Invitation to tender - Ravensbourne University London, website redevelopment project

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done Ravensbourne.ac.uk is a critical business tool, but it needs to work much harder to help achieve our strategic and financial goals around student growth, and to more accurately reflect our brand differentiation, core offer and services. We are keen to enhance the user experience and maximise interest in our courses to increase applications and enrolments. The website must also meet the needs of our commercial and educational partners. Ideally, we would like it to launch in March/April 2020. Problem to Be Solved An audit and review of our website has confirmed that the design and user experience require action. Navigation isn’t intuitive so it can be hard to find pages, and moving between those pages isn’t always logical. Our visual identity also needs to be more immersed in the website to bring out our creativity and innovation. We are seeking a new CMS platform that will suit our complex requirements and bring content and technology more closely together. The existing web content will need a complete overhaul so that it better supports the user journey, especially student conversion. Who Are the Users As a student or parent, I need to easily find information on courses, student services and open days so I can decide if the university is for me/my child. As an industry professional or alumni, I need to feel confident in the Ravensbourne brand so I or my organisation can collaborate on future projects. As a current student or staff member, I need a website that reflects who we are, so I feel proud to contribute content to it. As a potential funder or partner, I need the right resources so I can decide whether to develop a future relationship. Early Market Engagement None undertaken. Work Already Done Last year Ravensbourne University commissioned an external agency to conduct an audit of our website. This focused on the following: (a) A high-level review of the site’s content, navigation, content hierarchy, messaging and visual approach (b) A review of existing analytics and an SEO audit (c) A workshop designed to map our broader digital strategic goals The next step was a discovery phase, which laid the foundations for further work by examining the Ravensbourne University brand, our users, our technology needs and our visual approach, with the aim of recommending a new solution. Existing Team The team consists of the: (1) Head of marketing and communications within whose team the website sits (2) Digital project manager who currently looks after the technical aspects of the existing website (3) Digital content manager who manages our web and intranet content (4) Programme IT project manager who will provide advice and input on the project (5) Website redevelopment project manager (TBC). We aim to recruit for this post imminently. The project manager will be the main point of contact for the winning agency Current Phase Not started Work Location Ravensbourne University London 6 Penrose Way London SE10 0EW Working Arrangments The project will be delivered collaboratively in a quality-controlled environment, applying Prince2-Agile principles with pre-defined approval gates agreed by the Project Management Office (PMO). Regular communication is essential, including weekly status review sessions and client access to project tools. The supplier will identify a core team to work closely with Marketing and Communications, PMO, and subject matter experts across the university, on agile iterations and time-boxed deliverables throughout the project. The supplier must attend on-site activities when required, in particular during IA, discovery, user experience journey mapping, content review, UX design and deployment support. No expenses will be awarded. Security Clearance No security clearance is required. Additional T&Cs There are no additional terms and conditions. Skills & Experience Have demonstrable experience (3 live site examples) and track record in building and developing large, consumer facing responsive websites, on either WordPress, Drupal or Umbraco CMS platforms Have demonstrable experience of strong responsive design work that closely reflects organisational brands and evidence of content design skills that optimise engagement Be a full service digital agency with a full complement of roles such as IA,UI, UX, technical, build, development, support, project management and account management Have experience of content strategy, migrating and rationalising content from an existing site Have demonstrable experience and skills using project management tools and methodologies Have experience of providing supporting technical and architectural documentation Have experience delivering digital services to at least a AA WCAG 2.0 web accessibility standard and an awareness of WCAG 2.1 Have experience of optimising sites for continued improvement using mainstream analytics platforms Hold or confirm commitment to obtain cyber security essentials certification before starting work Have a good understanding of, demonstrable experience in, and provides guidance on, content optimised for conversion (CRO), SEO (on-page, architecture and technical) and engagement Provide examples of successful website integrations with APIs, other applications and databases/feeds Have experience of building search pages that can use tools (e.g. faceted, sort, displays, filters) Have experience of information security controls demonstrating that core principles outlined in common information security frameworks (ISO27001, CSC, NIST) are actively applied to both development and service delivery work streams Maintain the use of appropriate security and encryption protocols such as TLS 1.2 and is able to demonstrate this through regular vulnerability and penetration testing exercises Demonstrate compliance with the GDPR and UK Data Protection Act 2018, with sufficient technical and logical controls applied to maintain the confidentiality, integrity and availability of personal data Demonstrate the hosting environment provides an excellent user experience with <2000ms load times from any location Provide a fully replicated test and development environment, for the suitable testing of system and plugin upgrades, configuration changes Demonstrate that the hosting environment meets Disaster Recovery RTO (1hr) and RPO (1hr) times Nice to Haves Can meet the planned start date of April 2019 Experience of building higher education websites Experience of working with not-for-profit organisations No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 6 Proposal Criteria Further breakdown of criteria and scoring will be provided after shortlisting Demonstrate the proposed technical solution Demonstrate a transparent financial structure and fair pricing for the project Demonstrate that the team has relevant individual qualification and skills and capacity to complete work Demonstrate how the project will be kept on track, meet requirements and delivered to time and to budget Demonstrate approach to project methodologies to deliver project Demonstrate outline of approach to testing, quality assurance and training and support Proven relevant web development and user centred design skills and experience from case studies and references Demonstrate how risks and dependencies will be identified, and managed Cultural Fit Criteria Share knowledge and experience with other team members. Challenge the status quo with realistic and workable solutions. Be comfortable standing up for their discipline. Accepts responsibility for work. Be able to present in layman's terms. Be adaptable and consultative in approach. Be able to win buy-in from staff by being transparent and collaborative. Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method Written proposal Case study Work history Reference Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 10% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers Budget range £300,000 (including hosting, support and maintenance)