Web Site Features

What sets this web site apart from other community radio web sites?

After much research, this web site was designed with the special requirements of- and options available to Community Radio in mind.

Of special interest was the option to allow the Program Manager, Presenters, Committee members and the listening public to participate in creating and maintaining content for the web site, thereby allowing for a diverse, vibrant and colourful online community truly reflecting a diverse, vibrant and colourful community radio station.

Hereunder I describe some of the features that make that difference:

• Program Schedule
  • 'On Air Now! program title and link to program description page automatically displayed on each page in real time.
  • May be linked to future 'Listen Now!' streaming media server.
  • Weekly Program Schedule with links to program descriptions and presenter biographies laid out in a convenient automatically updated table format.
  • Daily Program Schedule describing the program genre with automatically updated links to program descriptions and presenter biographies.
• Fine grained access security to individual records based on predefined Roles.
  • Administrator with 'super user' access allocates the desired 'Role' to a registered user.
  • Program Manager Role members maintain program schedules and aid presenters with their biographies and program descriptions.
  • Committee members may post in the 'Committee' category and participate in Committee Member only forums.
  • Presenter members add and maintain their own biographies and program descriptions and participate in Presenter only forums such as the 'Presenter Training' forum.
  • Registered users, both members of the station and members of the general public, may participate in general forums and 'comment' on presenter biographies, program descriptions and other blog and forum posts.
• Program Director Role
  • Modifies program schedules at will and in real time simply by deleting a program listing from the desired time slot and adding the new program listing.
  • May aid presenters in creating biographies.
  • May aid presenters in creating program descriptions.
  • Sometimes unavoidable empty program time slots automatically display the message 'We are on autopilot'.
• Presenters Role
  • Create and maintain their own biographies.
  • Create and maintain their own program descriptions.
  • Create and maintain their own playlists.
  • Create and maintain their own podcasts.
  • Participate in general forums and in Presenter only forums.
• Committee Members Role
  • Biographies may be marked to automatically appear in the list of current committee members.
  • Committee members may participate in the committee only forums.
  • Committee members may propose and discuss future Agenda items with a view to aid a clear understanding of issues and a significantly reduced 'discussion time' requirement at meetings.
  • Committee members may participate in a private general discussion forum to discuss any matters of interest or concern to other members of the committee with a view to an open and frank discussion to aid a well formed understanding of issues and the development of a strong information base for the future direction of the station.
• Editor Members Role are generally highly experienced and respected individuals who:
  • help select news feeds and other features for the web site,
  • aid and assist the program director, committee members and presenters with their respective postings.
  • help with moderation of forum topics and comments by members of the station and the general public,
  • assist with the control of so called SPAM posts that plague all public access web sites on the Internet.
• Web Site Theme Options should reflect the 'corporate image' of the community radio station represented.
  • Many web sites often reflect the individual tastes and interests of the original designer however impressive those may be graphically but may, over time, no longer reflect the desired 'image' of the station and may be prohibitively expensive to modify or revamp from a limited supply of public funds.
  • The sophisticated content management system chosen for this web site, Drupal, allows for as many changes in the THEME of the web site as the current committee may desire and at short notice.
  • A new theme may at any time be chosen from literally 1000's of freely available tested and debugged themes.
  • A newly selected 'base theme' may generally be modified to exactly suit the desired 'corporate image' of the station often at a comparatively very low cost to the community.
  • A new theme may be 'plugged in' without having to re-code the web site or re-enter any content.
  • The station may solicit and encourage art and photographic contributions from members and the general community to add colour and interest.

I am sure that I have missed some significant information here and there and thus reserve the right to update and edit this post at any time in the future at my discretion.

Clemens Vermeulen
Volunteer webmaster for 4CRR since 1995

Last update: Cairns, 12 March 2010