Request for proposal: Major site revision of my.highschooljournalism.org/my.schooljournalism.org

My.highschooljournalism.org and its sister site, my.schooljournalism.org are hosting sites for school newspapers. They allow non-tech-savvy teachers and students to copy and paste material easily from another application and create a Web page of their newspaper. They have had several add-ons over time, including podcasts, video, RSS, and calendars. They were created via a custom ColdFusion CMS.

We would like to rebuild the site. We would like to radically redesign the front and backend both to freshen the look and to improve its functionality. DotNetNuke is our environment of choice for this major site revision. A primary reason for this is the numerous DNN modules available for new functionality and DNN's reputation for developing portals.

The front-end design for the end-user pages will largely be handled by a separate vendor and you will receive HTML pages. The user admin (admin for posting stories and such) and the "true" admin -- what we use -- will be designed by you.

To…

see the site, go to http://my.highschooljournalism.org

look at the user admin, go to http://my.highschooljournalism.org/schools/admin to log in.

User name: jimmy
Password: neutron

Material posted there will be visible at http://my.highschooljournalism.org/fl/capecanaveral/neutron
It would be a good idea for you to read http://my.highschooljournalism.org/Schools/Admin/my.hsjwelcome.doc so you can become familiar with the site.

We wish to duplicate much of the user admin and admin backend that now exists. We also wish to add several features. These items are outlined lower in the linked RFP document.

Note to bidders:

* Once the bid is assigned, we will expect regular updates, good communication and adherence to the agreed-upon timetable.

* Experience matters in this competition. It will not necessarily go to the lowest bidder.

* Not only are you acting as a programmer in this bid, but as a "systems integrator" if a module that is close to what we're requesting already exists. We expect the initial phase of the project to consist largely of assessing modules.

* We are demanding when it comes to the number of revisions. Please bid with that in mind. If you are not a patient person, we probably are not the project for you.

* We are very much interested in portals that you have created that are similar to this project. We are interested on your clients' feedback for those projects, as well.

TO SEE THE COMPLETE RFP, go to http://my.highschooljournalism.org/rfp