Developing+CD-+or+DVD-roms

=Developing CD-Roms or DVD-Roms= toc Sometimes, at the end of a project or initiative, it is very useful to develop a CD- or DVD-Rom (henceforth referred to as 'DVD') containing all information about the project/initiative so as to:
 * Hand out a nice set of materials, tools etc. to staff and partners who have been involved in the initiative;
 * Archive / store all the materials that were ever produced by that initiative, for the record;
 * Make a lot of the materials and stories accessible offline for audiences that may not enjoy a well working Internet connection.

Step-wise approach (checklist / reminder)

 * Set up a team to clarify objectives, contents, processes etc.
 * Assess the types of content you may want to include in the DVD
 * The full website offline
 * The related CG Space collection(s)
 * Movies
 * Pictures
 * Presentations and posters
 * Audio files
 * The wiki
 * Start planning the collection / dumping / import of all contents
 * Prepare the DVD itself

General issues

 * What is the objective of developing this DVD?
 * What is the audience of the DVD? Who **really needs** to have it?
 * What is the budget for the DVD production?
 * How many copies are you planning to disseminate?
 * How will you disseminate the DVDs?
 * What is the time frame you have in mind?

From our experience, developing 500 DVDs costs about 2500 USD - not including staff time nor distribution costs however..

About the DVD itself
Think about the following:
 * Who will need/receive the DVD? Are they likely to have a computer? A DVD drive (or a CD-Rom drive)? Do they have access to the Internet (for some files that might happen to not be stored on the DVD but linked to their online location)
 * Where it will be produced (master copy and all dissemination copies). It is better (cheaper) to develop it in e.g. Nairobi than in Addis Ababa for that matter.
 * Whether the full contents are likely fit in one CD-Rom (600 or 700 MB) or one DVD (roughly 4.4 GB of usable space). If they don't fit, what contents are really essential for that audience and which ones are just 'nice to have'.

About the offline website
The best option is to use a software called 'Web2Disc' where the full contents of a Wordpress blog can be dumped locally onto the DVD - except videos which create a glitch and should be added manually... Furthermore, all links to live locations need to be replaced with local links so they work offline.

About CG Space
Steps we followed to download CGSpace - NBDC collections.

1. Identify a suitable software (HTTrack) - @http://www.httrack.com/ 2. Download the software to a PC 3. Set the options to also allow PDF download 4. Download the whole NBDC collections structure, metadata, thumbnails and bitstreams

About Pictures
If your photos are on Flickr, the best option is to use a software called 'Bulkr PRO' where the full contents of Flickr can be downloaded to your local computer
 * You may need to buy the software before using it - this is now done for ILRI.
 * You need to standardize all albums on Flickr before downloading photos (make sure that all photos are properly titled, described and tagged)
 * Albums will be set as folders on your computer
 * You can put these picture folders as part of the DVD contents on shared folders.

About presentations and posters
Liya/Abenet/Bizu: update this? Steps we followed to download the posters and ppts 1. Download the posters and ppts from slideshare.net/ilri (or any other relevant Slideshare collection)

About videos
Videos are very heavy

A case in practice: Developing the NBDC DVD-Rom
The Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC) ended in late 2013. In 2014 we wanted to develop a DVD containing the full website, related CG Space collection of final outputs, presentations, pictures and movies. This project was used as a learning project to document the process and prepare this page for future DVD projects...


 * How did we do it?**
 * We set up a team to consider the website, CG Space collection, pictures, presentations, videos, design and project management.
 * We met on a weekly basis for 5-20 minutes to see what progress was made.
 * We focused on the following:
 * Developing the DVD splash page and main menu, the jackets and inlay covers.
 * Developing the website offline using //Web2Disc//;
 * Collecting all the pictures from our FlickR folder - using //BulkR PRO// into sorted albums that we organized by collections (sites, participatory research methods) and making sure they were properly prepared/tagged etc.
 * Downloading the whole collection of CG Space outputs from that project.
 * Collecting (sites, participatory research methods and events + the overall 'key messages' videos). We decided to actually embed only the key messages onto the DVD because videos occupy lots of space. However we prepared a video menu that showed also the live videos (only accessible when the DVD viewer is online).
 * Collecting all contents on a shared folder (on KMIS/Shared in this case) so the web developer could pull all materials onto the DVD.
 * Contacting a production company in Nairobi to produce the DVD based on the contents collected.
 * In the process we decided not to include the presentations (other than those that were displayed on the offline website) because we thought they may not be so interesting to external audiences.
 * We discussed the option of automating the download/transfer of the CG Space collection to the DVD and went for that in the end.
 * This process started in May and was completed in... It took ages to calculate the size of the CG Space collection download and to effectively download it.
 * We contacted providers in Nairobi to ensure the production/printing could be completed on time.