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TECHNICAL PLAN
Finances
The assumption is that this web site will be hosted by an academic organization.
$450,000 will be required to set up this site and provide for its on going funding. This figure breaks down as follows:
Endowment to permit continued funding of research assistant permit periodic technological refresh $372,000.
Initial web graphic design 480 hours @ $50/hr = $24,000
Initial web html coding 480 hours @ $60/hr = $28,800
Part time research assistant for 1st yr = $21,000
Hardware and IT services for 1 year = $4,200
Staffing
Graphic design and html expert support for 3 months to set up site.
One part time research assistant to maintain and up date site
Note: If I were to do everything myself the cost would be much less but it would take much longer to complete.
Software
Software would be industry standard for graphic design (Adobe Photoshop, ImageReady, and Illustrator). Pages will be CSS, html, and Java Script. Preference for the research assistant would be one who could work directly with a text editor rather than use a web building program. If a web building program is required the standard for the institution hosting the web site will be used. The survey section of the site will use the Survey Builder tool from the CHNM.
Design
The design for the narrative section of this site will follow the model set by Thomas Thurston in his Hearsay of the Sun site <http://chnm.gmu.edu/aq/photos/index.htm> we examined earlier in the class. The advantage to the four-section frame layout he uses is that it keeps all the information on a single screen. As with Thurston’s site my site will have site wide navigation at the top, the narrative in one large frame, maps and photos hyperlinked from the narrative in a smaller frame along side, and references across the bottom. There is no plan at present to have the graphic material separately available as Thurston does.
There will be a section that lists all ships that participated in these actions with links to other sites associated with each ship. This section will be more on the lines of a traditional list of hyperlinks than something else.
The survey forms and database will reside on the CHNM server. Once the survey form is designed and its URL assigned what will appear on this site is a link to the survey form. Using the layout that was used in the narrative section it will open the survey form inside a frame on one of the pages of this site.
Expert Interview
My primary consultant for this proposal is Mr. Walter O’Hara Java Script expert, Cold Fusion guru, and web designer for the official web site I oversee for my government customer <http://auscannzukus-navalc3.hq.navy.mil/>. Graphic design I can do myself. Walt is someone who explains how what I want to do would be very difficult to execute on the web.
Marketing
Based on the experience of other veteran related web sites once the site is up and visible to the search engines the target audience will begin to arrive on their own. Still it doesn’t hurt to advertise. The U.S. Naval Institute’s two publications Proceedings and Naval History both provide free announcements for researchers looking for interviewees. Then there are the ship association web sites. Most have either a newsletter or a bulletin board where the announcement of this site could be posted. Those that don’t have these devices do have some other means of communication between members so a e-mail to the Webmaster might work on those sites. These approaches specifically target the audience that I hope will provide responses. Announcements can also be placed in locations such as H-War <http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~war/> and sci.military.naval <http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=sci.military.naval> but this would attract visitors more likely to just view the material or offer comment on the existing content.