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From xPRESS digest:
The National Trust is launching a nationwide training campaign to help its staff and volunteers learn how to make and receive calls through RNID Typetalk, the specialist telephone service for people with communication difficulties.
xPRESS Digest: RNID Typetalk Helps the National Trust Listen to Deaf Visitors
From TechSoup:
Join CompuMentor's community engagement program director John Lorance and a host of leading Web technology advocates as they demystify Web 2.0 technologies and illustrate how using new socially oriented technological innovations can help the nonprofit community. Web 2.0 technologies such as tagging, social bookmarking and online social networks, blogging, content sharing through Wikis and RSS, and new Web widgets need not only be in the hands of well-funded developers; but also can be used by organizations to further their missions.
Save the dates: October 24-October 28
Join us the week of October 24, for a free, five-day online event, in the TechSoup Emerging Technology forum www.techsoup.org/web2event
TechSoup - Forums: Online Event: week of October 24th - Impact of Web 2.0 on nonprofits
From PublicTechnology.net
Dorset For You, the pioneering online portal launched by five local councils this February to replace individual council websites, has adopted taxonomy-based technology from APR Smartlogik to boost information 'findability' through the site and make it even easier for citizens to access the information they need quickly and easily.
............
The real intuitive element to search is delivered by creating a regional taxonomy, or thesaurus, to supplement the terms of the official category list and ensure that the search function can translate the language of citizens (for instance, "rubbish") to match government documents ("waste disposal"). Semaphore's taxonomy management tool will be used by dorsetforyou.com to underpin its search, also enabling the function to understand misspellings, slang and suggest synonyms.
His weekly posting is always worth a quick scan, and this time any blog writer should spend a bit more time than that with Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox:
Hey, someone else other than myself is pointing out the existence of the voluntary sector in connection with public information!
From Kable.net:
More flexible arrangements for the reuse of public sector information are advocated in a new study
The report, published by the Common Information Environment (CIE) on 11 October 2005, says there are many advantages to using the Creative Commons framework and that it could be used to make a lot of information held by public sector bodies more widely available.
Creative Commons provides more flexible arrangement for the reuse of information than the blanket imposition of copyright. It also provides details of what can and cannot be done in clear language.
Its advocates say it would make it easier for charities and non-profit groups to add value to public sector information downloaded from websites.
Interesting to read on E-Government Bulletin about Government Connects, the follow-on from recent local e-government projects. While what I'd read before had indicated that this was mainly about providing a common way of recognising citizens aka the general public as service users, it appears to be aiming to create a much wider set of tools, including:
"GC Accounts Framework, which will provide data and message standards to maximise the value of information resources across the public sector. A technological solution alone will not provide the right platform for us to transform service delivery: we must work towards a common set of rules that define the environment for organisations to accept and participate in information sharing."
Also see: Government Connect: Government Connect is also a programme, which will introduce into the local authority community a package of electronic tools, standards, and guidance.
The newly launched Open Source Academy website, set up with government funding, says that:
"The audiences for this site are:
* Local authority executives, staff and advisors
* NGO's and Charities working with local authorities
* System suppliers to local authorities
Who:
* don't use Open Source but want to know more about it
* use Open source and are willing to share their experience
* wish to be an active participant in the Open Source commons projects"
Maybe I'll start tracking news coverage of 'ChangeUp' related development around the country. What's happening does appear to be extremely varied.
Extract from Hexham Courant:
PLANS are afoot for a radical overhaul of Tynedale’s voluntary and community organisations.
With a £50 million grants shortfall looming in the North-East due to changes in Lottery and European funding, the voluntary sector has to pull in its belt.
On top of that, the Government wants to see a tighter, more efficient network nationwide.
Now a mapping exercise has been launched to establish just what it is that each of Tynedale’s 365 such organisations do.
This is an American financial story, but how well technology companies dealing exclusively with non-profits are doing in the markets may be of more than passing interest in terms of what eventually happens this side of the pond.
Intro to news item on BusinessWeek online:
Charity Isn't Paying at Kintera
Calamities are prompting a deluge of generosity, but you wouldn't know it from the donation processor's languishing stock
Good to see a new initiative which will "provide candid Consumer-Reports-style reviews and articles about software of interest to nonprofits". You can tell its American, so it won't be hugely relevant to the UK scene but it would be good if the limited information we provide on VolResource could be taken that step further. Anyone want to see if this can be translated across the Atlantic?
This year's Computing magazine Awards shortlist for Voluntary Sector Project of the Year includes People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA), GAP Activity Projects, Comic Relief Pla, MapAction and Teach First.
For the second time in 3 weeks, Third Sector magazine has failed to arrive at VolResource towers. While I suspect the mail service to be at fault, at one end or the other, especially as a couple of other weekly magazines are seemingly taking it in turns to disappear in the post, I do sometimes wonder. Is VolResource email newsletter taking away readership from them, or adding to it by mentioning articles fairly regularly?
Anyone else experiencing delivery issues?
Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen publishes his annual Top Ten Web Design Mistakes for this year. His Summary: The oldies continue to be goodies -- or rather, baddies -- in the list of design stupidities that irked users the most in 2005.
This time round he asked for Alertbox newsletter reader views. While I didn't submit mine, I certainly agree with 'bad fonts' or text legibility problems as the top by a mile. This appears to be actually getting worse with voluntary sector sites, with low contrast text increasingly appearing after revamps, such as the recent NCVO one. I have my browser (Firefox) set to override small text sizes (leading to some interesting layouts) but it is pretty impossible to anticipate stupid colour combinations.
Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005 (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
The second quarter of this year saw a significant drop in the number of requests made to the Government under the Freedom of Information Act, with 8,400 requests between April and June. This is a drop of 38% compared to the first quarter of the year, when the new law came in fully.
The Home Office and HM Treasury were the worst performing departments, responding to 44% and 46% of requests respectively within the required 20 day period.
Read more at:
English FoI requests down; Scotland launches "mini review" | eGov monitor
The voluntary sector is settling for leftovers, says Usman Khan, chair of the social care charity Turning Point, in a Guardian opinion piece.
Fundamental changes in how public services are to be delivered are taking place "without a meaningful contribution from the third sector", he says. "There seems to be very few of the necessary conversations happening between the sector's leadership, the government and the regulators. In fact, while key decisions are being made, the sector is busy arguing over what to call itself, with voluntary, not-for-profit and charity just three of a long list of terms up for debate."
More at this link:
SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Voluntary sector | Doing a disservice.
ebay, the electronic boot sale (oops I bet they don't like being called that) has this week launched an eBay for Charity service, allowing charities to list items donated by the public on the website. Others selling items can also donate part of the proceedings, and eBay will, I think I read, then donate part of its commission too.
Not being an eBay type person myself, I'll leave you to find out more details!