Dear Bart and Councilors:

I am not sure that you received the ALAC Liaison report sent for distribution prior to the last (scheduled) Council meeting (I did not receive my copy). I will include a copy below.

The report included a reference, and link, to the new improved ALAC website. It is worth looking at for its navigation and improved layout.

Best regards, Ron Sherwood.

----------------copy of ALAC Liaison Report-----------------

----- Original Message -----

From: vitech-ron

To: Gabriella Schittek

Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 9:58 PM

Subject: ALAC Liaison Report

Dear Gabi:

Please forward this report as appropriate.

Many thanks, Ron

Dear Councilors:

The latest ALAC information is usually available to me at the monthly ALAC Council meeting. Unfortunately this month's meeting takes place on Tuesday November 24th just three hours after the ccNSO Council meeting. With my limited prescient powers, I am restricted to pre-meeting info:

1) The new, and greatly improved, ALAC website has been launched:

[http://www.atlarge.icann.org]

Among many of the navigational improvements you will notice are:

* Microsites for each RALO, working groups, ALAC, and more;
* The various wiki-based environments are now integrated into the
menuing system, so you can reach all parts of the At-Large online tools
from the one interface at atlarge.icann.org.

And much more.

This is not the end to the improvements to the online resources of the
community - just an important foundation. Some of the other efforts underway:

* Migration of much of the static wiki-based content to the main website.
* Development of forum topic blocks, news displays, and calendar
displays which are context-sensitive to the microsite you are viewing.
For example, if you are on a RALO microsite, soon you will see under
'Forum topics' only those topics which relate to that RALO.
* More information for new community members to explain the structure
and processes of At-Large - including an organigram.
* Improvements to the searchability and non-Latin script support for
At-Large mailing lists' archives

Finally - if you cannot find what you are looking for in the new menu,
the old menu is still available - just choose 'Home' on the upper-right,
and you'll find the old menu below the Summit icon.

2) ALAC ALS applications status and calendar can be found [HERE]

3) At-Large Initial Responses to Issues Raised By GNSO-STI [see attached .PDF file].

4) At Seoul during a discussion about an ALAC / ccNSO joint outreach program, the possibility was discussed of a survey asking ccTLDs if they are currently involved in any outreach project in general that involves public education about ICANN and ccTLDs, and any relationship with an accredited ALS in particular.

a) Is there an objection by Council to the ALAC / ccNSO joint outreach WG devising a simple survey about outreach?

b) Is there an imminent survey of any kind anticipated, that would be suitable for two or three additional questions related to an outreach project?

Best regards

Ron Sherwood, ccNSO / ALAC Liaison

----- Original Message -----

From: Bart Boswinkel

To: ccNSO Council

Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 4:23 AM

Subject: [ccnso-council] Review and improvement of the ccNSO website

Dear all,
One of the topics we as staff wanted to inform on you under AOB at the Council was improvements to the ccNSO website.

Over the last month, after the Seoul meeting, we as ccNSO staff with the help of other ICANN staff, have identified the following issues regarding the ccNSO website:

With increase of activity of the ccNSO and ccTLD community, the use of the ccNSO website as mechanism to share information and inform community will increase.
Updating and maintenance of the ccNSO website is almost increasing exponentially with increased postings on the website. This is due to increased complexity (new activities) and current static nature of the website.
Decreasing overview of content due to increase complexity and volume of content. Due to increased complexity, the value of the current navigation mechanism and heuristics to retrieve information is decreasing rapidly, i.e. It becomes more difficult for users to retrieve information.
The design of the current website was based and followed the design of the ICANN home page as it was two and half years ago.
The aesthetics are not inviting. Navigation is not self-explanatory anymore due to increased complexity and categories of information

To address (some) of the issues identified, we are starting a process to improve the web-sti.

The goal is to:
1. To create a website that is most helpful to users with a strong interest in the ccNSO;

2. Improve navigation, maintainability and sustainability of the website to cope with the increasing complexity and volume of content.

The start of the process will be to review the usability and navigation of the current web-site with the user community and identify the changes the user community wants, if any. As user community we have identified the following groups:
CcNSO Councillors:
CcNSO Active members:
Working Group members:
CcNSO “Quiet” members:
CcTLD Non-members:
Regional Organisations:
Members of the ICANN staff.

In the next week two or three individuals from each of these groups will be approached for interviews ( taking approximately 30 minutes). The interviews are intended to take place some time in December, early January, depending on availability.
The consolidated results will be presented to the group, and based on the validated consolidated input, we will start the process of re-designing, if needed.
If you have any questions or comments please contact either Gabi, Kristina or me,
Kind regards,
Bart