Acknowledgements

Copyright 1998
Published by Women'sNet

About This Guide

What is Women'sNet?

Women'sNet is a vibrant and innovative networking support program designed to enable South African women to use the Internet to find the people, issues, resources and tools needed for women's social action. A project of SANGONeT in partnership with the Commission on Gender Equality, Women'sNet evolved out of a brainstorming workshop held in June 1997 where the information and communication technology (ICT) needs of women were discussed. The need to adapt this technology to the uses of women and to develop women's capacity in all communities - but especially in rural and urban communities where women have least access to information - was agreed on. One of the first steps identified to build women's capacity to use ICT was to develop a practical framework for sourcing, organising and making information available centrally from a website in a friendly and accessible way.

Who are SANGONeT and the Commission on Gender Equality? SANGONeT (Southern African Nongovernmental Organisation Network) is an Internet Service Provider that aims to meet the specific needs of people and organisations concerned with development and social and environmental justice in the Southern African region. Women'sNet benefits from SANGONeT's ten years of experience providing networking support to social movements. Through SANGONeT, Women'sNet offers a full range of Internet technical and support services to women's networking initiatives, including: helping you plan your online communication strategy, offering user support, developing WWW strategies, setting up databases with search engines, offering a wide range of training and support materials, and more. The Commission on Gender Equality (CGE) is one of the six "State Institutions Supporting Constitutional Democracy" called for in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. The aim of the Commission is to promote gender equality and make recommendations to Parliament or any other legislature with regard to any laws or proposed legislation which affects gender equality and the status of women. The CGE carries out key components of its Programme of Action online, providing a model for other South African women's organisations to adapt in the elaboration of their own communication and collaboration strategies.

Women'sNet Information Strategy Team Workshop: December 1997

To meet this challenge, Women'sNet has convened an Information Strategy Team whose role is to ensure a coordinated flow of information into and out of the Women'sNet WWW site. Although these women were aware of the potential of ICT for strategic information sharing they had not been trained in Web site development or in online information management. A 4-day interactive WWW skills development workshop held in December 1997 was attended by gender information resource people from a wide range of women's organizations. Four African participants from outside South Africa also attended in order to begin the development of similar national women's information initiatives, and to begin regional information collaboration.

Our Goals

• to train information staff from key South African women's organisations in developing women's information resources for the Internet
• to have women working with South African women's information set up a site to serve the information needs of South African women
• to introduce concepts of online information exchange and to plan how to publish relevant, user-friendly online information resources for South African women
• to set up an initial web site clearinghouse for South African women
• to develop ongoing collaboration systems: methods and procedures to work with information partners, and for continual updating of the Women'sNet site
• to document the workshop processes in order to produce a curriculum module that other women's organisations can use in developing their own online information strategies, as well as to share it with key information facilitators beyond South Africa to contribute to wider women's networking in Africa.

Features of the Women'sNet Workshop

Before proceeding to workshop planning, it's important to note that our workshop combined a number of unique features that contributed to its successful implementation, which you should consider when planning your own:

• each member of our Information Strategy Team actively shares women's information as a key function of her day-to-day work, and actively uses e-mail
• we are committed to using Internet tools of the trade (e.g., mailing lists) to collaborate in the evolution of the Women'sNet site
• team capacity-building was essential: workshop participants not only planned the Women'sNet site, they were trained in basic Web site design and document preparation in order to be able to use these skills in their own women's information networking work
• SANGONeT, as an NGO Internet Service Provider, played a crucial role in providing basic technical building blocks and support.

We don't expect you'll be working together under all of these same conditions, so we provide some advice on how to create them.

How This Guide Is Organized

1. Site Planning: Group discussions of purpose, content, design, functionality and site layout
2. WWW Skills Training: Training everyone to code documents for display on Web sites (HTML - Hypertext Markup Language), and introducing site structure concepts
3. Building the Women'sNet Site: Breaking into small groups that each built a different section of the site
4. Site Evaluation: Assessing our group effort
5. Ongoing Collaboration: Planning ongoing site development and maintenance.

