A new web-based publishing, conference management, communication and membership management system for ASL.

Why

Over the last few years our society and conferences have grown significantly in membership. We have kept up with our growing society through developing our website for publishing and disseminating information, using the web to organise our conferences, using email lists for discussions and, more recently, dissemination of our newsletter and adopting a web-based membership database. It is now time to integrate these activities into one system to simplify the management of the society for the volunteers that so generously provide their time for managing our website, discussion lists, conferences, newsletters and membership administration.

How have we gone about doing this

Over the last few months a group consisting of the president (Sabine Schreiber), treasurer (Margaret Hart), web administrator (Heather Shearer) and a representative of the current conference organising committee (John Gooderham) have examined options for a new management system for ASL. This involved consultation with computer specialists, a search for existing suitable products, discussion with other societies and an evaluation of a proposal put to us by The Regional Institute. We finally recommended to the full executive that we accept the proposal by the Regional Institute and the executive approved this. The Regional Institute Limited [www.regional.org.au] is an independent, not-for-profit company based in NSW, that provides web publishing solutions for academic and professional associations, not-for-profit groups and educational and research institutions who typically have a membership or subscriber base, publish large amounts of information and host national and international conferences. TRI already works with AMSA and ASFB.

Utility of what is being implemented

1. Improving membership management and administration.

  • Online registration and password protected login
  • Members will be able to login and manage their own details, create a CV style profile, upload conference abstracts and take part in discussion forums.
  • Website administrator can set up different user groups and set permissions for these groups, eg, Executive, and then send bulk emails to various groups in each State.
  • The online database can be downloaded in csv format and saved in Excel.
  • There is an automatically generated online payment form with ability to enter credit card numbers in a secure environment.
  • We can search and check member status.
  • Members can be surveyed and results downloaded into a database.

2. Adding value to ASL conference organization.

  • Registered members and conference authors can upload abstracts through the website.
  • Abstracts can be reviewed and edited online.
  • Abstracts can be approved for publishing.
  • An assessment and approvals mechanism can be set up for judging student awards.
  • Abstracts are archived by the society.

3. Simplifying web content editing and newsletter publishing.

  • System for uploading abstracts can be used for any articles and/or documents
  • The website can be edited online in various ways or using an HTML editor (eg, Dreamweaver).
  • Documents can be uploaded for review by members (password protected), changes tracked and documents finalised.

4. Maintaining and tracking intellectual capital for the society.

  • Intranet for society reference documents, minutes and other operational information, which can easily be made accessible to each new Executive.
  • Archiving of abstracts and other documents as Word and HTML documents.