Oakton Community College Website Redesign(RFP#17)

Oakton Community College Website Redesign(RFP#17)

OaktonCommunity College

Community College District 535

Purchasing Department, Room 1540, 1600 E. Golf Road, Des Plaines, IL60016

847-635-1632

Proposal #17

Issue Date: April 10, 2008

Proposals will be received in the Purchasing Department at the above address until

11:00 am on Thursday, May 15, 2008

Proposals will be publicly opened at this time. Late proposals will not be accepted.

Request for Proposal for Website Redesign Services

OaktonCommunity College invites your company to submit a proposal response for Website Redesign Services.

You are also invited (but not required) to attend an informational pre-proposal meeting scheduled for 11:00 am on Friday, April 18, 2008 in room 1603 at the College’s Des Plaines campus at 1600 E. Golf Rd., in Des Plaines, IL. Questions raised will be answered at the meeting and will also be included in a written addendum that will be e-mailed to all vendors shortly after the meeting. Please send an e-mail to if you plan to attend this meeting.

This proposal will not be awarded based on price alone. The College’s proposal review team will carefully evaluate all aspects of each proposal response in an effort to determine which proposal will best meet our desired outcome and is in the College’s best overall interests. Please be sure your response includes all information requested in the proposal and any subsequent addendums. Please send 3 copies of your proposal response.

All questions regarding this proposal must be asked by 4:00 pm on Monday, April 28, 2008. All questions must be e-mailed to Doreen Schwartz, Director of Business Services, at and Julia Gray, Manager of Web and RHC Technology Services, at A second addendum will be e-mailed (if necessary) to answer these questions.

Please see the attached sheets for complete proposal specifications.

______

Oakton Community College District 535 is exempt from all Federal, State and Municipal Taxes.

I have examined the specifications and instructions included herein and agree, provided I am awarded a contract within 60 days of the bid due date, to provide the specified items for the sum shown in accordance with the terms stated herein. All deviations from the specifications and terms are in writing and attached hereto.

Company Name: ______Date: ______

Address:______City/St/Zip: ______

Name: ______Title: ______

Phone #: ______Fax #: ______

Signature: ______E-mail: ______

Instructions to Vendors

1. / Bid Forms: / Proposals should be submitted on the form provided. Envelopes marked “Sealed Proposal For…” Proposals cannot be accepted via fax machines.
2. / Specifications: / Generally, where specifications indicate a particular brand or manufacturer’s catalog number, it shall be understood to mean that or equal, unless “no substitutes” is specified. When offering alternates, they must be identified by brand name, catalog number and manufacturer’s literature must be included.
3. / Samples: / Vendors will be required to furnish no charge samples upon request.
4. / F.O.B. Point: / All prices must be quoted F.O.B. destination. Shipments shall become property of OaktonCommunity College after delivery and acceptance.
5. / Delivery Points: / Deliveries will be made to the various buildings within the district, as indicated.
6. / Delivery Schedule: / Bids must specify delivery time. Unrealistically long delivery times may cause proposals to be rejected. Order may be canceled without obligation if delivery requirements are not met.
7. / Evaluations: / OaktonCommunity College reserves the right to reject any and all proposals, to waive any technicalities in the proposals, and to award each item to different vendors or all items to a single vendor.
8. / Vendor Selection: / This proposal will not be awarded based on price alone. The College’s proposal review team will carefully evaluate all aspects of each proposal response in an effort to determine which proposal will best meet our desired outcome and is in the College’s best overall interests.
9. / Prices: / Prices, terms and conditions must be firm for acceptance for sixty (60) days from the date of proposal opening unless otherwise agreed to by District #535 and vendor.
10. / Quantities: / Quantities shown may be estimates only and orders may be more or less depending on actual requirements and budget limitations.
11. / Exceptions: / Any exceptions to these terms, conditions or deviations from written specifications must be shown in writing and attached to the proposal form.
12. / Tax Exemptions: / Oakton Community College District #535 is exempt from Federal, State and Municipal taxes. Exemption certificates will be furnished upon request.
13. / Equal Employment Opportunity Clause/
Prevailing Wage: / OaktonCommunity College is an equal opportunity employer, and parties doing business with the College must comply with the Equal Employment Opportunity Clause as required by the Illinois Fair Employment Practices Commission. Not less than the prevailing wage shall be paid for labor on the work to be performed as required by law.
14. / Non-Collusion Clause: / The vendor or agent hereby declares that he, nor any other agent of his business, entered into any collusion or agreement relative to the price to be bid. He further declares that no persons, firms or corporations, have or will receive directly, any rebate, fee, gift, commission, etc., or that any employee or Board of Trustee member of Oakton Community College District #535 has any undisclosed interest in the awarding of this contract.

