culture.gov.au

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Putting your database online

Most cultural organisations use databases of one sort or another: membership records, list of artists and their professional details, catalogue of products in the shop, collection items, publications archives. Traditionally these have been managed using a program like Microsoft’s Access or Filemaker Pro, produced by a subsidiary of Apple Computers. Often these databases sit on one computer located in the administration section of the organisation which, in turn, is sometimes networked to other computers in the office.

The Web provides the wonderful possibility of providing members, the public, or staff located in remote offices, access to the information in the database, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week (or 24x7). Assuming your database is well structured, it is a relatively easy thing for a web developer to recreate it on your website. They simply create an online database using these databases or others designed specifically for the Web (for example SQL) and then write a procedure to electronically migrate the data from your old database to the online database.

The online database would usually sit on the same web server as your website and is accessed for editing, updating, querying and obtaining reports via a username/password system that gives you sole access to the whole thing. Other username/password systems can be set up that give certain groups of people (members, for example) restricted access to the database. In such a system, members might be able to change their own contact details but do not have access to other information held in the database.

But while the technical solution is relatively simple, there are a number of policy and procedural issues you need to consider:

• Who is to have access to what information, e.g. members can only access their details but not see the list of other members?
• Should there be two databases – the old one on the office computer plus the online database – or does the online database replace the old one?
• Can the cost be justified? Do the efficiency gains and added convenience outweigh the extra cost?
• How secure does the online database have to be, e.g. against hackers? Assuming the online database is backed up every day by the web host, how significant are the down-sides to the database being hacked or destroyed accidentally? How much are you prepared to pay to have it secure?
• What are the privacy issues and risks of making the database available to the whole world 24x7?
• Do you own the old database? If your organisation did not create and update it in-house there may be some issues about ownership and your right to recreate it online.
• Is the old database up-to-date, are the records accurate and without embarrassing gaps? If the old database is hopelessly flawed, you might need to start from scratch when creating the online database.
• How is the website database to be updated, by whom and how often – for example, do you give members the ability to change their own contact details?

More and more organisations are moving towards having just the one online database because it avoids duplication of effort, confusion over which is the more up-to-date and provides workplace flexibility for staff who can access the database no matter where they are.

Consider basing your whole website around a database

Whether or not you have an existing database (for example, of members) that you want put on your website, consider using the power and versatility of a database to manage the contents of your entire website.

Where most simple websites consist of numerous individual, static pages, a database-driven website stores its content in a database. Any page of such a website that a user selects to view is generated at the moment he or she requests to view it. The web developer would have written code that extracts from the database the information required to construct the chosen page (for example words, images, logos, audio). This is sometimes referred to as a dynamic website because each page is constructed on the fly.

There are strong reasons for using a database-driven website:

• It is an extremely efficient solution for maintaining the content of the site.
• It allows any data collected from the user, such as contact details, bookings or orders to be stored efficiently for instant retrieval by staff, the user or automatically by the website itself.
• It enables users to search the site very effectively - for images, video and audio clips and even the occurrence of individual words or phrases.

A database-driven website can store every piece of electronic data created by an organisation. Instead of having, for example, a membership list on one computer, images, event information, catalogues and price lists on another and internal documents, such as quality manuals, policies and procedures, on yet another computer, they can all come together in the one place on the website - or the computer that hosts the website.

A database-driven website provides great flexibility for staff and members because it makes its content accessible via the Internet at any time of the day or night, from anywhere in the world, and to anyone - staff, members or friends - who has password access.

What to do

Consult the following online references for more information.

The Building section of the NOIE ebusinessguide deals with database driven websites.

Sensis, who produce the White Pages and Yellow Pages, has developed a very useful document entitled Planning a Business Website. It contains practical advice about developing websites and covers the issue of using databases to manage content. For more information visit the Sensis website and download a copy of Planning a Business Website.

The CARP Internet Development Guide 8. What do I need for my website? considers web interfaces to information databases.

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