New Humanist magazine

New Humanist is published by the Rationalist Association, a 125-year old charity which promotes reason, science and secularism. We have been providing the RA with bespoke web systems to help manage their content and data since 2007.

The current New Humanist website was developed in collaboration with web design and digital strategy specialists Mr & Mrs OK.

newhumanist.org.uk

Ellen Terry and Edith Craig Database

Victorian actress Ellen Terry was one of the first stars of the British stage, and her daughter Edith Craig a prominent theatrical and political figure. Prof Katharine Cockin of the University of Essex worked over a number of years to catalogue the extensive archive related to the two women preserved at Smallhythe Place in Kent, Terry's former home.

As part of a major AHRC project led by Prof Cockin, we were asked to provide technical consultancy to transform the existing Microsoft Access database into a fully searchable but user-friendly online resource for researchers. The work involved prototyping the interface with target users, building administration and front-end systems, migrating the data to MySQL and server installation.

The database was officially launched in June 2009 and currently contains over 20,000 records of correspondence, cuttings and other artefacts. An article about the database was published in October 2009 by the English Subject Centre, and a more detailed essay by Prof Cockin and Julian Halliwell appears in Ellen Terry, Spheres of Influence (Pickering & Chatto, 2011).

More recently we worked with Prof Cockin and designers Mr & Mrs OK on a new AHRC project to update and enhance the database for a broader audience: Searching for Theatrical Ancestors, which was launched at the British Library in July 2016.

ellenterryarchive.essex.ac.uk

ESCalate (University of Bristol)

Part of the network of discipline-specific Higher Education support centres which operated from 2000-2011, ESCalate was the education subject centre with a remit to disseminate resources and promote good practice and inter-institutional networking in Education and Continuing Education departments across UK HEIs.

From 2004 until 2011 we hosted ESCalate's website and provided a bespoke support and development service.

escalate.ac.uk

Merlin (University of Hull)

Originally the result of an R & D project with BT, The University of Hull developed its own web-based "Virtual Learning Environment" (VLE) during the late 1990s to support e-learning both on and off-campus.

From 2002 until 2009, Merlin was hosted and supported by us with over 2000 students, tutors and project partners on and off-campus using Merlin regularly as part of their learning and teaching activity.

GO4IT Translations: Job management system

A small but busy UK-based translation service, GO4IT needed a way of integrating business data held in several ad hoc Excel and other sources and extending direct administrative access to a partner office in Spain.

We developed a MySQL database and web front end bringing job tracking, invoicing and client records all within a single interface and giving the remote partner full autonomous access to the data over the internet. This has saved valuable time not only by removing the need for constant co-ordination via email or phone, but also by automating job collation, invoice generation and other administrative tasks.