Agentes causales indirectas o subyacentes de la deforestación

Whilst website design and implementation is discussed in this chapter, it should be noted that the function of the website was that of the research vehicle. Of course, it was important to build a functional website that would attract the required participants, but the performance of one particular web design over another was not a central concept. Hence, this website build was based on best practice design that included setting

133 appropriate tools and systems in place to enable an online community to evolve. The web technologists ‘employed’ that is, students for whom this was their project, volunteers and paid professionals, were therefore critical to the construction of a ‘best practice’ site, which enabled an online community of practice to be nurtured, and the research aims and objectives to be met.

Background

Due to the small research budget, low-cost construction methods were sought. Early discussions with Dr Justin Brown, a Senior Lecturer and Course Coordinator in the School of Computer and Security Science at ECU, resulted in undergraduate and post- graduate Information Technology (IT) students being available to assist with website development. Whilst the end result was successful, it is important to highlight the difficulties faced liaising with the IT students, and overcoming the communication issues commonly experienced between the divergent disciplines (Dutton, Carusi, & Peltu, 2006) of social science and IT.

The first post-graduate IT student joined the project in August, 2012 and was asked to investigate “Moodle”, an open-source learning platform suggested as a potential basis for the website. He established a test site, which enabled the research team to understand how Moodle would look and function. This student was not available after November, 2012 as he completed his studies and sought regular employment elsewhere. It was later decided that Moodle was not an appropriate tool for this project, as there were concerns around the flow of the design seeming disjointed, and a potential feeling of leaving the proposed website to enter the Moodle environment. Furthermore, if the Moodle site became unavailable, the research team would be dealing with an external company to rectify issues.

134 During February, 2013 an undergraduate IT student and a postgraduate web design student were recruited to the project team, with the remit to design and build the required website, including a system for downloading important site data for later analyses. These students (herein known as the ‘web technologists’) were supervised by Dr Hanadi Haddad, a Lecturer in the School of Communications and Arts at ECU and completed the majority of the design and web build whilst fulfilling the requirements of their own respective degrees. Details of their specific involvement with the project are provided later in this chapter. Again, both graduated in June, 2013 and whilst one did continue to assist in a limited capacity for a few months more, both were lost to full time employment soon after graduation, with the data download remit incomplete. Finally, in August, 2013 a team of three IT Masters students were invited to work on the project. Carrying on from the previous students work, they were given the important task of developing and installing ‘plugins’ to enable the download of website data, and developing a ‘user manual’ for administrators. Unfortunately, these students failed to grasp what was required, and subsequently the tasks remained incomplete. Again, by November 2013, the website remained without a means of downloading important research data.

However, during November 2013, research funding was secured and an external IT specialist was recruited to perform a number of tasks, including the important retrieval of website data and debugging emerging website issues.

In conclusion, a number of personnel were involved in the build and development of the website and extended the research team, but it was not until a paid professional was recruited that the important ‘backend’ data retrieval tools were finalised.

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The Research Team

The research ‘team’ comprised of the PhD candidate as the researcher together with the research supervisors, whose research experience supported the disciplines represented by this project. Dr Leesa Costello is an expert in netnographic studies, and has extensive research experience in building and supporting online communities. Associate Professor Amanda Devine is an experienced researcher and public health nutritionist, with many years’ practice in the early years’ sector. . Dr Johnny Lo is a statistician, and assisted in quantitative analyses and research design. My knowledge of qualitative research methodology and methods, and of the models and theories that underpinned this project, added value and led to a well-rounded and capable team. A sub-structure of the research team also emerged, and the ‘website development team’ consisted of the web technologists, myself as the researcher and my research supervisors.

It was understood that the web technologists would assume the role of service providers, whilst the research team assumed the role of the client, representing and acting on behalf of the other stakeholders. My role as the researcher was to develop and discover content, consider design, the look and feel of the site and to suggest potential features. I had consulted informally with a website specialist prior to collecting Stage 1 data, thus had an understanding of how to communicate my requirements to the information technologists. Even so, the skills of the web technologists as ‘experts’ was relied heavily upon to deliver a website that fulfilled the project’s needs, thus my ability to communicate these requirements was paramount.

