In the first quarter of 2007, Aaron Surty joined ARROW as an intern sponsored by Human Rights Internet, a Canadian organization. Aaron was responsible for the transfer of ARROW's website to a free open-source solution. (www.arrow.org.my) The transfer has opened doors for ARROW to further their goals by using information communication technologies (ICT's) via the Internet. ARROW could potentially manage their networks in a centralized location by providing a sign-up page for people interested in receiving their email-newsletter or for subscribing to ARROW's for Change. ARROW can now gather intelligence about how people are currently using their website that could aid them in developing concrete indicators of how their goals are being met. ARROW can determine which geographic region people are viewing the website from, what pages people are going to and how long they stay on each. More advanced intelligence can be gathered such as determining the percentage of visitors that proceed to sign-up for ARROW's newsletter and where on the Internet visitors are coming from be it search engine, email or other websites.
By using open-source software, further development to the website's source code could take place. For example, the virtual catalog search engine could be combined with the website's search engine in order to direct people more frequently to the wealth of ARROW's virtual catalog. The search engine could also be used as an intelligence gathering tool by looking at the most common keyword's that are entered. Other forms of automated feedback could be implemented such as using polls, surveys and forms. In terms of overall aesthetics, ARROW could design several templates for the website and control which pages the template is applied to or independently choose to revert back to an older template without ever contacting a developer to apply the change. A staff login page has already been created so that any staff member could potentially add, edit or remove existing content in the website. For project management purposes, the staff member's name and creation date of new pages will be stored.
Joomla!, the software driving ARROW's website, was developed by a large group of international volunteers in 2005. Since then the community has grown to several hundred thousand members and is quickly becoming the standard for NGO's to base their websites on. Thousands of add-ons have been created by other developers that are not members of the core team and are readily available on their website. For example, one add-on will allow the ARROW staff to take periodic back-ups of their website so to not lose the legacy of the information stored on their website.
Aaron has acquired a wealth of information and experience during his internship with ARROW. The success of his work would not have been possible without the enormous amount of time ARROW has invested in him.
