Australian Antarctic Division and IDEAS! – Strategic Partnership Case Study

"The relationship is typified by a sense of professionalism, understanding and empathy towards the attainment of the AAD's online ambitions. This has become a true strategic partnership."

The Australian Antarctic Division, Lead Agency for the ‘International Antarctic Treaty’ has engaged IDEAS! as it’s online services strategic partner for the next three years.
Our first project on engagement was the redevelopment of the Internet and Intranet sites interfaces and implementation of our NetEnablev5 for Windows Content Management System (CMS) to establish a quality controlled web publishing environment. An environment that distributed content ownership throughout the Organisation and provided capability such as browsers based editing, auto review dates, image management, templates management, workflow, etc. and addressed government standards such as metadata and archiving.

The Project Challenge:
The existing AAD sites were an example of academic/research based sites that started utilising web technology very early, and then grew organically, resulting in an amazingly content rich sites. The content is technical and often very detailed in nature. The inclusion of detailed imagery, mapping and related spatial information resulted in multiple, very large content storage facilities. The complexity of the information storage and the resulting site interfaces required AAD to undertake a full Internet and Intranet review and redevelopment.
The organizational trade off for being an early adopter and so progressive in moving content online, was the lack of developed quality assurance processes; their website contained masses of out of date or inappropriate content due to no content archiving or expiry mechanisms. In addition, content grew amorphously in independent silos, with no consideration for a user centric perspective of providing targeted content to user information needs. Most significantly, little time had been spent to provide effective navigation and design for either their Internet or intranet site, resulting in a confused and alienating user experience.

The Solution:
IDEAS! conducted details interviews, analysis and information audit workshops to promote and develop a user centric design, navigation model and interactive experience for both the external and internal audiences.
AAD Internet
By including representatives from each business area of the organisation, this process provides a foundation for understanding and change management, which is essential as implementation of the solution required cultural shifts within the Organisation to enable the most effective implementation of web technologies.


AAD Internet

The creative design process focused on establishing visual support for both an external and internal audience and was driven by their core mission statement, ‘Antarctica: Valued, Protected, Understood.’ The designs were required to assist in the definition of the AAD brand, creating a sense of wonderer and personal ownership.
With the merger of the revised site navigation and the creative designs, the technical development and implementation of the CMS was undertaken. The deployment has resulted in AAD internally hosting the solution and leveraging our support services through their SafetyNet Agreement.
Implementation services also included content migration services and ‘Content Author Training’ programs.

The Ongoing Relationship:
The redesign of the Internet and intranet sites, and the implementation of NetEnablev5 for Windows CMS is the first major achievement of the strategic partnership.


AAD Intranet
The following additional projects have been completed or initiated:

• Corporate Governance Toolbox: Development of an interactive online module that introduces internal staff to governance requirements and the tools necessary to comply. The project commenced with a pilot development of the ‘People Management Framework’ that has been completed. Additional frameworks such as ‘Knowledge Management’ will be implemented when available.
• Knowledge Management Strategy: Research and development of a Knowledge Management Strategy to enable the transition of the organisational to a knowledge sharing culture. The Strategy enables the implementation of supporting knowledge management frameworks.
• Image Antarctic: Consulting and research services to develop a business plan for the commercialization of their Image Archive. The business opportunity was identified during the Site Redevelopment project and was initiated to assist the AAD in evaluating the potential for commercialization and development of the required business and implementation plans. The recommendations report and business plan have been completed and presented to the AAD Executive for consideration.
• eLearning: IDEAS! has undertaken a pilot project that will assess the requirements and strategic direction of eLearning with the AAD. The project focuses on the development of an online learning module for the required certification of the AAD Environmental Management System. The module will educate and assess all staff within the AAD against the specified EMS guidelines. The project is scheduled for implementation end June 2002.
• Online Forms Strategy: As part of the site redevelopment project, available online forms was identified as a major information and service gap. A project has been initiated to analyse all existing forms processing and develop a strategic solution and implementation plan to support the transition to online forms processing.

The AAD and IDEAS! partnership continues to provide both organisations with a platform from which to creatively and functionally enhance the positioning, processes and communication supporting the AAD, with the utilisation of online technologies.