After initial contact was established with the web technologists in February 2013, weekly meetings were scheduled, to progress the project and meet the anticipated launch date. This scheduled launch date was chosen to coincide with the ‘Nourish’

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NOURISH

The complete guide for Food Coordinators in Education and Care Services

This cookbook and menu planning tool was funded by the Australian Government under the initiative of the Inclusion and Professional Support Program to support Government approved child care services. It was developed and produced under

a joint initiative by Child Australia and Nutrition Australia (WA Division). menu planning workshop and training forum, organised by Nutrition Australia and Child Australia (Figure 5.1). The Nourish forum was a professional development and networking opportunity, specifically designed for directors and food coordinators of child care centres, at which the Nourish Cookbook and menu planning guide was to be launched, together with the website. Attendees met the participant profile for this research study, thus providing an ideal opportunity to co-launch the SNAC website, and optimise recruitment and promote recipes and menu planning resources from the Nourish cookbook that would feature on the website.

Building the site

The web technologists were provided with the research proposal, an initial outline of the required website and three main remits that were communicated at the initial meeting. The first remit was to build a website to provide a setting for the discussion boards and to house the healthy eating and nutrition resources and activities. The second was to build the functionality to measure member engagement with the website, discussion boards and other resources. Thirdly, it was essential that training was provided on how

137 to maintain and manage the website, and be able to perform basic maintenance functions such as registering new members, loading content and moderating posts. The first meetings were also attended by Dr Justin Brown, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer and Security Science at ECU. Dr Brown emphasised that during the build, ‘backend’ functionality, as a means of measuring engagement, was of equal importance to the ‘front end’, where users interact. His advice was to “build in as much [to the back end] as you can, as you won’t know what you need, until you need it”. This proved to be imperative given the difficulties associated with designing web databases that can provide multiple reports from which to extrapolate the required data. The initial research design proposed two participant groups. The intervention group would have full access to all features of the website, whereas the comparator group would only have access to the website resources but not the activities or discussion boards. The difference in nutrition knowledge and attitudes would then be compared between the two groups, post-intervention. However, as team discussions progressed, it became apparent that the comparison group would not be necessary for a number of reasons. Firstly, it seemed ‘unnatural’ to exclude one group from accessing the website, as all child care staff experience similar issues when providing a healthy eating environment. Secondly, in view of the slow recruitment experienced during Stage 1 of the project there may have not been enough participants available to facilitate two groups. Thirdly, it was thought that a natural comparison group would emerge between members who used the website regularly and non-active members. The web technologist supported this approach as a “significant change in the project. It also helped greatly as it reduced the workload further” (Chong, 2013, p. 6).

The proposed website required two main functions - a social platform as an arena for sharing information, support and seeking advice and secondly, an information section

138 that displayed a set of nutrition specific resources and links. Also important was the administration role, essential for the posting of resources and for moderating the discussion boards located on the social platform. The functional and non-functional requirements of the proposed website were detailed in a website specification document (Appendix 12).

The website was built using a web software system, Wordpress, which allowed a fully functional website to be built at little cost. Additional features, such as a Google Analytics panel for site statistics, were added through the utilisation of ‘plug ins’, which were available free or at a nominal cost. An important stage of the website development was the project title, “Supporting Nutrition for Australian Childcare” (SNAC), which was quickly followed by the overall design and development of a logo.

