denotes premium content | May 26 2012 
Feature
posted 31 Aug 2004 in Volume 1 Issue 3
Safety net
The internet is sprawling ever outwards, capturing the attention and use of every possible demographic. Although benign and usually under our control, it can be a threat – especially to children who are often unknowing targets of paedophiles. Here, Mark Minicucci and Christine Loftus of the NetSmartz Workshop explain how a content-management system helped keep the system organised and the kids safe.
Each year more and more children of all ages go online to study, have fun, and communicate with the world at large. The internet is becoming an even more integral part of our children’s lives, but most are ill-equipped to protect themselves online.
According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) report, Online Victimization: A Report on the Nation’s Youth, in 1999 approximately one in five young people who use the internet regularly received an unwanted sexual solicitation or approach. One in four encountered unwanted pornography. With that in mind, more needs to be done to educate the nation’s children about the risks online.
The NetSmartz Workshop was created to meet that growing need in an unprecedented way. The workshop is an interactive, educational safety resource from the NCMEC, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (B&GCA) for children aged five to 17, parents, guardians, educators and law enforcement. It uses age-appropriate, 3-D activities to teach children how to stay safer on the internet.
The goal of the workshop is to extend the safety awareness of children to prevent victimisation and increase self-confidence whenever they go online. These goals include how to:
- Enhance the ability of children to recognise dangers on the internet;
- Enhance the ability of children to understand people they first ‘meet’ on the internet should never be considered their friend;
- Encourage children to report victimisation to a trusted adult;
- Support and enhance community education efforts;
- Increase communication between adults and children about online safety.
What makes the workshop unique is its use of the latest web-based solutions and its availability to the public at no cost. Boys & Girls Clubs leaders and children played vital roles in the appearance of the program content and characters, ensuring the messages were on target and characters appealed to the respective age groups.
The workshop activities, designed for ages five to seven, eight to 12 and 13 and older, combine the newest technologies available and the most current information to create high-impact educational activities that are well received by even the most tech-savvy kids of any age group.
What NetSmartz does
There are three sections at the NetSmartz website – ‘Kids’, ‘teens’, and ‘parents and educators’. Kids aged five to 12 can access the kids section to play games and activities while learning internet safety from the NetSmartz characters. There are six vignettes on the ‘Teens’ section for teens to learn from other teens’ experiences with online dangers. The ‘Parents and educators’ section is a place where either group can access materials to help them teach their children or students online safety skills.
‘Ready, Set, Internet!’ (RSI) shows are a production of the workshop designed to teach children ages six to ten how to be safer when using the internet. The stars of the RSI shows are 3-D animated characters named Nettie, Webster and Clicky.
Organisational structure
The employees at NetSmartz are broken up into teams. A team leader is responsible for tracking each team member and making sure time is spent efficiently and effectively. Employees are also broken up into project teams. This means a team leader may have one of its members on one project team and another member on another project team. Both the project leader and the team leader will then want the ability to track progress.
Content-management solution
As NetSmartz began to grow, project and content management became a concern. More projects meant more employees. More employees required the need for a more streamlined process of managing products and documents as well as tracking employee tasks. When looking for a content management solution, our strategy was to find a solution that allowed:
- A way to track project status through multiple steps;
- The ability to customise interface for users;
- A content library for document version control;
- A place to announce department news and share research;
- The ability to monitor website and site statistics.
Within one week, the workshop had solutions from Computer Associates’ CleverPath portal and iMarkup Solutions running and integrated. The integration was so easy and seamless that the workshop was productive from the onset. With little training, we were able to get our employees to add personal workplaces. Team leaders then created more than 20 iMarkup workflows with one solution while running through the CleverPath portal. Now we can use the markups, version control, and iMarkup workflow features for all of the development work at the workshop. iMarkup and CleverPath combined for an end-to-end document and content management personalised solution. In addition, the traffic on our website can be monitored using a web server-management system integrated into the portal. All of this work can be done without ever leaving the portal environment. The NetSmartz Workshop uses these tools as our central form of communication and information exchange to aid in our mission of teaching internet safety to adults and children of all ages.
