CEDC: Blog feed

Celebrating the Life of Kit Collins, rscj

cedc — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:02:51 +0000

On Thursday March 18, 2010, Sister Kit Collins passed away at her home in Washington, DC. She lived her life as an advocate for the poor, a champion of justice, and a true example of the expansive and unconditional love of Christ. Through her ministry in education and at the Center for Educational Design and Communication, she touched innumerable lives, making the world a better place for all those who crossed her path. This Tuesday, March 23, 2010, we will gather together to celebrate her life, her mission, and the glorious resurrection in Christ that she has now fully experienced.

A viewing will be held at the CEDC chapel from 9am until 11am. The liturgy will begin at 11am, with interment to follow at St. Mary's Cemetery (2121 Lincoln Road NE, Washington, DC 20002). A reception and a time for the sharing of memories will be held at CEDC.

You can read more about Kit at the RSCJ US Province website.

Site analytics, SEO and privacy

laryn — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:18:18 +0000

Keeping track of your site statistics is an important part of assessing the success of your online presence. You can see where your visitors are coming from and what they are looking at, which can help as you try to make your site as valuable as possible and measure the success of your SEO goals. Google Analytics is a common solution, but since some non-profits have privacy issues with integrating their sites with the Google Empire I'm also listing some other resources which allow you to retain your own stats on your own server.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is free, easy, and will give you more data than you can shake a stick at. That's why it's so popular. On the other hand, you do rely on Google's servers which can cause performance issues and some organizations have privacy concerns with Google Analytics. To help against the potential performance hit, you can use a solution such as the Google Analytics module for Drupal, which will allow you to cache the required Javascript files locally, refreshing them from Google's servers periodically. Regarding the privacy issues, Google does give you the option to select "Do not share my Google Analytics data", although it is not selected by default. You can set this when you create a website profile in Google Analytics, or you can edit an existing profile to change the setting. (Another suggestion is to use jQuery to load the Google script only after the page sends a "ready" signal.)

More about Google Analytics.

Still have privacy concerns? Some other options

There are some other options for those organizations who still have privacy issues with Google's offering. See below for a few of them.

Piwik

Piwik's site states that the goal of Piwik is to "be an open source alternative to Google Analytics." It is built on plugins, so you can mix and match (and develop your own) plugins as needed. It is installed locally and stores the data in a MySQL database that you provide, so you don't have privacy concerns with your data residing on a server that is outside of your control. You can customize the interface and get your stats in real-time (or change the frequency for high-traffic sites).

Check out a demo and download Piwik here.

Mint

Mint is not free (a license is $30 per installation), but it is also self-hosted, so you can retain your data locally.

See more of Mint's features here.

Awstats

Awstats is an old workhorse and it browses through log files to determine traffic patterns. Since it pulls data from the log file directly instead of through a Javascript inserted into the page, it will include by default much more information, including search bots and folks with Javascript disabled (such as those who are browsing with Firefox and the NoScript plugin). The argument can be made that this is a more accurate account of your server traffic than Javascript-based trackers, but if your logs are large, it can result in server performance delays while you process the data, and the interface is not very customizable or up-to-date.

Download AwStats at SourceForge.

Search Engine Optimization and Analytics

You can be creative about how to use your statistics for SEO, but here are a few basics:

Find out which keyword phrases people are finding your site with, and further optimize your site for popular and relevant combinations that you hadn't thought of before.
Verify that those keyword phrases are landing on the pages that you intended, and if not, reoptimize the site to fix that.
Find out which content has become popular and use this as you plan to develop future content.
Find out which new sites have been referring visitors to your pages and determine if that relationship can be built upon. (For example, if you are getting a lot of hits from Facebook but haven't spent much time as an organization on your Facebook page or making it simple for folks to share your pages on Facebook, you may want to devote some time to that).
If you have decided to use Google Analytics, you can also consider Google Webmaster Tools, which will give you additional information from Google's perspective which can be helpful towards SEO, such as top search queries, links to your site, keywords, errors, and so on.

Conclusion

It is a good idea to track your visits in some way so you can identify patterns, rate your SEO goals, and keep up with the way that your visitors are interacting with your site. One of the options above may be just what you need. If you have another suggestion, feel free to post it in the comments below.

The basics of non-profit SEO, part 9: Use an SEO browser to see what Google sees

cedc — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:10:24 +0000

Continuing our series of non-profit SEO tips, I encourage you to take a look at your site as it renders in text form, as it is "seen" by Google and other search engines.There are a number of different "SEO browsers" you can experiment with to see which of them is useful for you.