Developing a project title and logo

Deciding on a project title added significant clarity and focus to the website development process, and was a key event in the overall progression of the project. Using several key terms such as nutrition, healthy eating, early years and child care, a list of proposed project titles was generated and circulated amongst the team. In due course, the title “Supporting Nutrition for Australian Childcare”, (abbreviated to the acronym SNAC) was thought to be appropriate, as it accurately reflected the content of the website (nutrition) and the intended audience (Australian child care). ‘Supporting’ also reflected the research aim of providing a supportive network to child care staff. Hence the web address was registered as www.snacwa.com.au

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SNAC design

Following on from the completion of the website title and acronym, the web technologist responsible for the website design produced the following logo (Figure 5.2). He described his design approach:

The proposed logo needed to represent the planned modular look of the website whilst maintaining a fresh and welcoming identity. Linking nutrition somewhere was paramount. I asked Ruth to describe what she wanted the logo to “feel like” using simple words. She described it as fresh, simple and fun. Something she wanted the website to represent (Braich, 2013, p. 1).

Figure 5.2 Supporting Nutrition for Australian Childcare (SNAC) logo

He added:

SNAC (Figure 5.2) is a representation of children’s health and wellbeing. It approaches a common issue through a digital medium with the objective of creating a valuable public resource. This proposed identity looks at highlighting the playful and child centric aspect of SNAC whilst retaining its appeal to an older market with professional and modern design.

The SNAC branding displays a half-eaten orange broken into 4 modules. Each of these modules will be able to represent a portion of the website and colour coded as such. The brand maintains strong recognition and as such, can be applied in a variety of colours.

The wording proposes rounded typefaces as a direct contrast to the sharp, geometric shapes used by corporate companies. This applies a friendly and

140 welcoming appeal to the brand, further enforcing its design for the people (Braich, 2013, p. 1).

The designer also provided a set of template resources incorporating the SNAC logo and design.

Website organisation

During the design process, the team debated the format, or layout of the website. There are distinct differences in user experience between blogs and discussion boards found on ‘traditional’ websites. Blogs offer a space for individual expression whereas discussion boards promote group interaction (Duffy & Bruns, 2006), thus as the aim was to promote a sense of community or belonging, a more traditional approach was deemed appropriate. This layout included a homepage and several other internal, content specific web pages to follow, as opposed to a ‘bloggy’ or Facebook appearance. This standard and familiar specification was thought to be appropriate, with main navigation on the top and sub-navigation tools to the side. It was important that the website was well organised and signposted, had a professional feel and that resources and activities were well organised and easily accessed. A Facebook page was created at a later stage as a means of publicising the website, and linking with other like-minded organisations.

The project title acronym SNAC was used to guide the way the website was organised into sections and pages, as follows:

Support – hosted resources such as fact sheets, healthy eating activities, links to other

reputable organisations and menu planning tools and resources.

Nutrition – hosted recipes specific to the child care setting, adapted from the Nourish cookbook. The nutrition internal page was designed as a standard 2 column layout,

141 with the left hand column providing the recipe details (ingredients and method) and the right hand modular space providing information about cooking time, allergy and nutrition information (Braich, 2013).

Activities – hosted brief videos on a range of topics such as fussy eating and menu

planning. Each video was supported by a quiz to test the uptake of knowledge and accompanying downloadable, printable resources.

Each activity or recipe found in the support, nutrition and activities sections, had a ‘leave a reply’ comment box function, which enabled participants to leave feedback. Print and email functions were also available.

Community –hosted a series of discussion boards, where participants came to share

ideas, seek support and offer advice.

Splash page – the member saw this page first, and had the option to register or log in.

All new members were prompted to register for the site, and were asked for basic demographics as well as nominating a user name and password. This registration process required new members to check a box confirming informed consent (Appendix 13). Newly registered members then joined a moderation queue (Figure 5.3), where the administrator approved or rejected their registration, allocated the level of access, and issued an email confirming their access, together with a link to the pre-intervention survey.

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Figure 5.3 New SNAC user registration process

Homepage –once registered and logged in, members were directed to the homepage. As this was the first page available to members, it was imperative that it represented exactly what the website was and what it intended to do (Braich, 2013). Following this modular feel, the site was arranged into divisions organised by specifically designed colours, based on the SNAC logo Figure 5.5).

At the foot of the website, the researcher’s contact details were provided, together with a disclaimer tab (Terms & Conditions of website use), an information tab (information about the research project), and a privacy tab (a statement about appropriate use of discussion boards).