Industrial Year Report
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Industrial Year Report Table of Contents Organisational Environment ................................................................................... 2 Where does the ‘specials team’ fit within Visual Journalism? ........................................................ 3 Technical & Application Environments ................................................................... 5 International technical environments ...................................................................................................... 5 Local technical environments ...................................................................................................................... 5 Application environments ............................................................................................................................. 6 Software ................................................................................................................................................................. 6 Libraries and frameworks .............................................................................................................................. 6 Work Description ................................................................................................... 8 Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special ..................................................................................................... 10 Common Tasks Toolkit .................................................................................................................................. 11 Datapic Templating ......................................................................................................................................... 12 In-Depth Toolkit ............................................................................................................................................... 13 Obituaries/timelines ...................................................................................................................................... 14 Commonwealth Games Calculator ........................................................................................................... 16 Critical Evaluation ................................................................................................ 23 Evaluation of the BBC ..................................................................................................................................... 23 Personal development ................................................................................................................................... 24 Organisational Environment The BBC is a government-owned statutory corporation employing almost 20,000 people1. Founded in 1922 as the world’s first national broadcasting organisation2, the corporation has continued to evolve and prosper. It generated over £5 billion in revenue in 2012-133 and its BBC World News channel is available in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide; around 300 million households4. The overall control and running of the BBC is the responsibility of the Executive Board, chaired by the Director-General and made up of executive directors from within the BBC and four non-executive directors from outside. The Board manages the BBC in accordance with plans that have been agreed with the BBC Trust, and operates under a Royal Charter, the constitutional basis for the BBC. Below this is the BBC Management board, which manages pan-BBC issues that it has been delegated from the Executive Board.5 Below the BBC Management board are six major divisions that cover all the BBC’s output: 1. BBC Television – in charge of commissioning and producing television programming, and maintaining the BBC Archives. 2. BBC Radio – responsible for all BBC Radio channels and music content across the BBC, including music programmes on BBC Television and the Music area of BBC Online. 3. BBC News Group – comprises the BBC News, English Regions and BBC Global News divisions. Responsible for all the BBC’s news, current affairs and sport output. 4. BBC North – the BBC North Group includes BBC Sport, Children’s and 5 Live and parts of Learning and Future Media. 5. BBC Finance & Business – manages all aspects of the BBC’s finances. 6. BBC Future Media – in charge of all digital output, including BBC Online, BBC iPlayer and the BBC Red Button service. It is also in charge of developing new technologies through BBC Research & Development. During my industrial year, I worked in the BBC Future Media division at New Broadcasting House, London, which is the headquarters and registered office of the BBC. The Future Media (FM) division is made up of 8 business areas: • Chief Operating Officer – helps ensure FM runs efficiently and effectively 1http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/foi/classes/disclosure_logs/rfi20111450_number_ of_bbc_employees.pdf 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/resources/in-depth/reith_1.shtml 3 http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/pdf/2012-13/bbc-full-financial- statements-2012-13.pdf 4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/whatwedo/aroundtheworld 5http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/managementstructure/bbcs tructure/management_board.html • Programmes On Demand – responsible for the technology behind BBC iPlayer, Red Button • Online Technology Group – responsible for much of the core technology that underpins BBC Online, as well as its distribution • User Experience and Design – defines the visual appearance, behaviour and interconnectedness of online BBC content • Research and Development – drives the exploration of new tools for production and distribution. • Interactive Technical Advice and Contract Unit – manages the interactions between our audiences and our linear services • Business Development – manages relationships with external partners to maximise the reach and impact of our products • News and Knowledge – delivers the technology behind most online products, from BBC News to Homepage to Search The News and Knowledge area is itself split into multiple teams responsible for development of the desktop and mobile websites, mobile apps, connected TV, Visual Journalism and World Service content delivery, among others. I worked in the BBC News Specials team within Visual Journalism. The ‘specials team’, as we are commonly known within the department, primarily create bespoke, self-contained applications for online articles, including data visualisations6, calculators7 and quizzes8. Andrew Leimdorfer, the specials team Product Manager, was my line manager until around March 2014, when a management restructure saw team technical leads taking on the management role. Tom Maslen became my line manager for the remainder of my time at the BBC. Where does the ‘specials team’ fit within Visual Journalism? BBC journalists publish their stories through a content management system, which lets them write text, insert images and video, and include other files. They use this ‘include file’ ability to insert our bespoke feature into the article. Communication between the different teams is key to delivering a bespoke feature. It all starts with an idea, usually triggered by an acquisition of data. For example, the NHS Winter project9 was made possible thanks to statistical data being released to the public. The early stages of a project involve meetings between stakeholders and the designers/developers to discuss possible data visualisations and interactives that make best use of the data: a process known as data-driven journalism. This is made possible thanks to our open-plan office environment, where the 6 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24900116 7 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17442946 8 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24756311 9 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25055444 journalists, designers and developers sit and work in close proximity to one another. With the idea solidified, the designer is commissioned to mock up a user-friendly design compliant with BBC standards. Designs follow the BBC’s Global Experience Language10 guidelines to ensure consistency across the BBC and its services. The developer then implements the design into a tangible, interactive product. Designs evolve multiple times over a project’s lifespan in response to user testing feedback and unforeseen technological limitations. Eventually, the feature is ready to include inside the journalist’s article. There is usually a soft launch- where the feature is included in the article a day or two in advance and quietly tested – before a hard launch where the article is promoted, both on the homepage and on social media. In addition to developing bespoke interactives, the specials team is responsible for day-to-day ‘tasks’ such as applying data updates to old projects. For example, the Inflation Economy tracker11 is several years old but is updated monthly. We are also responsible for maintaining the In-Depth Toolkit, which allows journalists to create in-depth formats - such as clickable guides and annotated images - without the aid of a developer. 10 http://www.bbc.co.uk/gel 11 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10612209 Technical & Application Environments International technical environments Our team uses two stacks at the BBC: the ‘Journo’ stack and the ‘Atos’ stack. Historically, World Service online content would be deployed to the ‘Atos’ stack, whereas UK content would be deployed to the ‘Journo’ stack. This could lead to frustrating product delivery issues in the specials team, as we often needed to deploy our interactives to multiple languages,