Here are a few free options suggested in a recent post by Marie-Claire Jenkins:

SEO Browser
"SEO-Browser has two modes, simple and advanced. Simple mode is an easy way to look at a website without all the formatting and graphics - just the text. A person can quickly navigate through the pages of a website to see how the text shows up...Advanced mode shows specific details on how a page is constructed. In addition, the menu items link to various tools that are valuable for website developers and SEO consultants.
Domaintools SEO browser
“Our goal is to allow everyone to accomplish a 100% score. If no obvious html optimization methods exist and everything looks good we will be giving it a 100%. We will be picky about the obvious things like completing Title tags and h1 tags, webmasters should be using these. We are very hard on frames and lag of alt tags.”

Use a heat map to see how your visitors are using your homepage (ClickHeat)

cedc — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:54:23 +0000

Looking at your stats can give you a pretty good idea of how your visitors are using your site and which content they are finding, but sometimes it would be helpful to know a little more information. Setting up a heat map can help you determine which parts of the page are most prominent and are the best at attracting clicks.

A heat map is basically a small script that tracks exactly where your users click and presents it to you as an overlay on your page, so you can see where the clicks are most dense ("hottest") and where they are non-existant ("coolest").The colors that are overlaid on your page when you are viewing the stats run from transparent to blue to red, indicating an increasing number of clicks as the colors get warmer.

This can be especially useful on a homepage, to test the effectiveness of a current layout, and can also be used to determine which links are most prominent in cases where there are multiple links to the same page. For example, your non-profit may have a "donate" option in the main menu and also a separate "donate" button further down in the right hand column. A heat map can tell you which of the two gets clicked more. Similarly, you may be interested in learning whether users prefer to click on the title of a recent blog entry or on the "Read more" link.

There are a number of commercial heat map options out there which can cost from $10 per month and up into the hundreds. ClickHeat is an open source heat map script that is available for free if you are interested in doing some testing. You can set it up temporarily to learn about how your homepage is being used, or leave it on indefinitely so you can check in periodically. The script can be downloaded from Sourceforge and you can find some instructions and a demo from Labs Media (ClickHeat's developers).*

It's also worth noting that there is a corresponding Drupal module available (Click HeatMap) and a Joomla plugin (Clickheat) to integrate ClickHeat into your Drupal or Joomla site more easily.

*One note about ClickHeat: The default script that it provides for you to embed in your page or template includes a textual link in the <noscript> area which can be removed if you wish. In the case of a user that comes to your site with Javascript turned off, this will not degrade gracefully as it will add a link to LabsMedia commercial site on your homepage, which is probably not what you want. It's disappointing that they have done this since it's basically a sneaky way for LabsMedia to try to increase their search engine rank by surreptitiously adding external links to unsuspecting sites. Luckily it is easily removed.

Hat tip to Smashing Mag

Our senior designer is January's featured "Alumni in Design" at DC AIGA

cedc — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:06:07 +0000

Our senior designer, Laryn Kragt Bakker, is the featured "Alumni in Design" at the Dordt College AIGA student group site. He discusses his background, CEDC, and his recently published novel, and he shows some sample designs. See the excerpt below, or read the entire thing and view the design samples at DC AIGA.

I graduated from Dordt in 1998, double majoring in art (graphic design) and computer science. I am currently Senior Designer at CEDC (The Center for Educational Design and Communication), based in Washington D.C., and I’ve been on the team here since 2003. Our tagline is “Social Justice by Design” because we are a non-profit that serves other non-profits in a number of ways, including through communications services such as web development, print design and logo/identity work.

The web was still quite new while I was a student, and the fields of graphic design and computer science didn’t cross in the classroom except in independent study. Since then, developments in the online world have exploded and there are a lot more ways to integrate the two.

I am an open source enthusiast, and over the last seven years I have expanded our web toolbox to include two robust and powerful content management systems (Drupal and Joomla). This allows us to design and build websites for our partners and give them easy access to add and edit their own content without having to deal with (and potentially mess up) the design of the site.

We also work on logo development and print design with our partners, creating everything from annual reports and brochures to posters and newspaper advertisements. One of the benefits of working for a small organization is that I generally get to be involved in the projects from start to finish, from the initial meetings with our partners through concept development, design and completion.

I do some personal projects and some freelance design for entities that don’t fall under CEDC’s mission. I recently painted an original illustration for the cover and designed the cover and interior for my novel (Clutching Dust and Stars), which was recently published by *culture is not optional.

...

