Work Statement for POST
The attached budget represents UCI’s work on two projects for POST: creating a set of specifications and prototyping the California Post Television Network (CPTN) website and writing a feasibility/implementation report on a new satellite delivery system for POST telecourses and any other digital content (PDF documents, etc.).
Catalog Project
POST has two distinct types of users: in-POST and out-of-POST. In-POST users are those 650 law enforcement agencies in California for whom POST sets training and assessment standards and for whom POST primarily develops its telecourses. Out-of-POST users are those law enforcement agencies outside of California (currently around 500) that make use of POST’s resources for their own training purposes. Pursuant to the POST-UCI/DLC contract, one of POST’s objectives is to make POST telecourses and documents more widely available to out-of-POST agencies.
Beyond the home page and catalog search functions, the CTPN website will be password-protected and accessible only to subscribers. The CTPN website will support electronic commerce, permitting purchase of individual resources (videos, DVDs, reference guides) via a credit card to avoid the overhead of invoicing and tracking payments. This does not apply to in-POST agencies, which will continue to receive these resources free of charge. Therefore, the CTPN website will handle the two types of users differently. One of the goals of the Catalog Project is to determine the optimum website structure for accomplishing this.
Fulfillment is currently handled by Bob Jacobsen, who will receive emailed notification of out-of-Post purchases of either individual titles or subscriptions. The pricing structure is currently set at $99 per video/DVD or $998 for a year’s subscription, with a guarantee of a minimum of 12 telecourses ($700 subscription without Case Law Today) and Case Law Today videos ($298 when sold without telecourses) delivered per subscription.
The catalog will initially force the current mailing list of 500 subscribers to be re-authenticated.
The website will have the following user types: Admin (Ron Crook), Distributor (Bob Jacobsen), Producer, Subscriber (out-of-POST), Member (unpaid out-of-post), In-POST (650 California law enforcement agencies).
The administration functions of the website will permit a variety of reporting features, including tracking of purchased videos as well as integration with the media server to permit tracking of videos that have actually been delivered via satellite.
The catalog will also permit future expansion. In addition to DVD and VHS telecourses, POST CD-ROMs and documents will be available. In the future, POST online courses can be added as another learning modality to the catalog:
Based on these initial specifications, UCI/DLC will:
- Investigate appropriate technologies for e-commerce functionality
- Carry out initial preparation for hosting of POST website
- Determine a website structure
- Create website specifications
- Develop user interface and navigation specifications
- Provide (3) design treatments for POST selection
- Create a hardcoded prototype to demonstrate proposed functionality from out-of-POST and in-POST perspectives.
Satellite Delivery Systems Project
The primary goal of the California POST Television Network (CPTN) is to create a secure, satellite-based, delivery method for telecourses, electronic documents, and, potentially, online courses to geographically distributed “in-Post” California law enforcement agencies, currently numbering around 650.
Secondary goals of this project include the development of “black box” technology, enabling encryption and decryption of satellite video transmissions, storage of satellite transmission to hard disk in a secure, proprietary file format, and authentication of the video stream via a handshake between the video file and black box hardware.
Another secondary goal is the development of a password-protected CPTN catalog to permit “pull” requests for specific satellite-delivered telecourses, e-commerce fulfillment of video, DVD, and document requests by requesting agencies pre-vetted by POST, and, potentially, POST-developed online courses.
Seamless interoperation between websites, media servers, satellite uplink and downlink transmissions, and the end-user is an overarching goal. To this end, the entire system design should be such that POST may market its capability to other law enforcement content providers.
UCI will provide the following services:
- Serve as consultant to POST on technical issues relating to systems integration and component procurement
- Compile component specifications
- Assure project feasibility
- Author an implementation report detailing timeline, cost, and system specifications.
- Develop the online catalog website as specified above
The cost for these services will not exceed $40,000. The current estimate for the project is $32,000 to be invoiced on a time-and-materials basis.