Background

OaktonCommunity College, located in Des Plaines and Skokie, Illinois, enrolls approximately 46,000 students (10,000 credit, 36,000 non-credit) per semester. Most credit students attend classes at the Des Plaines campus; approximately 26 percent take courses at the Skokie campus while 13 percent prefer online classes. Of the credit students, 59% are traditional (age 17-24).

OaktonCommunity College offers an excellent education to students within its district. Research indicates that students appreciate the College’s convenient locations, competitive cost, comprehensive and available program offerings, flexible scheduling, and student-centered environment. For further information, see: In April 2007, the New York Times cited Oakton among the top ten community colleges in the United States.

OaktonCommunity College recently conducted a self study as part of reaccreditation, and formulated several strategic goals to be met within the next five years. A key objective is to improve Oakton’s Web site and other forms of technology for student, employee, and community use. The Web site also is an important tool in meeting additional strategic goals, specifically “OneCollege: Four Campuses.” More information about Change Matters, the strategic plan for 2008-2012 can be found at:

The state of Illinois recently passed the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act that mandates public institutions meet specific standards for Web and technology accessibility. While at this writing community colleges are exempt from meeting these standards, Oakton wants to comport with the new accessibility standards. Clearly this goal will inform the redesign.

Oakton uses the Banner Student System and has integrated the Luminis portal. Although the redesign project will not include any part of the Luminis portal, dynamic data may need to be incorporated from Banner, DARS, or other College systems.

1. Dates and Timeframes (The College reserves the right to change or alter the times and activities):

Issuance of RFP / April 15, 2008 or sooner
Optional pre-proposal meeting / April 18, 2008, 11 a.m.
Room 1603
Des Plaines Campus
Deadline for vendors’ submission of proposals / May 15, 2008, 11 a.m.
In-depth meetings for select vendors / May 22-June 4, 2008
Approval of contract award by the College’s Board of Trustees / June 24, 2008
Issuance of award to the selected vendor / July 2008
Project Time Frame / July 2008-June 2009

Three signed and sealed copies of proposal should be mailed or delivered to:

OaktonCommunity College

Purchasing Department

RFP#17

1600 E. Golf Road

Des Plaines, Illinois60016

Proposals cannot be submitted via e-mail or fax.

1. Project Information

1)Description of Current and Future Web Site

OaktonCommunity College’s current site has mostly up-to-date content in a difficult to navigate and outdated interface. The site has grown without a clear site structure. The Web Communications Specialist maintains content on the home page and most of the first tier pages, and also edits content on most of the public pages. Various individuals maintain specific department, service, and program sites. This approach can lead to confusion when needing to update site content, and can lead to outdated content when the content is not dynamically generated.

Oakton seeks to implement a Content Management System (CMS) at the time of the Web site redesign and has selected Plone (based on Zope). A CMS will allow individual departments to maintain sections of their Web site and confine users to a uniform Web page template and style sheet. Oakton needs a restructure and redesign to maximize the workflow features in a Web CMS and to give the College site a contemporary and user-friendly look and feel. The College will install and configure Plone, and all designs created as part of this project need to fully utilize the benefits of the chosen web CMS, Plone (Zope).

Oakton’s current Web site includes information for both internal and external constituents. At the present time, the College is attempting to move information for internal constituents only to a Web server accessible through the Luminis (myOakton) portal. Pages that are “internal” will not be part of the Web site redesign project.

2) Web Server Details

1. The College Web site will be based on Plone (Zope)in a Linux environment.
2. The Web server hosts all College department, faculty,and staff Web pages and cannot be brought down without negatively impacting the remainder of the College.
3. The Collegehas generally preferred the following scripting languages: Perl, PHP.

3) Proposed Project Description

Project Objective / Goals

While it is important to provide visitors with a rich and engaging interface that conveys the spirit of the College, we understand that this project must yield much more than just a new "look and feel". The Website has become a vital resource for the entire College community. Weexpect that this project will involve all areas of the institution and will requirereworking content and site architecture, and may require changes to internalpolicies and procedures.Oakton seeks to create aWebsite that can accomplish the following goals:

• Build the brand (promote the institution);
• Attract prospective students, employees, and donors;

• Direct visitors to desired content quickly;
• Meet Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act standards;
• Work in concert with print publications and e-mail campaigns to provide additional information, dynamic content, and functionality;
• Engage visitors of all ages in sustainable relationships with the College;
• Increase Website readability, browsability, and search capabilities.

Project Management

Information Technology and College Advancement share responsibility for this project, with Julia Gray, Manager of Web Services, serving as the project manager. She will work closely with an Interdepartmental Implementation Team consisting of key members of IT (Web Developer and Webmaster); and College Advancement (Executive Director and Web Communications Specialist). In addition, a Web Advisory Committee will be a resource for the Implementation Team. The selected vendor will be asked to meet with the Implementation Team throughout the redesign process, as well as attend two or three meetings the project manager will arrange with the advisory committee. In addition to the technical deliverables, the successful vendor will be active in the process, with final decisions made by the College.