Read the rest of the article at DC AIGA

Should small non-profits bother with the "social media revolution"?

cedc — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:48:04 +0000

Many small non-profits are asking questions about whether or how deeply to get involved in social networks and social media. It's important to think it through before jumping in, because it will take a certain amount of resources to do it right and you will want to make sure you can devote them to it before you begin. If you are in this situation, you may find the video embedded below to be helpful in terms of quantifying the extent of social media adoption in broad terms.

The author of Socialnomics created this video "to get people thinking about social media...I primarily wanted to give a tool to every marketer and every individual who has been struggling with all the hype about social media. Is it a fad or is it the next revolution? The video is designed to show it’s not a fad and here are some hardcore statistics that show that it’s actually the biggest thing since the industrial revolution." [1]

You will need to decide the best strategy for your particular niche or audience, but these numbers provide an interesting framework to think about social media and some good justification for considering how to move your non-profit into the social media arena.

How to find images for your non-profit blog or project (free or low cost)

laryn — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:16:41 +0000

If your non-profit has a blog, you may need imagery periodically to illustrate a post. Here are a few resources to help you locate free (or low cost) imagery. (They can potentially also help with other projects, but make sure that you don't use an image just because it is free when you can find another image that would make a campaign or advertisement much more effective).

Free images: public domain, creative commons and other

You can find many images that are freely available for use. The quality of the free images is often not as good, especially at full resolution, but for some uses (such as illustrating a blog with a low res image) they can be just fine. Here are a few sources for imagery that is often public domain or made available with a creative commons license or another free-to-use license. Please add more suggestions in the comments and I'll update the list periodically.

Sprixi is a new image search engine, specifically with free imagery in mind. It claims that it gets better after each search because it invites users to help rank images which are useful or not useful for a particular term. You can also download the images in various sizes, with or without an appropriate credit already added at the bottom of the image. ("The images are sourced using the Flickr API and various other places but all content has a liberal licence such as Creative Commons or is in the public domain. From the looks of things image tags are used as the primary filtering tool. On top of that, as the site FAQ explains, images are sorted automatically just by people using Sprixi. Images you click on, rate, use, download or upload are given a usefulness rating. You can also vote for the usefulness of images by clicking on the yes, maybe and no buttons. Votes from registered users are given a heavier weighting." -thenextweb.com)
You can always go to Flickr and do some searching, although you'll need to keep an eye on the licenses that the images are listed under. If you find just the right image with the wrong license, you can also contact the user to see if they will grant you permission to use it -- being a non-profit can often help in getting permissions like this.
Stock.xchng is a free image site that was bought out by iStockphoto. It is currently still free to use, although like Flickr, you need to keep track of the usage license that is associated with each image, and be aware iStockphoto also feeds images from the for-pay microstock images when you search. (Those images are still very affordable -- see the microstock section below).
Dreamstime is another microstock agency that has a free image area. They will also have a two-tier search result -- one with the free images that match the search and the other with the for-pay images.
Many of the images that are used on Wikipedia have free use licenses. To try to find these types of images, you can do a Google image search and specify that you want to see results from Wikipedia by using a special filter such as "site:commons.wikimedia.org" before your search query. (Side note: you can also sometimes find SVG, or scalable vector graphic, files of things like country flags, which can be very useful).

Low cost images: microstock

The microstock photography model has exploded in recent years and it can be very useful for a non-profit (especially when money is tight). The quality of the images is getting better and better and the cost is still very affordable, especially compared to traditional stock photography. If you are planning to use an image in a blog post you can often get away with the lowest resolution they offer, which may cost in the neighborhood of one dollar on many of the websites. A few of these sites are already mentioned above since they have free image sections.

Learn more about purchasing images from microstock sites (such as Shutterstock, Dreamstime, iStockphoto, and Bigstockphoto) here.

Conclusion

You can find a lot of free-to-use imagery online, but always keep in mind the license that it is offered under. You may need to find a for-pay image (either through microstock, traditional stock or even a custom photo shoot for specific projects). A recent study in the UK showed that over one third of creatives in the UK use images illegally, and even major companies get caught doing so. Don't let your non-profit get pie-in-the-face by using an image you don't have the rights to use -- it's not worth it and will damage your credibility

Free E-book for Non-profits and Social Media: Social by Social

cedc — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:14:28 +0000

I wanted to take a moment to highlight a free e-book that will be of interest to some of our non-profit partners.

Social by Social

Social by Social is a practical guide to using new technologies to create social impact. It makes accessible the tools you need to engage a community, offer services, scale up activities and sustain projects. Whoever you are, it shows you how to take technology and turn it into real world benefits.