The information in this guide is organized chronologically, according to the following stages:

1. Workshop Preparation: Outlines the tasks you need to attend to in the two to three months preceding the workshop.
2. Workshop Methodology: Provides detailed guidance on implementing each section of the workshop.
3. Post-Workshop Collaboration: Describes ways to continue developing your site as a team.

When you're done with this guide you should be well on the way to building a WWW site that meets the unique needs of your group.

A. Workshop Preparation

• Choosing Participants
• Selecting Workshop Venues
• Convening and Preparing Online
• Identifying Workshop Resource People
• Making Technical Preparations

Choosing Participants

It's important to make sure you assemble a strong and enthusiastic team for building the site. Here are some criteria you should consider when choosing participants:

• are they part of the community that your site is meant to serve?
• are they aware of the information needs of your target community?
• are they involved in traditional information networking (e.g., librarians, documentalists, newsletter editors, resource centre coordinators, media specialists...)?
• are they experienced/skilled e-mail users?
• do they have experience/skill using the WWW to find information?
• are they adventurous and willing to experiment?
• are they enthusiastic about learning and applying new computer skills?
• are they committed to ongoing post-workshop collaboration?

We convened an Information Strategy Team to guide the information aspects of the Women'sNet initiative. In addition to attending the workshop, our team has agreed to the following Terms of Reference:

Each member shall commit to:

• Proactively seek and feed appropriate information for Women'sNet;
• Feedback media and technology skills to your organisation and organisations with which you work to develop capacity to use the Internet for the creation and sharing of information;
• Participate on the Women'sNet Information Strategy electronic mailing list on a weekly basis;
• Attend skills development workshops and ad-hoc meetings of the Information Strategy Team as needed;
• Network and make links between your own activities and the Women'sNet project and to promote Women'sNet.

We invited 14 people to our workshop, and recommend no less than 10 and no more than 20 for optimum productivity.

TIP: Depending on the time commitment you're expecting from your workshop and/or team participants, some may need to negotiate support from their organisation. Consider writing a letter to their board or executive director explaining the value of the project and how their involvement in the workshop and team will enhance the work they are already doing.

Selecting Workshop Venues

We recommend you arrange for two workshop venues:

1. Hands-on, Internet-connected computer training centre, with one computer per participant
2. Meeting room (with no computers in it) where the group can creatively brainstorm site design and operation issues.

In our case we used the computer training room at SANGONeT in Johannesburg for the hands-on training and site building. For our site planning and site debrief, we convened in the meeting room at the bed and breakfast where many of the participants were staying. We found it very useful to be in a "non-technical" space for our creative and planning work.

Convening and Preparing Online

Mailing lists allow any number of people with e-mail addresses to communicate amongst one another on issues of common interest. They can be set up quickly and offer an inexpensive, easy way to work together electronically. A mailing list is an automatic message-sending program that stores a list of the e-mail addresses of all the people interested in a particular discussion. Each discussion has its own e-mail address, e.g., WNINFO@wn.apc.org is the address of the Women'sNet Information Strategy Team mailing list. (Note: Only those subscribed to this private list are able to send messages to it.)

In order to make most productive use of our face-to-face time at the workshop, two months prior we set up a private electronic mailing list where our workshop participants could "meet" each other and discuss some of their Web site information ideas and concerns.

Subscribers to your list should include:

• workshop participants
• workshop organizers
• trainers
• any other people directly involved in implementing the workshop.

For example, we included SANGONeT's training and technical support staff on the list so they could be alert to training and site setup needs.

To give you an idea of how useful mailing lists can be, here are the topics we made some progress on prior to the face-to-face workshop:

• coordinating workshop logistics (travel, accommodation, meals, contact information, etc.)
• introductions from each participant, background information about their organisations and their experience working with women's information and the Internet
• roles and responsibilities of the Information Strategy Team members
• presenting and discussing the detailed workshop programme
• identifying criteria for evaluating web sites
• discussing and critiquing existing women's information web sites
• discussion of the purpose of the Women'sNet web site
• pointers to useful web design resources
• ideas for linking electronic (i.e., Internet-based) information with non-Internet means of communication, especially radio
• list of things for participants to bring to the workshop (documents, addresses of relevant web sites, etc.)
• two background preparatory documents: one on considerations when planning an Internet communication strategy, the other on tips for designing useful information clearinghouses
• a summary of key issues raised on the mailing list.

