The Board of Trustees have recently been conducting a review of their publications and publicity, in particular the NCBA website and Trainer’s course notes.

The existing website was originally built over 10 years ago and has had numerous functions ‘bolted on’ over the years, in an effort to keep up with the developing organisation.  Whilst it has served its members well by the content of the website it would be fair to say that this has become somewhat dated.  The NCBA therefore have contracted Fireside Media to conduct an overhaul of the website in order to bring the most benefit & value to NCBA, and that this would include both the website design and underlying technology and design.  This should provide a sound platform for development both now and in the future, as well as adding a degree of self-sufficiency (i.e. NCBA and its partners can maintain and add to the site).

All the current site functionality will still be required but some areas will be grouped more logically. At a high level, it is proposed moving to a hosted WordPress site, creating an updated look & feel around a WordPress template, building, developing and testing the new website iteratively (i.e. modules are built, tested, refined & released, closely involving NCBA staff and users to ensure requirements are met).

The website is expected to launch in the new year.

The second initiative the NCBA is undertaking is a review of the course notes, syllabus and course profiles.  The Trainers area of the website contains a wealth of information for the administration and running of courses.  Whilst this information is regularly reviewed it is not always easy to navigate through the content.  Therefore, a small sub-committee has been set up to look, not necessarily at the content, but more at how this can be better presented to both the Trainer and the candidate as well as the public at large.  The deliberations of this committee will be disseminated to NCBA Trainers for their comments in due course.