Digital Engagement (DE) are please to offer a specialised academic conference web site solution to Victoria staff responsible for running conferences. Based on Wordpress, the solution is able to meet any/all of the following requirements (meaning that some modules can be disabled if you have an alternative solution for that specific need (e.g. EasyChair to collect and manage proposals/papers)):
- Public web site: Using one of two pre-selected themes, you have control over aspects of the design and of all the content for a public web site. You are not restricted to Victoria branding and shouldn't actually use the University branding. The site will be in English, no other languages at this time. The site can be kept live for up to a few years after the conference, but will eventually be closed down.
- Sponsors: We can profile sponsors, if necessary.
- Registrations and payments: Developed in close co-operation with Finance, this allows for money to arrive in our bank accounts with sufficient information for journaling to the correct project codes and audit/refund tractability. We support credit card payments, together with tax invoices and receipts. We also support complex ticketing (different categories, prices, combinations, discount codes, open dates, etc), custom registration forms and
- Call for proposals/papers: Collect and manage both abstracts, and reviews, including blind reviews if necessary. Customised notifications, flexible handling of attachments, reporting in the system and downloadable.
- Secure hosting: Selected in conjunction with ITS, we have about 10 sites on the account, ranging from blogs to poetry sites and conferences. We will register a domain name of your selection, ensure the site is secure and backed up, and retain administrator access just in case.
- Training and support: Due to popularity and the open source nature, the internet has thousands of freely available training and support materials.Further, many people have experience in using Wordpress so purchasing additional help is affordable.
The cost to have a basic basic conference site built, populated and launched is $1,500. We don't actually do this work in the DE team, rather we introduce you to a trusted developer with whom you contract directly. DE continues to provide level 2 support to the developer and for the technical aspects of the platform and site, but we don't actually do any of the design, development or content work.
This price is very reasonable, covers about 15-20 person hours, so has some constraints:
- You won't get a customer design and build web site, as this would cost many times the asking price.This means you must accept the design and some functional modules as is, a trade-off in order to access a support, cost-effective solution that is simple enough you to learn how to use
- You must prepare your own content. This means you must source images (feel free to ask Image Services for assistance), prepare and specific logos or design files, decide on the site map, write the content, specify ticket categories, draft the registration form details, etc.
- As much of the design and content must be prepared before the developer starts building the site, as it is cheaper to 'do it right once' rather than revisit it many times.
- You will need to learn how to administer the site. This means managing users (in your team), making small edits, using the registration module to answer questions about payments, etc.
- We only support credit card payments using Visa and Mastercard.
- We only support payments into the main University bank account. Our solution is probably unsuitable if you require conference payments into an account with the Foundation or the Research Trust.
- You will need to promote the site, as web sites are passive in nature. Think through how you will inform potential attendees of the site and drive traffic to it.
There are some options if you are unable or unwilling to do these things yourself:
- Delegate to somebody else in your conference team
- Hire a student or casual staff member
- Pay the developer for more than the standard site build.
So, you want to proceed with the solution but are unsure where to start:
- Email online-services@vuw.ac.nz to register your interest and somebody will contact you. Please do so with plenty of lead time, as creating a site is likely to take at least a few weeks, even if you have all the content ready to go (see below).
- Chose a domain name for your site. We register this for you and cover this cost.
- Start preparing your content, as this is necessary no matter who builds your site. This includes the site map, text or written content, imagery, design elements, ticket options, registration form details.
- Obtain a project code from your faculty Finance person. This ensures that the payments are credited to the right place.
- We will introduce you to a developer and provide a contract for service template. You must then engage with the developer directly.