COMPANY :: awards

VIRTUAL LIBRARY ON CD WINS MAJOR AWARD

Netimpact Online Publishing, a Canberra based company providing electronic publishing and knowledge management solutions, has won first place in The Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (ISTC) 2001 Electronic Publication Awards.

Established for more than 50 years, the ISTC is the largest UK body representing professional communicators and information designers. The ISTC's mission is to set and improve standards for communication of the scientific and technical information that support products, services or business. ISTC members have a wide variety of backgrounds and work in many fields. The results of their work are all around you: user guides, manuals, online information, the internet, product design.

Netimpact Online Publishing has been previously awarded by the ISTC in 1999, when they won second place in the same category of awards for the National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA) Rural and Remote Health Papers 1991-1999 on CD ROM.

Left to right: CASA representatives: Craig Ramsey, Steven James, Mick Toller, Netimpact Directors: Victoria Richardson and Chris Toogood

Netimpact's winning entry this year is the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) Document Library on CD ROM. This document library is the only comprehensive collection of Civil Aviation regulatory material related to flying safety available to the airline industry in Australia. The CD Library replaces 24 volumes of loose-leaf printed materials and is designed to be re-issued every 8 weeks as a concise, accurate and legally enforceable set of technical documentation for the Australian aviation industry. The intended outcome of this project is to provide the industry with technical documentation that encourages frequent use because it is current, reliable and accurate.

Netimpact has created unique information retrieval, searching and display environments, which are carefully crafted and wrapped around the core content of the virtual library. This allows a search across whole documents or across the whole library of titles to find the exact information the client requires.

As well as virtual libraries on CD, Netimpact provides clients with other innovative information products such as networked information, database to web applications, call centre desktop products and document management applications.

Netimpact Online Publishing continues to evaluate emerging technologies and standards for the display of onscreen information. They pride themselves on the innovative application of their technical and knowledge management skills, which in turn enables their clients to use their information more profitably.

For enquiries please contact client manager Chris Toogood on (02) 6232 5201.

INFORMATIVE CD SNAPS UP INTERNATIONAL AWARD

'Rural and Remote Health Papers 1991-1998' published by Canberra company Netimpact Online Publishing, has collected an award in the prestigious UK Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators 1999 Annual Documentation Awards in Leicester, announced in September.

Victoria Richardson, Director of Netimpact, says the international award recognises an Australian solution that delivers the right results, using the right technology for the right people.

"We were presented with an information problem that required large amounts of printed text, word processing files, publishing files and spreadsheets to be delivered seamlessly to the health professional in a easy to use product.

We used our own advanced publishing techniques to digitise close to twelve thousand pages of information and allow every single word on every single page to be keyword searchable. The end result is a platform and system independent virtual library that delivers results, anywhere, anytime at a significantly economical cost when compared to distributing the equivalent of print publications on the CD."

The architecture of the CD emphasises usability. Usability is emerging as the trademark of the products that Netimpact publishes for on-screen. A previous CD product published by Netimpact to promote Australian IT capability overseas, received a regional Industry Award for Excellence for innovation in 1998.

"We place extraordinary emphasis on putting on our clients shoes, to make sure we deliver a product that works the way they want it to and delivers results to meet their information needs" Victoria said.

"I predict that usability will emerge as the next big wave in the delivery on material in the onscreen environment", she said. "We do a lot of things with computer technology today, just because we can. What I think we ought to be doing is to make the technology invisible, and place the emphasis on the quality of the result.

Unlike the old saying 'the medium is the message', I believe the medium is the messenger. Content is the message and the better we design our content for ease of use and access, the better our message can be understood. The book model of delivering information in a linear, well structured package is not relevant to the on-screen environment where a reader can click into a passage of text from any number of places. On-screen information needs new signposts for usability and wayfinding because the ones we use from the book model, at present, are turning into frustrations for on-screen readers" she said.

1998 INDUSTRY AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE

Presented in recognition of an achievement of excellence in the areas of graphic design, pre press, printing, finishing or multi media.

This Award was presented in October 1998 to Netimpact Online Publishing for the information design of the "1998 Australian Information Industries Capability Directory" published on CD ROM for the Department of Industry, Science and Tourism (DIST). This CD ROM was prepared for initial distribution at the CeBit 1998 Trade Fair in Germany, and has been used widely since by DIST and other organisations to promote Australian IT capabilities around the world.

This product was awarded for:

• Offering the best possible access to information, with information retrieval tailored to reader's needs
• Clearly and simply communicating Australian IT information in a universal (multi-platform) format
• Using an innovative 'publishing solution' to solve an information retrieval problem efficiently and effectively
• Providing an information resource that required little or no existing IT knowledge to use

STUDY AWARD

This award is presented to assist further study in a related field of achievement.

Netimpact used the Study Award to travel to the User Interface Engineering conference in San Fransciso. Major presenters at the conference included web design expert Jakob Neilson www.useit.com, user interface guru Jared M. Spool www.uie.com and digital designer Bruce Tognazzini www.asktog.com.

Netimpact Online Publishing is grateful to the organising committee and sponsors of the 1998 Canberra Region Graphic Arts Awards for these awards. Further information on the above awards and their outcomes is available from: manager@netimpact.com.au