European Law Students Association (ELSA)
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"a pan-European virtual
management system that reduces routine
management time by 95%"
www.elsa.org
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Media description
Internet, extranet website integrated with virtual membership management system.
Client name
ELSA (The European Law Students' Association)
Client Profile
ELSA is the world's largest independent international law students' association comprising a membership in excess of 25,000 law students and recent graduates.
Brief
To create a virtual system to manage ELSA's geographically dispersed membership and to automate the entire process of matching students with available traineeships. Additionally, to create a new website which is easy to support and maintain by non-technical ELSA staff.
Solution
A public website and an access controlled online system based on a central database of members and contacts. Allows various ELSA management groups to administer the system remotely and update dynamic areas of the website whilst regular members have access to services provided by ELSA.
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Case study
As ELSA is managed by over 200 groups distributed throughout Europe, remote access to a single system was required. Therefore a central relational database of members was developed and made accessible using a standard browser via the Web.
An access control mechanism allows the various local ELSA management groups to administer the system whilst allowing regular members to access the various services provided by ELSA e.g. the STEP programme.
The administrative interface enables ELSA's headquarters staff to maintain the content of the most regularly changing areas of the website e.g. news, seminars, conferences and other events as well as a comprehensive library of relevant web resources.
The resulting solution is a scalable management system that has cut down administration time by 95% and provides students and members with fast access to ELSA's community, services and traineeship opportunities.
Brand Development
ELSA wished to implement an online system to manage the entire process of running exchange programmes and re-establish its position as a young and dynamic organisation with a global mission.
Using ELSA's current logo as the central theme, we developed a sophisticated and subtle colour palette and font set to create a consistent online brand which will be used in both the public front end and the administrative back end of the system. By introducing youthful and dynamic pictures of real members of ELSA as a prominent part of the design we established the site in accordance with the client's wishes. The design was also commended by the client for its potential to absorb sponsors' banner adverts without compromising the brand integrity.
The new system reduced administration time by 95% while increasing awareness of the site to the client's delight. The design supports a modular system and new functionality can be added easily for new releases of the system without major re-design work.
Features
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A virtual management system that enables the various groups within ELSA to access relevant system functionality via the Web e.g. member details, traineeship details, company and contact details.
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A fully automated student matching programme. ELSA simply enters the traineeship specification and the system takes care of finding the best fit student from the database of applicants. Students are automatically alerted when they have been matched with a suitable traineeship.
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A vibrant community website that is cost-effective to update with news, details of ELSA's international activities and services.
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A content management system that supports geographically independent editing. Site administers need only a computer, internet connection and browser and they can edit the site in real time, from anywhere. No technical expertise is required. |
Benefits
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A versatile system that can be easily extended to provide additional membership services in the future. New functionality can be added in modules.
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Browser-based system empowers the local management groups to administer their own programmes and encourages standard, best practice organisational processes.
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A website that communicates the brand values of the organisation and demonstrates ELSA's commitment to member relationship management. Web technology has been embraced to meet a key organisational objective - to build closer relationships with existing and prospective members.
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Site updating costs significantly reduced by virtue of the content management system. |
Technology
ASP (Active Server Pages) and Microsoft SQL Server 7
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Internet Information Server v5 (IIS)
Microsoft Site Server 3