Printed versions of key documents and summaries of the mailing list discussion were included in the workshop participants' kits.

Setting Up and Using a Mailing List

Using a mailing list effectively for pre-workshop preparation requires the following:

1. Contact an ISP
You'll need to set your mailing list up with an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Most ISPs offer this service. There will likely be a small list setup charge and an ongoing monthly charge for list maintenance. They will need to know how you want your list configured. We recommend it be set up as a private, unmoderated list. Provide them with the list of e-mail addresses of the participants. You may also want to have all the messages you exchange on your list saved to a central archive. Ask the ISP if this is possible. (In our case, SANGONeT hosted our list as part of their contribution to hosting the workshop and Women'sNet.)

Someone will need to be designated as the technical manager of the list (also known as the "listowner"). If there is no-one familiar with this role in your group, you can ask the ISP to do it for you, or you can ask them to train you in how to manage a mailing list. The technical manager is responsible for fixing or reporting any problems that occur with the list, as well as adding and removing subscribers.

2. Prepare to Use Your List
Once the ISP has let you know the list is set up, you should test it to see that it is working properly. Send a test message to your list address asking everyone on the list to acknowledge it by responding to the list. Sometimes there are initial configuration problems which need to be worked out, which can take a few days, so make sure you leave time in your plan for any bugs to be worked out.

"Information" File
You also need to prepare an "information" file for your list subscribers. When each person is subscribed to the list they automatically receive this message. It confirms that they are properly subscribed, and should provide instructions for interacting with the list. Here's the one we used:

This first part is generated automatically by the mailing list software:

You have been added to list wninfo@wn.apc.org. The system has recorded your address as annb@wn.apc.org and in order for your messages to get posted (if the list accepts postings), you will have to send them from this address, unless the list does not require subscription for posting. If a message is ever rejected, please contact the list's owner: maureen@wn.apc.org For information on this service and how to use it, send the following request in the body of a mail message to listproc@wn.apc.org: HELP All requests should be addressed to listproc@wn.apc.org. Here is the information file we included with the list: Welcome to WNINFO! This is the private workspace for the Women'sNet Information Strategy Team. Initially we'll be using this mailing list to prepare for the training workshop in December. And after that, it will be our ongoing collaboration space. Please sign in and let us know you're here, and tell us about your work and interests in relation to gender information online. (We'll also have some more structured discussion and information-gathering on these topics during the course of the preparation for the workshop.) Here are some notes on interacting with this mailing list: - You can post a new message to everyone on the list by addressing it to: wninfo@wn.apc.org - Or, you can reply to existing messages as you would any other e-mail message, just check to see that your response is addressed to: wninfo@wn.apc.org If you need any help using the list, e-mail us: Maureen James: maureen@wn.apc.org Jenny Radloff: jradloff@agi.uct.ac.za Glad to have you here, and look forward to seeing you in person soon! Maureen James/Jenny Radloff Co-Facilitators

Plan Ahead
Be prepared with an agenda for what you want to happen on your list before you start using it. Here are the topics we had "scheduled" to discuss on our list:

• purpose of the mailing list and an overview of what we hoped to discuss in advance of the workshop
• request for introductions from participants, and their experiences using Internet for information work
• background information on our Women'sNet project
• workshop outline: goals and process
• information strategy team "job" description
• site critiques: evaluating a half-dozen sites and sharing our opinions
• purpose of the Women'sNet site
• possible elements for the Women'sNet site: content and tools
• workshop logistics (annotated agenda for each day, venue addresses, contact info)
• summaries of substantive things that happen on the list

Facilitating Your Electronic Discussion
For your mailing list to be a useful workspace where you get things done, you must identify someone to facilitate the discussion. As in face-to-face group facilitation, the online facilitator must be a "people" person - technical know-how isn't mandatory. Here is what facilitators typically do:

• encourage and gently guide discussion
• make sure everyone gets to know each other
• plant ideas or start new topics of discussion, leaving enough time and space for participants to respond
• bring together diverse threads of discussion into a summary
• track down people that seem to be missing from the discussion and help them to participate
• be available to answer participants' questions
• demonstrate good online form, with respect to formatting messages, quoting style, etiquette, etc. and gently point out when someone has made a mistake

Initial List Messages
When you first start the list, you should prepare and post messages that address the following:

• Purpose of the list: Outline why the list was set up and the topics to be addressed.
• Participant Sign-In: Ask everyone to sign in and introduce themselves
• Where to get help: Provide the facilitator's contact information so participants have someone to go to in the event of problems (e-mail address, phone, fax)
• Who's There: Provide a list of names and e-mail addresses of all the people who have access to the list, so everyone knows who's "attending"
• How to Use the List: post instructions for sending messages to the list.

