http://citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/blogs/webmaster Musings and updates from the Citizenship Foundation's website manager. Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:58:57 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en We have made some changes to our website front page, which we hope will make it even more relevant to our many visitors. We want the front page of our website to demonstrate our current work more effectively and to make it easier for you to find things of interest to ... http://citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/blogs/webmaster/2011/03/04/our-front-page-has-changed/ I was recently asked if I would share the guidelines that I produced to support our staff in communicating online. They cover blogging and social media, law and writing and editing content. They are not policies as such; and please bear in mind they were written for a specific internal audience. But ... http://citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/blogs/webmaster/2011/01/25/online-communications-guides/ The government's Localism Bill was published yesterday, as was a guidance document. The latter confirms that power will be devolved to the community and that data will be made public for the scrutiny of that power. "The Big Society is what happens whenever people work together for the common good. It is about ... http://citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/blogs/webmaster/2010/12/14/with-the-power-to-supply-public-services-comes-greater-public-scrutiny-of-the-voluntary-sector-organisations/ At the end of October I went to a conference in Birmingham about 'delivering public services for less', which looked to digital technology for the answer to delivering more efficient public services for less money. It seems to me, though, that it's a lot more complicated ... http://citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/blogs/webmaster/2010/12/03/guess-what-digital-tools-are-not-a-panacea-for-inefficient-public-services/ I've just been alerted to the Voluntary Sector Datastore, launched recently by NCVO to encourage the voluntary sector to match government in its release of data to the public. NCVO, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, has put its 'toe in the water' by publishing some of its data to the ... http://citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/blogs/webmaster/2010/12/02/charities-encouraged-to-release-data/ We asked visitors to our website to tell us how easy they found it to contact us. The number of responses was low and, sadly, many of them were puerile and unrelated to the survey. However, a number of comments were interesting and enlightening, and will prove invaluable feedback; and, happily, ... http://citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/blogs/webmaster/2010/12/02/how-easy-is-it-to-contact-us-survey-result/ Internet Explorer users have been experiencing layout problems with our website. We believe this is just due to a couple of css-related issues we overlooked yesterday, and hope to have it fixed within the hour. Update This is now fixed. http://citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/blogs/webmaster/2010/11/18/internet-explorer-issues-being-addressed/ I have, at last, been able to make some long overdue tweaks to our website. Most are stylesheet changes, tackling consistency of layout and readability of text. It's been a lot of work that most people probably won't notice, and there are still bits to iron out, but it is a ... http://citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/blogs/webmaster/2010/11/17/a-tidier-website-with-better-information-about-us/ Have you tried contacting us in the past? If so, was it a good experience? We're conducting a short survey into how accessible we are as an organisation: can you find contact details easily, do we respond in a reasonable time, is our response adequate, et cetera. We should be very grateful ... http://citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/blogs/webmaster/2010/11/01/how-easy-is-it-to-contact-the-citizenship-foundation/ So far I have not been very good at demonstrating our work visually. To begin redressing this I have had a go at visualising some of the results from last year's political engagement research. In one part of our survey, school students in the 11-19 age range were asked which topics ... http://citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/blogs/webmaster/2010/09/02/school-student-learning-preferences-a-visualisation/