Flat content

Virtually any networking platform, which is able to run a web browser on a workstation, will support the dissemination of ‘flat’ or ‘static’ content. The simplistic ease with which this framework can be installed to deliver static information is by far the most common form in which an Intranet first materialises.

This kind of information is simply held in files (web pages or other standardised documents such as wordprocessed files or spreadsheets, etc) on either a networked file or web server. The information is then retrieved and viewed through the use of a web browser and hyperlinks exactly in the same way as the World Wide Web is navigated.

Examples of flat content include:

• Travel aids, maps, service point locations, etc
• The organisation mission statement, aims and objectives, history of organisation
• Internal contact directories: including basic details, job function, location and email addresses
• Internal newsletters and related business info: share prices, major contract info, messages from the Chief Executive Officer or Managing Director
• Product information: specification and ranges of the organisation’s products/services; departmental pages: contact details, functions/remits and activities
• Events calendars: relating to organisation and industry-related events and activities
• Dissemination, and compliance/maintenance of policy and procedures manuals e.g. Health and Safety systems, ISO 9000, BS5750 etc.
• FAQ’s (frequently asked questions)
• Recruiting and internal job postings
• Subject specific information may be mirrored from the Internet
• Hierarchical subject menus, portals or quality filters providing organised signposts and live hyperlinks to relevant business sources available on the Internet

Interactive content

Once you have identified or started to fill your Intranet with static content and are satisfied that measures, policies and procedures are in place continuously to improve the management of this information; you may then wish to examine how your organisation may capitalise from more interactive Intranet applications such as:

• Electronic mail
• Educational / training systems
• Helpdesk systems
• Search engines
• Forms processing applications i.e. resource reservation systems for conference rooms, pool cars and office equipment; feedback on official documents, reports and surveys; submission of expense claims; submission of internal order/purchase documentation
• Discussion / conferencing boards / Community of Practices (CoP)

It is important to note here the additional technology that is required for an Intranet to make the progression from being able to provide just ‘flat content’ to include ‘interactive content’. It is possible to implement a ‘flat content’ Intranet on a client-server based network without using TCP/IP (Internet Protocol) (Blackmore, 1997b) as long as it will support the use of web browsers on its workstations. However, to provide examples of the interactive content listed above, you will need to install a web server. This is software needed to execute the various programmes and ‘scripts’ required for the provision of interactive and dynamic content.

Commercial or externally-sourced information

• Electronic databases
• Electronic journals
• Electronic newsfeeds

These examples may fall into either category of flat or interactive content depending on the product or service subscribed to or purchased but you may find that the provision of such resources provides an effective ‘honey-pot’ to attract users quickly and to ensure they return frequently.

In researching the subject matter for this chapter, commercial services and products available for populating Intranets with current awareness information were sought. A number of large on-line database providers were surveyed, with regards to their current and future policies on allowing customers to distribute content on their respective Intranets. On the whole most responses were surprisingly reserved. As one senior product manager, who did not wished to be named, commented’…too much time and investment is put into producing our databases for us to then risk the information becoming freely available to all and sundry without charge. Even worse, to risk the content being gleaned by a competitor for their own use/

Other providers claimed they were currently discussing policy on such use of their products across corporate Intranets, whilst others commented that such arrangements would need to be negotiated between themselves and each individual customer on an individual basis. Those policies that did exist tended to be based upon the number of potential users in the organisation and the time span that the content would be available on the system.

STN on the other hand, the on-line database provider for science and technology information, already has such a service in place that goes by the name of the ‘STN Information Keep and Share Programme’. The STN Programme allows clients to purchase the right to archive and redistribute search results retrieved from STN databases. However they highlight that in a minor number of exceptional cases, restrictions are placed on the use of specific database contents.

Chemical Abstracts, containing more than 15 million document records, is one such database producer that understandably has ‘acceptable use policies’ in place to protect its intellectual property. On closer inspection these policies would seem not to be too restrictive when conditions such as the following apply.

