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A website for leprosy control support (NLR)

A pilot in India 2007-2010Anrik Engelhard

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Special Thanks

The website pilot was made possible by

• Jan Willem Dogger, NLR project officer,

• Dr M.A. Arif, country representative

• All staff of NLR Branch Office and

• Field staff of NLR India who participated in the workshops

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A pilot

• Since 2007 www.nlrindia.org

• Website as tool for NLR support in India

• Information management

• Communication within project, with HQ, stakeholders, public

• Public area and intranet for NLR staff

• Workshops: requirements, skills, stepwise building structure, content

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Considerations

• The pilot should primarily focus on leprosy content management, not on IT, not on a specific content management system (CMS)

• A site as a tool for information that is more sustainable, accessible and multipurpose

• Simple and low cost • Design of website structure by project staff• Template (look&feel) according NLR HQ• Content management by staff• Gradual development: BO, states, districts

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Why this content management system (SiteatSchool)?

• Sheer luck I hit on it

• Compliant with some fundamental principles that I liked– Simple, stable, secure, no thrills– For those without time, knowledge, skills– Freedom (“ open source” OSS GPL), no

vendor lock-in, you always can switch to something you like more)

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The pilot

• Workshops in Delhi with branch office and field staff

• Discussions with NLR Project Officer, KIT (IT and Education)

• Discussions / work with Helpdesk CMS

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The pilot

• Better appreciation of the design goals of the CMS– Their coherence and consistency– Modular structure– Multi language (now +/- 15 languages)– Inexperienced users publish their own pages– Easy maintenance by non experienced users

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The pilot

• Design goals of the CMS (cont)– Very flexible access rights– Simple installation of the CMS– No creeping featurism– Safety and security by embedding the CMS in a

comprehensive server (again, free downloadable and service at hand)

• Adaptation of CMS is possible • Alternative CMSs available• www.siteatschool.org• www.serveratschool.net

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Results so far

• A basic website produced by project team

• Team made content

• More understanding on information and knowledge management, communication

• More discussion on websites

• Reports on the pilot

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Costs

• Registration/hosting +/- € 90/yr

• Technical Maintenance/Helpdesk

currently < € 250/yr

• Customized template (for NLR branding)

< € 500

• Installation € 0

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References

• Reports on the website workshops

• www.nlrindia.org

• www.siteatschool.org

• www.serveratschool.net

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At this stage

• Time to further upload content according to plan

• Time to involve more LPA’s at state level

• Time to evaluate achievements so far

• ….But first, time for Dr Arif to demonstrate the site…..