Case description
Square Kilometer Array Observatory is one of the largest scientific endeavors in the world. From 2022 onwards, radio telescope arrays of unprecedented size will be built in South-Africa and Western Australia. 16 countries and numerous scientific research institutions on all continents are taking part in this groundbreaking project that will consist of 200 satellite dishes , 512 stations and over 130.000 antennas.The mission of the SKAO website is to communicate with all humans about this extraordinary quest of discoveries. Therefore we must enable communication to be seamless in multiple languages, comprehensible on different levels of understanding and suitable for people from all backgrounds. Above all, we believe people want to be inspired.
Case goals and results
Our main goal was to provide the SKAO organization with an online communication platform that has the power to inspire, inform and involve people globally. The website has been set up in Drupal CMS, is multilingual and optimally accessible in every part of the world (adaptive allocation). We created a design that is focussed on clarity, readability and inclusiveness while simultaneously enhancing the ambitions and status of SKAO.During the exploration phase, it became clear that SKAO needs to communicate with a very broad audience: ranging from inhabitants of the areas where the arrays are being built to intergouvernemental organizations, from interested novices to specialized astronomers. Everyone needs to be able to access the required information. Therefore, conceptually the website has been set up with an editorial content flow that reflects this challenge: exploring visually with a big Wow!-factor on the surface, slowly shifting towards specialized information for professionals on deeper levels.
SKAO HQ is located near Manchester (UK), but its employees are spread out globally. In total, around 100 people are involved, of whom the most are international editors. After working together with the SKAO team for over a year, the website was launched in July ‘22.
Challenges
Since SKAO has the ambition to communicate in at least 16 languages simultaneously, we enhanced the editorial workflow by integrating Amazon's translation services. Editors are now able to create an automatic translation of the content of a page. In our workflow, global editors have been assigned languages to assess and edit before being published.Unexpected challenges during development often originated from national regulations, e.g. China is blocking Google completely. In our efforts to create an open information source for ‘all humans’, we had to look for alternative and adaptive ways to securely deliver media, statistics etc.
Community contributions
We believe in Drupal! Our commitment is the reason we sponsor and support the Drupal community and its events. Our contributions and modules related to this project are:Contributions for Drupal core (https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/)
Contributions for Paragraphs module (https://www.drupal.org/project/paragraphs/)
As a grateful part of the Drupal Community, we have used the following (most interesting) modules:
Geofield Map (https://www.drupal.org/project/geofield_map)
Leaflet Mapbox (https://www.drupal.org/project/leaflet_mapbox)
Matomo (https://www.drupal.org/project/matomo)
Real AES (https://www.drupal.org/project/real_aes)
Apart from this project, we have already contributed several modules to the community. These can be found on our Drupal.org page. (https://www.drupal.org/betawerk)
Categories
Non-profit
Date when website went live
1 year 4 months ago
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