Research and Education Non-Profit Seeking Digital Media Firm

The Concord Consortium, a nonprofit research and development organization located in Concord, MA, and Emeryville, CA, dedicated to transforming education through technology has issued a digital RFP. The organization builds innovative educational software and materials, research their effectiveness, and share the products and findings worldwide. They seek a redesign of the current Concord Consortium (CC) website user experience, including navigation, look and feel, content, and information architecture recommendations. The scope of this project is to overhaul the CC website, including integrating numerous active project sites; creating a complementary design for the Learn Portal (learn.concord.org), which will replace/merge with the current STEM Resource Finder (concord.org/stem-resources); and other CC microsites (e.g., mw.concord.org/modeler/ and energy.concord.org) that showcase a particular theme/project/product; and a design framework so that new project sites can be developed as needed.

Goals:

1. Provide brand awareness.

• Provide a general understanding of the organization’s goals and brand.
• Provide segmentation of brand information for different incoming user groups.
• Show samples of curriculum and activities.
• Highlight staff and their expertise/publications/etc.

2. Improve the success for various audiences to quickly find the information they are searching for and to see recommendations for related materials.

• Educators should be able to easily find relevant resources for their subject matter, grade level or for specific projects.
• Researchers and funders/reviewers should be apprized of new materials and research.
• The press and digital journalists/bloggers should learn about new projects, initiatives, curriculum materials, white papers, and other content.

3. Increase the use of the research, activities, and curriculum materials in the classroom and in the world of educational technology at large.

4. Share research findings and publications, and increase the usage of the educational materials in schools and classrooms across the country.

• Demonstrate through compelling content and easy navigation, plus relevant outreach mechanisms that Concord Consortium is the thought leader in the educational technology arena and in applying cutting-edge technology solutions to classroom instructional problems.

5. Establish and maintain trust.

• Provide content and functionality on the website so that funders, potential clients, educators, teachers, and parents trust the Concord Consortium and its products and feel inspired to continue funding and supporting the organization.

6. Support.

• Provide relevant technical specifications and software updates and troubleshooting assistance to support customers and get new customers up and running with the software quickly.
• The website should provide essential information in a standardized way so that each resource is easy to adopt.

7. Measure success. Comprehensive metrics and analytics planning and execution are critical. Segmenting audiences and tracking multiple goals and goal conversions, including resource use, white paper downloads, requests for more information are essential to continually improve the website and service offerings.
Audiences

Primary Audiences:

• Curriculum developers
• Teachers
• Reviewers/funders
• Researchers
• Publishers and education companies
• Potential collaborators
• Secondary Audiences
• Journalists
• Parents and students
• Tech support/School IT staff
• Job seekers

Proposals are due by February 29, 2016 to:

Cynthia McIntyre
The Concord Consortium
25 Love Lane
Concord, MA 01742
cmcintyre@concord.org