The NetSmartz portal
The portal allows users to create different work areas called workplaces. Here we house multiple sources of information in one common area. Each employee’s workplaces are customisable; employees can choose to add portlets from Microsoft Office, including calendar, tasks, or e-mail inbox as well as task lists and workflows. This allows for one central workplace where employees can stay updated on all of their tasks, workflow requirements and meetings. Employees can even add personal workplaces such as news, sports or finance sites for personal use. The ability to add a web statistics workplace gives the web media specialist the ability to track the daily progress of our website. It also allows us to monitor the most popular areas of the site and monitor the number of hits, broken links and average hits. This is important when updating and maintaining site content. The workflows and content library are also incorporated into the employee’s workstations (see figure 1).
The homepage is completely customisable as well. We are given the option to write our own HTML on both the homepage menu and main splash page. The splash page gave us a place for sharing company news, announcements and our shared calendar. This was handy for allowing employees to enter specific dates they may be out of office and lets all employees know when specific conferences or meetings are scheduled. The announcements page lists daily events, such as when certain employees will be late or leaving early, and what visitors are coming into the office (see figure 2).
The content library
The content library provides the NetSmartz Workshop with an easy way to access company information and is probably one of the most integral parts of the NetSmartz portal. This is a good way to include research, templates, tutorials, and important links that all staff would use. All information stored in the portal is easily searchable and accessible. More importantly, the portal includes a very powerful search engine that allows a user to search for any document contained within it. This includes websites, media, discussions, surveys, Microsoft documents and PDFs. The search engine allows users to search on phrases, keywords, date ranges and owners. Another great perk is the ability to add metadata to documents. This is important for NetSmartz because it allows artists to add key information to rich media such as PSDs, WMVs, and TIFS allowing users to search on these documents. Permissions granted by the portal administrator allow different users and workgroups to view, modify and write specific information to files in the library (see figure 3).
Document management, version control and workflows
As stated previously, content and project management became a growing concern for NetSmartz. The need to streamline business processes and organise media and documents was the number one priority for NetSmartz. To achieve this, NetSmartz chose a vendor whose solution could manage the entire lifecycle of content and the process of publishing content into the portal. Furthermore, that solution is completely integrated into the portal. All administration, permissions, SSO and user definition is integral with portal administration. This allows NetSmartz one central location to manage and access organisational documents, and manage team projects.
The ability to create workflows allows us to streamline our review and approval process, which was previously a major obstacle. For example, the NetSmartz review committee is made up of individuals from 3 different organisations: NCMEC, B&GCA and NetSmartz. Previously, a document would be sent via e-mail to different individuals. This resulted in multiple copies of the same document with comments from different individuals, but no way of tracking progress. With our workflow solution, one central document is passed from one person to the next and comments and modifications are saved as different versions which are archived and very easy to access. Moreover, the workflow allows the project manager to see who is currently modifying the document and where the document is in the workflow (see figure 4).
Sample workflow
Project Lifecycle
The first step of developing an effective workflow is pre-planning. You must decide what needs to be done and who will be tasked to the project. At NetSmartz, team leaders are responsible for keeping track of the members of their team. This means team leaders as well as project leaders should be able to see how their team members’ resources are being allocated.
Once members are assigned to a team and given a task, the project leader draws up the problem, goal and solution for the current project and outlines the steps that will be needed in order to complete it. These steps are then used to create workflows. The following is an example of how workflows were created for the RSI show (see figure 5).
Goal: to produce an RSI show for distribution on the web on time and within budget. Since the shows will be produced on a monthly basis, production schedules are strict and deadlines are tight.
Problem: there are multiple employees involved and each has a unique task to contribute to the project.
Solution: to use the workflow system to assign tasks and notify employees of their role in the project; create specific and detailed steps to guide employees through the project process; run document workflows to track edits, changes and progress of project; and publish the final product to the portal library.
Workflow 1: Create Script – Pre-Production
Project Team
Christine: Editor
Sarah: B&GCA review committee member
Edward: NCMEC review committee member
Shauri: Writer
Mike: Writer
1. Basic story concepts are written:
Tasked to Shauri and Mike
This is a creation step in the workflow. The writers are assigned to write concepts – they are notified with an e-mail explaining they have a creation task in the workflow. Optional instructions are included in the e-mail.