On-going Maintenance

The site will be maintained by employees of the College through the CMS (Plone). If more extensive maintenance work on the finished site is needed, OaktonCommunity College will negotiate with the vendor separately.

4)Oakton Branding

Consistent Look and Feel
Providing consistent layout and navigation across all College Websites is critical, with the understanding that some areas of the College may serve unique audiences, and their Websites must reflect the individual personality of each of those areas. Nonetheless, the design of these pages must remain within the standards established and monitored by the Office of College Advancement. The successful firm will develop variations of the Web templates intended to appeal to disparate audiences. The College will provide photos, logo files, and information on appropriate College logo use and color palettes. While the various implementation team members have an interest in the overall design of the Web site, the graphic design direction rests with the Office of College Advancement.

5)Accessibility Requirements

Accessibility

As a publicly funded higher education institution, the College must provide Web sites that are accessible to everyone. By utilizing principles of universal design, all Website elements must achieve cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility, W3C and WAI compliance, and ADA 508 compliance while strictly adhering to Web standards (XHTML Strict, CSS-1, CSS-2, Javascript, XML, etc.). Webpages that require Javascript, CSS or other client-side technologies must degrade gracefully with minimal loss of functionality. Web pages should use the most recent Unicode Standard to support the display of content in diverse languages. Pages should also be downloaded easily onto mobile devices. The tools that are used to evaluate accessibility need to be clearly indicated throughout the process and must meet the new standards set by the State of Illinois.

1. Intended Scope of Work to be Performed by Selected Vendor

The scope of the work will include redesigning the College’shome page; Tier I pages (portal pages off the home page); Tier II pages including academic department pages (which may be variations of the same template), andother department pages; and generic templates for further site expansion and/or general use. Working with the design firm, content on these pages will be migrated or created by Oakton.

The exact number of pages is difficult to ascertain; many of these pages should be designed via a template appropriate for all related pages. The estimated number of active pages is 9000, with roughly 70 to 130 (including academic department pages) requiring different design needs.

Redesign Home Page

The College's home page reflects the institution's image and overall Webpresence. Elements that should be included on the home page will be identified; the page design will present those elements in a user friendly manner with correct nomenclature. In addition, the primary role of the home page must serve the needs of these audiences:

• Prospectivestudents
• Community members
• Prospective employees
• Current students and employees
• Donors and donor prospects

Redesign First and Second Tier Pages, Academic Department Pages, and Other

Department Pages

The College's home page and first tier (portal pages) need to reflect the institution's image and overall Webpresence and appeal to specific audiences such as future students, continuing education students, community members, current students, etc. The redesign should meet Universal Design principles. The new pages should utilize Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) wherever possible, rather than graphics. The content should be presented in such a way to allow the template to be easily changed (re-skinned).The pages should be designed to increase search capabilities on all major search engines. The templates must be customized to work with the selected CMS by adding hidden tags for specific editable regions. We expect consistent navigation for each portal (first tier page), as well as any second tier (department, division, area, etc.) page, and a page design that presents those elements in a user friendly manner with correct nomenclature. The redesign would include approximately one-hundred and thirty templates which the College would use for creating pages/subpages by importing content for eachtier, area or department.

Design Generic Templates

Part of the redesign will be developing, installing, and testing a set of generic templates for the College's Web pages. The templates should provide consistent navigation, layout, and styles in a manner that is user-centric and intuitive. The templates should meet Universal Design principles. The templates should utilize Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) wherever possible, rather than graphics. The content should be presented in such a way to allow the template to be easily changed (re-skinned).The templates should be designed to increase search capabilities on all major search engines. The templates must be customized to work with the selected CMS by adding hidden tags for specific editable regions. We are asking for two generic templates.

1. Project Phases to be Performed by Selected Vendor

PhaseI. Assessment and Planning

The vendor will provide site audit assessment, and requirements documentation.

1. Site Audit will require a critically written assessment describing the strengths and weaknesses of the current Web site and suggestions about what content can be used from the current site. The review shall also include basic recommendations for interim modifications to the existing site to comply with the new overall strategy. In addition, the vendor should suggest a strategy for migrating and updating content.
   
2. Requirements Documentation will be an assessment of goals, audiences, existing technologies and functional requirements. The document should include current research and best practices concerning the use of Web technologies in education; target audiences and their information needs; preliminary site plan and functional requirements; and assessment of site visibility via major search engines and resources used by current and potential students (i.e., Google, Facebook).

Phase II. Site Architecture
The vendor will present a recommended sitemap proposal based on information gathered and college web site best practices. Included in the sitemap will be a site outline of permissions for content liaisons based on their corresponding site responsibilities.