We want to help people in the public and third sectors do more good, by showing them the power of these technologies and how to access them. In the process, we hope we can also educate funders and policy workers about the huge shift of mindset and expectations needed to commission these projects successfully, to give the innovators more space to work.
...
Social by Social isn’t a manual in the classic sense. This work is still pretty new and there isn’t a simple model to follow. Instead, it asks you the questions which you will need to answer, shares some of the routes other people have tried, and offers signposts to help you find your way. And it invites you to join an ongoing conversation as we all find the way together.

You can download the entire book for free as a PDF or buy a print-on-demand copy to have it in print form.

Questions to think about when preparing to redesign your non-profit website

cedc — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:58:47 +0000

When a non-profit partner is beginning the process of having their website redesigned, we like to get some specifics about the type of site they are envisioning. Our RFP form is a good first step in the web redesign process and has some introductory questions that get at the same issues, but it is sometimes helpful to answer some slightly more in-depth questions specifically about the look and feel as a separate, secondary exercise. (Also, sometimes it is useful to send a graphic design specific form to a sub-group of more visually oriented people who may not need to see the entire RFP).

The questions are pasted in directly below and also attached for download at the bottom of the page in both Open Document Format and Word format.

1. Description of Mood/Functionality/etc:

Describe with words the mood or personality that your site should have. For example, should it give a corporate feel with clean, straight lines? Should it be a softer feel, with rounded edges and gradients? Should it be bolder and grungy? Do you want to go with a 'Web 2.0' look or something less techie? This will tie in with your primary audience, so feel free to include thoughts about them here as well, including demographic info, technical capabilities, etc. We may ask for further details if something is unclear.

2. Branding Guidelines and Color:

Do you have a package of branding guidelines that we should follow as we develop the look and feel? Do you have specific colors that are used consistently? Should the site's design match anything else you have already developed (in print or video, for example), or will your other communications be revised to match the site? Do you have a logo, or multiple versions of your logo? (Please provide your logo in vector form if possible, otherwise as a high resolution raster image)

3. Examples of Mood/Functionality/etc (positive and negative):

Provide a list of five to ten sites that have something about them that you like, whether it is the way the menu works, the general mood and feel of the page, the structure or layout, or anything else in particular. Also include aspects of the sites that you do not like. We may have more questions for you regarding the sites you list here, so don't worry if you're not sure how to describe what it is you like (or don't like) about a site, just try your best.

4. Homepage:

Often a site will have a separate structure for the homepage, to allow more information to be presented in one place and give an overview of all the places the visitor can go (or at least to highlight specific places). What will be important to include on the homepage? What do you want your visitors to see first if they happen to visit your homepage (as opposed to landing on an internal page through a search result, for example)? What do you want them to do? (You may tie in thoughts about various audiences here as well, if you have multiple audiences that may be interested in different parts of the site).

5. Internal Design:

Will the internal design be consistent, or are there areas of the site that should look slightly different? If so, please describe the various areas and how they may be differentiated (for example, specific header graphics for specific areas, or a slight change of the color palette in the look and feel, or a complete restructuring of the page)? What is the goal of making these sections different?

As usual, feel free to contact us with any questions, or request more info for a specific project you have in mind. (For web projects, it is helpful if you complete the RFP and submit it with the project estimate request form).

Photo by http://www.anna-OM-line.com

Attachments

Look and feel questions (Open Document Format) [245.46 KB]
Look and feel questions (Word Format) [162 KB]

Congratulations, Drupal: "Best open source PHP CMS" and "Hall of Fame" award

cedc — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:19:13 +0000

Drupal wins again:

From drupal.org: "Drupal has won best open source PHP Content Management System for the second year in a row in the Packt Publishing 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. Drupal won by popular vote and a critical selection by a panel of judges. This award reflects the strong support of the Drupal community and our focus on quality which leads to critical acclaim and rapid adoption for large, high quality projects. Drupal won best overall open source CMS in 2007 and 2008."

Hats off also to Wordpress and Joomla, who were both runners-up.

UPDATE:

Drupal wins the Hall of Fame Award:

From drupal.org: It is a great honor for the Drupal community to be the first winner of the Open Source CMS Hall of Fame Award. The Drupal community has worked hard to improve Drupal by adding internationalization, enhancing security, facilitating customization, increasing extensibility, and easing the user experience. This award is a great complement to winning the 2009 Open Source PHP CMS for the second year in a row. This critical recognition helps build both momentum and excitement towards releasing Drupal 7 in 2010.