Daily Facilitation Work
Attending to your list every day is critical. Not only does this allow you to keep things running smoothly, it signals your presence to the group and helps participants feel like there's a reason to be there. Things you should scan for are:

• new people: welcome them
• requests for help or information: if there's been no answer from others, see if there's anything you can do, and post a note to let everyone know you're following up
• postings that you can help further develop to get people responding

Keep an eye out for problem postings such as garbled messages. Anything that looks to be in machine language or is completely indecipherable (e.g., file attachments) should be acknowledged as such - be sure to contact the person who posted it to let them know what the problem was and help them to re-post it.

To keep your list interesting and relevant you should also:

• be on the lookout for information and resources to share with the group
• be a bridge between your mailing list and any offline places your group works together.

Getting the List Moving
New mailing lists can be very quiet in the first few days, if you're not actively encouraging people to participate. If some people are missing, don't hesitate to contact them directly to see if they need assistance getting started. You'll also notice that people participate in different ways: some respond quite regularly, others let the messages pile up and deal with them every week or two. You'll quickly get to know the rhythm of your group.

Summarizing Your Discussions
You may have people in your team that are too busy to participate actively but who will be monitoring the messages in preparation for the workshop. Every so often you should summarize various threads of discussion so that people can see the evolution of various discussion topics. Be sure to include hardcopy final summaries of the list discussion in the information kits for workshop participants.

Ongoing Use of Your List
At the workshop your group should evaluate the list as a workspace, and decide if and how it will continue to be used by the group for ongoing collaboration regarding the site. In our case, we continue to use our list as a discussion forum for how we want to see the site evolve, checking in on tasks we've taken on and discussing new issues that emerge in the development of our site.

Identifying Workshop Resource People

You'll need to find people who can play the following roles at your workshop:

• Workshop Facilitator
• Site Design Discussion Facilitator
• WWW Skills Trainers: Lead Trainer and Assistant
• Site Assembler

You may find combinations of these skills in one or two people, or you may need several resource people.

The Workshop Facilitator should be familiar with the groups invited and their relationship to information and the Internet. We used our Information Strategy Team convenor.

The Site Design Discussion Facilitator(s) i.e., person(s) leading discussion on the design, structure and content of the Web site - need(s) to be familiar with the technical aspects of constructing Web sites as well as familiar with how people use Web sites. They must be able to explain what's possible and guide discussion in non-technical language. We used the SANGONeT Executive Director.

Trainers need to be experienced with training a group of people in how to prepare documents for Web pages. They should be comfortable with leading hands-on training where each participant is at their own machine. Although technical training capacity is necessary, it's also important that the trainers be sensitive to the needs of the individual participants, and familiar with the content the group is working with. You should arrange for an assistant trainer who will circulate to make sure that everyone is keeping pace with the instruction. We used both SANGONeT's Web Site Coordinator and Training Coordinator, who are both women, and both gender-sensitive in their approach to training.

This group approach to teaching Web skills and setting up Web sites is unique, so we recommend you involve your facilitator(s) and trainer(s) in the planning of the workshop so that they will know what to expect and can give advice on structuring the workshop time. In our case, again because SANGONeT was the host organization, we were able to use trainers with years of expertise in training NGOs. If possible, you should get references from people you are considering contracting as trainers, and talk to other groups they have worked with.

Finally, you'll need a resource person who can actually assemble Web sites. This will be the person that takes the products of each of the individual site-building teams and pulls it all together into the final site. They will need to have access to the server where the Web site will reside, so that they can load all the pieces there.