2. Concepts are sent to B&GCA and NCMEC for approval: Tasked to Sarah and Edward
Once the creation step is finished, team members from B&GCA and NCMEC are notified to review and approve the concepts. This is called an approve step. The creator of the workflow can specify which percentage of the approval team needs to approve in order to proceed with the next step. For example, if there are five people tasked for the review step and only four are needed to approve, 80 per cent approval can be specified as what is needed to complete this step. If the step isn’t approved it goes back to step one for the writers to make changes. After writers make the changes it goes back to the approve step again.
This process will continue until the document is approved.
3. Writers begin work on script: Tasked to Shauri and Mike
This is another creation step. Writers create rough drafts of scripts.
4. Draft is sent to editor for review:
Tasked to Christine
The editor is notified the script is completed. The editor adds comments using virtual post-its, highlighter pens and other tools to the document.
5. Document sent to B&GCA and NCMEC for review: Tasked to Sarah and Edward
The comments made by the editor can be viewed by the other team members of the B&GCA and NCMEC review committee. They can also add their comments in the same fashion individually.
6. Editor finalises script based on feedback from B&GCA and NCMEC: Tasked to Christine
When the editor is notified the review committee is finished with comments she can view each comment individually by selecting the name of the team member from a drop-down list. At that point, all comments made by the member chosen are visible and the others are temporarily removed from the document. The editor then makes final changes to the document.
Because the NetSmartz Workshop is part of a partnership between NCMEC and B&GCA, during pre-production all text must be finalised by both organisations. The changes both organisations request are incorporated into the draft to finalise it. Once the text is finalised, production can begin.
7. Publish to portal: automated task
The final step of the workflow is a portal action step. This step automatically publishes the document from the content library to the portal library.
Workflow 2: Create Media – Production
Project Team
Mike: Voice Talent
Jiyoung: 3-D Artist
Chris: 2-D Artist
Mark: Media Specialist
Shauri: Writer
Mike: Writer
Once the document is created and the team is ready to begin production, the project team leader begins the next workflow. Each of the next steps happen simultaneously as each member of the production team begins work on creating the show.
1. Create storyboard: Tasked to Shauri, Mike, Jiyoung, Chris and Mark
This is a create step. The writers and artists begin work on the storyboard that includes rough sketches of each shot in the show. The writers and artists add input on the types of camera shots that will be used, sets needed, and animations and characters that will need to be created for the show. This step includes many sub-steps that allow the storyboard to go through a review and collaboration process. Once the storyboard is finished, the project manager creates a more detailed task list that will be used throughout the duration of the workflow.
2. Record character audio: Tasked to Mike
Another create step in the workflow process. The voice talent goes into the studio to record text from the script. This step is also broken into sub-steps that inform the team member to record, edit and finalise each piece of audio. This involves going through each individual audio file and picking out the best take as well as cleaning up scratches, pops and ticks that occur in the recording process.
3. Animation: Tasked to Jiyoung and Chris
2-D and 3-D artists incorporate storyboard and audio to create animation for the show. This is also broken up into sub-steps so the artist creates rough animations for team members to review. Once these animations pass the review process, they pave the way for the final animation.
4. Composition: Tasked to Mark
This is another create step that occurs while both the audio and animation are being created. Composition consists of bringing all of the 2-D and 3-D animation and audio into one single file where it is compiled into the final product. While the artists are producing, rough composites called animatics are made. These allow team members to see how the project is coming along and to make comments.
5. Export: Tasked to Mark
Once the animation is finished, the final composition is exported for both DVD format and the web. The web versions are tested thoroughly to ensure a broad variety of connection speeds can view the final video. The DVD version is tested to make sure it can be played on a variety of DVD players.
6. Publish
The portal action step is used again to publish the final ISO (DVD image) and WMV (Windows media video file) to the portal for archive.
Summary
The final product is eventually burned to DVD, packaged and prepared for distribution and the WMV’s are published to the web. These procedures also have shorter, less intensive workflows. Almost every process involved at NetSmartz can be integrated with the portal and workflow solutions. The ability for us to streamline our processes and organise both manpower and organisational content has been a great asset to our organisation. The two vendor solutions have made it possible for us to produce the RSI show for the web. It’s also been a valuable part of making our deadlines with other major projects at the NetSmartz Workshop.