The Dialog Corporation has also recently launched their Intranet Toolkit (Dialog, 2000) offering live access to several thousand databanks via a customised web interface. The difference between this form of access made via the Intranet and the conventional access available to anyone via the Internet is that usage is controlled and managed centrally in the organisation. This remit may be held by a member of the Intranet administration team or a department charged specifically with this role, such as the Library and Information department.

LEXIS-NEXIS, The Business and Industry database provider, also permits use of their information to populate corporate Intranets. Documents from a 60-day news archive can be selected and posted to an organisation’s Intranet web servers for up to 90 days.

Business Intelligence information

For those organisations operating in a competitive business climate or market sector, an Intranet may provide more high-profiled returns if the content reflects such information needs. Intranet Design Magazine (2000) provides examples of competitive intelligence information that can be managed and shared on an Intranet. These are categorised as follows:

Launching legacy systems via web-based menus

Many organisations will have significant amounts of information and databases provided by commercial information providers. These may include bibliographic databases or full-text resources. Although information providers are slowly adding web-interfaces to these products, independent software solution vendors are now supplying a means of adding a web interface to almost any CD-ROM based product. This removes the need for individual workstations to be configured in order to allow access. Two specific UK-produced products in this market are: Info Technology Supply Ltd [http://www.itsltduk.com] and UltraNet [http://www.fenwood.co.uk]. These products also have metering systems to allow simultaneous usage to be monitored, so as not to contravene any licensing agreements with commercial information providers. Despite the availability of this technology, anyone considering purchasing such a solution would be advised first to check with the supplier that any third party content is licensed to be networked in the first place.

Such solutions however can be expensive and may not be a viable option for many organisations. One way of compromising on such provision is to use the Intranet to guide the user to a specific resource and then enable the user to launch the resource rather than run the application through the web browser itself. This method of launching any application with an executable file is especially useful for a number of reasons:

• provides quick point-and-click access to resources and applications across the network
• allows disparate resources to be readily located by categorising under meaningful subject headings
• introductory text describing the resource contents can be provided along with signposts to any in-house generated help-sheets or manuals
• provides a means of bringing complementary or alternative sources to the attention of users who may have not been aware of their existence previously
• removes the need for users to navigate, and be familiar with, network and drive mapping procedures

In my own practice at Lancaster University Careers Service we have many applications and software packages available for both staff and students. Many of these include electronic directories, computer-assisted guidance packages and CD-ROM based multimedia resources supplied by graduate employers and other information service providers. All these resources can be found and launched on the Careers Service and University campus Intranet by clicking on their respective links. Each link seamlessly connects to a simple script (i.e. batch file) that maps a drive to the location of the target resource and passes a command for the executable file to run. As far as the user is concerned, the application requires no more skill to launch the application than is required to click on the respective hyperlink.

By its very nature, every compromise obviously has its limitations. In this case, users must be accessing the Intranet via a workstation connected directly to the network.

Convert existing documentation using conversion utilities

Many organisations have thousands of pages of policies and reference material in proprietary format. It is highly unusual for systems these days not to have some kind of utility function for converting or saving them in HTML so that they may be readily published onto the Intranet. Once this is done you may want to consider whether this information needs to be maintained in its original format at all. It may be preferable to maintain all future amendments in HTML.

PowerPoint presentations can also be simply converted into web shows using a minimum number of clicks by the author without any prior knowledge of HTML authoring. With the vast number of PowerPoint presentations available within an organisation, this again is a simple and quick way of populating the content space of an Intranet. Likewise, databases such as Access allow any number of comprehensive reports to be generated quickly into HTML format.

However a health warning should be made with this kind of strategy. As with any kind of ‘live’ presentations there are good and bad computer-generated presentations and the quality of the overall content of an Intranet should not be compromised by blindly converting all computer-formatted presentations into HTML pages. Whether this control is self-imposed or judged by a third party, basic questions should be asked regarding quality before such information is published on the Intranet. For instance, does the presentation offer value to the organisation as a piece of knowledge or information in its own right, or can notes or some other complementary information be added, such as a summary report of the original presentation? Of course such quality measures can be made much more effective if made explicit in an organisation’s publishing policy.