Making Technical Preparations

In addition to setting up your electronic mailing list, you'll need to be in touch with your ISP about reserving space for your WWW site. You'll need an account with the ISP to be able to build your site on their server. You may also want to have your ISP technical staff or the Web site expert on your team (or both) develop ready-made site tools in advance of the workshop.

In order to facilitate the team site-building, we had SANGONeT's technical staff prepare "ready-to-plug-in" versions of Women'sNet site tools that workshop participants could select from to install in their sections of the site. The following tools were created in advance:

• a Women'sNet WWW chat tool that visitors to the site can use to post public messages that get archived to the site so all contributions are visible
• an events calendar to be filled in by visitors to the site
• a women's organisations database to be filled in by visitors to the site
• a Women'sNet "mail-to" tool that visitors can click on to request more information
• a simple "search this site" option
• a mailing list to which visitors can subscribe to keep up to date on Women'sNet developments.

We also had the person responsible for site assembly come prepared with an assortment of graphics for designing the layout and look of the site, e.g., borders, backgrounds, icons, etc. both for top page layout as well as for the unique features of each of the second-level pages.

B. Workshop Methodology

The most challenging part in putting together this workshop was arranging the agenda, particularly the choreography of the site-building. Assuming that you have been able to do some initial preparation via your electronic mailing list, here is what we recommend:

1 day to plan the site
1 - 1 ½ days for HTML training
1 - 1 ½ days for applying the training, i.e. building the site
½ day site evaluation
½ day to plan ongoing site development and maintenance

Sample Agenda

PART 1: Site Planning (1 day)
Participant Introductions (1/2 hour)

• name, organization, role
• what each participant hopes to accomplish

• review workshop goals
• explanation of each section of the workshop
• Q&A

• who is it for?
• what are the content priorities?
• what is the purpose?
• what makes us different and unique?

PART TWO: WWW Skills Training (1 - 1.5 days)
Basic Training in Building Web Pages, including:

• introduction to HTML and HTML editors
• creating an HTML document
• basic design commands, headers, bolds, italics, colour, font size
• lists
• graphics
• links
• tables
• top page layout: overview of site structure and mechanics
• putting it together: how information gets added to the site

Take 15 minutes at the end of this session to brief everyone on the logistics of Part Three: Site Building.

PART THREE: Site Building (1-1.5 days)
Based on the site content decisions made in the Site Planning section, break into small groups (2 per group) to build the site. The first part of the session should be spent with content teams and the site design team working in parallel:

Content Teams: Planning which information to put into their pages, and how to arrange it.

Site Design Team: Planning look of site and different levels of pages to communicate to Content Teams.

Once the Site Design Team has passed on any structural guidelines to the Content Teams, the Content Teams continue with building their sections while the Site Design team circulates to provide technical support. The Site Design team should leave about two hours to assemble the site, and should check that Content Team files are ready to be installed.

PART FOUR: Site Evaluation (1/2 Day)
Small Group Site Assessment
Full Group Discussion
Establishing Basic Site "Look" Standards

PART FIVE: Ongoing Site Development (1/2 Day)

• Planning the next stages of site development: what are the priorities?
• How to make changes/updates to the site on an ongoing basis
• Assigning ongoing responsibility for each section of the site
• Developing a "to-do" list for the team, with deadlines
• How will the group collaborate on further site development

Optional Agenda Item: Donor Briefing Women'sNet took advantage of the gathering of our Information Strategy Team at the workshop, to convene a briefing for potential donors to the overall Women'sNet initiative. This gave the Team an opportunity to present our information plan, which was helpful for gelling our ideas. It was also useful for showing concretely how women's organisations are collaborating to begin to address the information and communication needs of women in South Africa. We also had the opportunity to discuss funding priorities with the donors that attended. Our Briefing programme ran for about an hour and a half, and covered: - Introduction of Information Team - Women'sNet Project Overview (history, project components, current status) - Financial Needs - Presentation of Women'sNet site plan and site map: explanation of each page - Questions

Detailed Workshop Logistics
The following are detailed recommendations for each section of the workshop. Planning and some of the implementation of many of these details will need to be taken care of well in advance of the workshop.

PART 1: Site Planning

Q&A
Because you are trying to accomplish a lot in a few short days, the group may have concerns they want to express, as you present the overview of the workshop activities leave room for them to ask questions and express concerns.

