supporting the project primarily through providing appropriate training materials and personnel. The Open Polytechnic is a leading centers of expertise in learning design – the creation of learning resources in a variety of media for use by individual students, other providers and organisations. Providing appropriate resource packs for the People’s Times has been identified as a critical success factor for engagement with the communities. Their contribution totals $NZ128,000 in pro bono value. Fourth Richard Wyles, from Flexible Learning Network (www.flexible.co.nz), has identified the need and conceptualized the project. Richard will project manage the people’s Times project and his time on the project to date and into the intermediate future is entirely pro bono. In total, contributions exceed $NZ500,000 or approximately $US400,000. While this is enough to get started, a successful outcome with the Knight News Challenge will ensure that we have sufficient resources to provide professional management, editing, content moderation, and community liaison services. In summary, the additional funding from the Knight News Challenge will help ensure the full potential of the People’s Times is realized.

Are you working with anyone else to complete this project? If so, please give names and what they would do?

We have brought together a team of highly talented individuals and partners to ensure we have the skills and experience to successfully deliver this project. Catalyst IT (www.catalyst.net.nz) is the software development partner. We have selected Drupal as the best platform to extend to meet the functionality requirements for the project. Catalyst has 80 skilled open source developers, multimedia design and delivery plus expertise in mobile services serving the country's leading telecommunications provider. Their combination of skills and capacity provides us with complete confidence on the technical aspects of the project. Our second project partner is the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand (www.openpolytechnic.ac.nz), a state-owned not for profit educational institution that specializes in the provision of open and distance learning support in technical and vocational training. The development and distribution of excellent ICT literacy materials to participating communities is identified as a key success factor to this project. The Open Polytechnic’s capability in learning resource design will be utilized to produce high quality, tested materials to support the community engagement and guide good practice citizen journalism. Please note that the materials will take the form of self-paced "How to" Guide brochures and online tutorial styled Help tools, not formal educational courseware. The Flexible Learning Network will provide specialist advice on the development of the online support material. The remainder of the team will be brought together by the Project Leader, Richard Wyles. Key team roles include the Editorial Team, Community Liaison, Data Feeds and Content Moderators and System Administrator. Additional to the core project team are the community groups themselves. The core philosophy of the People’s Times is that Users are Contributors – a parallel to the bazaar model of open source development. This is a community newspaper managed by the communities for the benefit of their communities.

Who else is working in this area? How does your work fit into the larger context of work in this area?

The People's Times will provide a key and unique part of New Zealand's digital landscape, by lowering the barriers to entry for multiple organisations to harness the benefits of web technologies. In that sense, this project is inter-linked as a strategy that complements and strengthens existing and planned initiatives underway in New Zealand, but also more broadly as we appreciate there are many, and more up-and-coming great citizen focused news and civic participation sites globally. By leveraging previous investments, best-of-breed open source software and the lessons from others working in this area, it is possible to propose this project with its relatively modest budget given the new areas of innovation and their potential for far-reaching impact across all our communities. New Zealand is a small and geographically remote country with citizens that take pride in being pragmatic and helping others. For example, open source Mambo Foundation President, Lynne Pope set up www.disastersearch.org initially as "Katrina Evacuee Help Center" within 48 hours of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. This was undertaken from New Zealand and is a cogent example of how through the use of digital technologies people can better understand one another in geographic communities, share our know-how and help problem solve. In addition to appreciating how the People’s Times can extend and contribute to citizens playing an active role in informing each other, we will be reaching out to similar initiatives and organizations to create an open and synergistic environment. For example, open content from NZ citizen radio (www.accessradio.org.nz) and partnering with our journalism training communities (e.g. www.journalism.aut.ac.nz). Technologies such as RSS and podcasting will be used to interlink with others working in this area both domestically and internationally. At the technology level, we will work with the Drupal community (used for sites such as www.theonion.com, www.nowpublic.com) , and contribute all software enhancements back to the community.

What do you guarantee will happen if you complete the activities in this proposal?

When our team first began working with Moodle, an open source learning management system, there were about 350 registered sites worldwide. Fast-forward four years and there are now around 35,000 registered sites including government departments, the UK's Open University, the University of London, California's UCLA and many more big names. We believe the same massive growth is possible with lowering the barriers to adopting innovative platforms for creating, managing and disseminating news. We will do this by establishing an easy to use configuration that is extended specifically for the purposes outlined in this proposal. We have expertise to guarantee that the People’s Times scales well to support an expanding variety of media. The modular architecture makes Drupal a flexible and extensible tool. For us, it is comparatively easy to guarantee success at a technical level. The level of uptake and the level to which people adopt new ways to create and use information are inherently more difficult. However, we believe it is reasonable to guarantee widespread adoption because we have undertaken solid research indicating an extensive need for the People’s Times plus we have a large number of pilot partners and supporters including Wellington City’s local government. 56% of survey responses were from resident's associations, indicating a very high uptake in this category. Athletics New Zealand alone has 220 clubs wanting to use the platform and when including other sporting codes we expect the People’s Times to be highly used by sports clubs. Over 30% of survey respondents represented hobby groups, clubs and music organisations that were supportive. We expect upwards of 50,000 unique users in the first year of operation. It is reasonable to state that support from the Knight Foundation would mitigate the project’s risk as we would have sufficient resources to manage our stakeholder requirements and fully deliver all elements of the project. Thank-you for the opportunity to submit this proposal. Yours sincerely, Richard Wyles.