Use Running Lists
Put up big sheets of paper on the walls for identifying different discussion topics that anyone can add to, e.g., editorial policy, jargon, etc. We found it very helpful to build our own jargon "dictionary" during the workshop. Note: Be sure to bring your flip chart papers to each workshop venue so you can refer to them.

Site Planning
The more time you spend in advance of the workshop planning your site, the better you'll be able to use your face-to-face time. Start planning discussions on your workshop mailing list, summarize people's comments and use these as a starting point once you're all together.

At the workshop, break into small groups to discuss the following site design issues. Have everyone present their discussions to the full group on flipchart paper.

Site Purpose
Your group will need to agree on the purpose of the site. Consider these questions:

• who is your primary audience is and what do they need and/or can they contribute?
• what will make your site unique?

Site Content Priorities

• What types of information/resources/tools are you going to make available from your site?
• Which are the most important issues to address?

You can begin this discussion online. Have participants think about the content they'd like to see on the site, and have them come prepared with documents they'd like to code and any other resources they'd like to link to from the site.

Once you're together, you'll need to decide on your content priorities for the time you're together (i.e., short-term priorities) but also address what you'd like to see happening on the site in the long-term.

For our own process, we did a brainstorm of possible issue areas for including on the site, and then voted on our top five. We've kept the longer list as a reference for when we have the opportunity to expand. This way we met our short-term and our long-term needs at the same time. The top five content priorities for Women'sNet were: Human Rights, Health, Information and Communication Technologies, Violence Against Women and Education.

Background Reading
To facilitate site planning, share relevant background documents with the group. You can post these to the list as well as include them in hardcopy in the participant kits. Topics could include: expert opinions on site design considerations, how to develop and maintain an active Web site, how to link your Web site to the work of your community, etc. (See Appendix 2 for sample background reading document.)

Do's and Don'ts: Site Critiques
Your group will need to come up with it's own list of likes and dislikes for Web site design and use-ability. To prepare for this discussion, on our electronic mailing list, we asked everyone to critique a half-dozen sites that related to women's networking. We asked them to assess them with regard to the following criteria:

• interactivity: inviting visitors to participate in building the site's information
• design
• information arrangement: ease of finding information
• ease of navigation
• a site that looks like it's being cared for on an ongoing basis: updated-ness
• clarity of site objectives

We also asked participants on the list to give examples of sites they like and why they like them.

At the workshop, we worked in groups of three around the table we were meeting at. We quickly brainstormed lists of site "do's" and "don'ts" and then presented them to the full group. We collected each group's lists on flipchart paper so we could refer to them when building the site.

Tools and Graphics
Decide before the workshop if there are tools that you'd like to include in your site, and have these set up so you can demonstrate them at the workshop. (See the "Making Technical Preparations" section for examples of tools you might want to include.)

One of our goals was to make sure the Women'sNet site invited visitors to get involved and interact to help build the site's content. To get workshop participants thinking about the possibilities for "interactivating" the site, demonstrate the tools that you've had set up in advance. If possible, show existing sites where these tools are operating, so participants can see how they enhance "live" sites. Have someone introduce each, describe them and then people can ask questions about how they work. You'll need a computer with a large monitor and/or a PC Projector (and overhead projector) so that everyone can see.

Mapping the Site
A critical outcome of Part One (Site Planning) is an outline or "map" of each page of the site. Using big sheets of paper, a facilitator should work with the group to define the content of the top page, and then the second-level pages. We used big pieces of paper and consulted the site policies and objectives we'd generated previously to physically map out the initial pages of the site, and how they would link to each other.

To give you an idea, here are the maps we came up with for the first and second-level pages of the Women'sNet site:

Top Page Contents

• short description of Women'sNet (like a mission statement)
• Women'sNet graphic or logo
• link to About Women'sNet
• link to interactive Calendar of Events
• What's New on Women'sNet
• link to Women's News/Highlights (brief news summaries with links to full story)
• photo/picture to go with weekly highlight
• link to Health section
• link to Human Rights section
• link to New Communication Technologies section
• Navigation Bar: site map, search this site, home, contact us, join us, interactive spaces

Second-Level Page Sample
About Women'sNet

• mission
• background
• funders
• partners
• workshop report
• what we do: training/regional centres
• structures
• organogram
• join us
• calendar: introduction and explanation for how to use/how to add

We left the individual issue-based content pages for the small site-building teams to design in Part Three.

PART TWO: WWW Skills Training

Depending on your group's competency with Internet tools, you will need 1 - 1.5 days for this part of the workshop. It's best if each person can work at their own computer. Determine which among the group are more experienced with Internet and/or WWW skills and intersperse them with those who are less advanced, so the latter can get support and ask questions during the training.

Software
You will need to choose the software program that the workshop participants will be trained on for coding (marking up in HTML) their pages. There are many different packages on the market. We used a basic share-ware programme called HTMLWRITE because it can be used on both older and newer computers. Also, we were able to give each workshop participant a copy of the software to take home for use within their own organisation. There are many HTML coding programs that automate the coding of documents (e.g., PageMill, FrontPage, HomeSite, etc.) but we first wanted to teach everyone the underlying codes that make home pages appear the way they do, before introducing automation.

Training Curriculum
Have participants work on a test document and show everyone how to do the following:

• naming documents
• headlines
• formatting paragraphs
• formatting text: fonts, colours, alignment, etc.
• formatting lists
• arranging information on a page
• organizing information into tables
• inserting images
• breaking up large documents (internal linking)
• inserting links to e-mail addresses and external addresses

In addition to page coding, an overview of the file structure of a site should be presented, so participants understand how the different pages relate to each other, and how site contents are organized for easy maintenance.

By the end of the HTML training, everyone should be ready to go into small groups to apply their newly-learned web design techniques to the building of the group web site.

Make sure to include hand-outs that explain the basic concepts as well as quick reference lists of HTML commands.

By the end of Part Two, everyone should be ready to go into small groups to apply their newly-learned web design techniques to the building of the site.

PART THREE: Site Building

You'll need at least a day to build your group site. Here's how to choreograph this activity:

1. Have the group break into teams of two, each group assigned to a different section of the site. In the case of the Women'sNet site, these are the groups we broke into:

• About Women'sNet
• News and Highlights
• Health
• Human Rights
• Information and Communication Technologies
• Overall Site Design

Each group contained two people except for the Site Design group which contained three. The content teams were limited to Information Team members. Because the Site Design team is responsible for final site assembly and installation it should include the site assembly person, the HTML trainer, as well as at least one workshop participant.

2. Each content group makes a plan for the look and content of their section. The plans should include deciding:

• which documents to post
• which already existing materials/documents/resources to point to
• how to engage visitors coming to the site, including how to make the section interactive (i.e., deciding which tools to include that visitors might use to interact with Women'sNet and help develop the content of the site, where appropriate)
• how to organise the information to make it easy to use
• how to update the section on an ongoing basis.

Participants who have brought documents with them on disk can share them amongst the relevant content area groups.

While the content groups are doing their planning, the overall site design group should design how all the different pieces will look and how they will be assembled at the end of the group work, including developing templates for different levels of pages, and different types of documents. This way the work of each team can come together with a relatively coherent and cohesive look and feel. In addition, the Site Design team must provide the content teams with the correct directory addresses so that site contents will be pointing to the right places when it is installed.

3. After getting general guidelines from the Site Design team the content groups lay out their pages and include the documents they have coded. Content teams continue working on their pages for the duration of this part of the workshop agenda. The Site Design team should be available to provide technical support to each small group as they work on their individual sections of the web site.

4. The Site Design team needs about two hours for pulling all of the pages together. Each content team will submit their work on a floppy disk to the Site Design team to install.

PART FOUR: Site Evaluation

Once the site is assembled, the whole group should look at each page together and make suggestions for improvement, changes, etc. Remember that each content team will have interpreted their page uniquely, so this is an opportunity to decide which approaches work best for the group.

You can do the site debrief in the computer training centre, or you can bring stand-alone machines to your "ideas" venue, and dial out to connect to the site or have it loaded on the hard disk, for everyone to look at. You'll need at least two monitors or a PC Projector and overhead projector so that everyone can see.

Here are some things to assess:

• does the overall site map work?
• standardising fonts and colours on each page level
• did you adhere to your do's and don'ts?

You can also refer to the questions you used during the pre-workshop site critique during this session.

As you go through each page, make notes of all the changes that need to be made and assign who will do the changes.

C. Post-Workshop Collaboration

Building your initial site collectively will create a common understanding and commitment within your group to content and development of the site. Your workshop team can be a reference group to consult when planning site changes. They can also be an ongoing source of new content for the site. Individuals within our team took content look-out responsibility for various sections of the site, e.g., a woman based in a human rights documentation centre has committed to contributing relevant information to that section of the site as she comes across it. The most effective way to keep fresh content coming to your site is to involve people who are already in the routine of information networking.

For day-to-day site management, it's best however if you assign responsibility for the actual implementation of site updates and changes to one person, or a small group.

We decided to continue to use our original private workshop planning mailing list, for...

• ongoing discussion about the site
• updates from the site managers about site "renovations"
• announcements and news from team participants
• requests for feedback from the site maintainers

This workspace is facilitated by our Information Strategy Team convenor. This person watches the discussions, summarizes when necessary, and work with the site managers to ensure smooth development of the site.

As a way to channel new content to the site, and to avoid clogging up our discussion list, we set up a new mailing list just for posting site content suggestions to. This one is also a private list with only those who are interested in seeing the content contributions subscribed. The people working on the site collect these postings and regularly add them to the Women'sNet site, as time allows.

If possible, you should arrange a site evaluation meeting 4 - 6 months after the initial site is set up, to check in on:

• site design and use-ability
• content flow strategies
• communication among the information team and site managers

Appendix 1: Workshop Preparation/Budget Checklist

• 10-20 participants, all active e-mail users
• food/accommodation/transport plans for participants
• electronic mailing list for preparing
• workshop venues: one for training and one for meeting
• HTML trainer, assistant trainer
• site assembler with access to your ISP/site space
• discussion facilitator(s)
• note-taker
• computer for note-taker
• stand-alone machines for site debrief (if doing away from training centre) with modem
• WWW software loaded onto training computers
• HTML training handouts
• background reading for workshop participants
• space for your site with an ISP
• "ready-to-plug-in" site tools
• big sheets of paper
• masking tape
• markers
• name tags
• 200 A5 pieces of paper (can be scrap, blank on one side)
• information kits containing: agenda, background documents, information about participants, paper, pens, HTML training materials, software, name tags
• extension power cord
• extension phone cable
• modem
• PC projector and overhead project
• evaluation meeting after living with the site for a number of months

Appendix 2: Sample Background Reading

A Discussion Paper for the Women'sNet Information Strategy Team
by Maja van der Velden ¹

A successful online gender information clearinghouse reflects the aspirations, needs, visions, and capacities of all women involved in building, managing, and using the clearinghouse.

1 - Introduction

In this paper I discuss the elements which will contribute to the building of a successful, gender sensitive, on-line clearinghouse on gender information resources. Since this is a discussion paper, the information given is not necessarily complete or final. Do not hesitate to give your comments and questions on the paper via our mailing list!

Definitions

The term clearinghouse originates in the financial world and refers to the place where checks or the transfer of sums are cleared, i.e. accepted and processed. In analogy to a financial clearinghouse, an information clearinghouse refers to a place where information is collected and processed.

The term on-line refers to the type of place - the medium and format - we use for the clearinghouse. The information, although often collected in different formats, can only be processed by the on-line clearinghouse when it is put in electronic format, i.e. a format suitable for storing information in a computer and which allow the information be accessed via the Internet.

The term gender sensitive refers to being sensitive to gender, understanding that the roles of women and men are culturally determined. We often use the term gender sensitive in a situation in which we want to prevent discrimination against women and/or give the position, needs, and capabilities of women positive attention. A gender sensitive clearinghouse refers to a clearinghouse which is structured in such a way that it serves the needs and aspiration of women.

What happens in an information clearinghouse

An information clearinghouse is a resource of information. It gathers and/or receives information from different sources and it processes the information in order to make it retrievable and accessible for others.

How we collect, select, and process information, and make the information accessible, depends on the kind of information and the type of information we work with. But also other factors, such as:

• resources: our skills, tools, time and budget