Call for Digital Oral History Archive Technical Development Proposals

Overview of Badael

Founded in 2013, Badael is a rights-based organization with a mission to foster transformative justice as the basis of a genuine and sustainable peace in Syria. Championing locally-owned alternatives, Badael endeavors to buttress the scope and impact of inclusive grassroots civic action and foment the development of holistic truth and understanding within and around the Syrian context. Our approach combines direct assistance and capacity building efforts with bottom-up narrative-shaping initiatives, including research, oral history and advocacy, so that all Syrians are equipped with the knowledge and tools needed to construct a pluralistic and rights-based society of tomorrow.

The Syrian Women’s Oral History Program

The Syrian Women’s Oral History Program was established with the aim of promoting local Syrian ownership of knowledge production and memory preservation processes. To date, the researchers have conducted interviews with over 180 Syrian women from diverse geographical, social and cultural backgrounds. Iinterviews have been conducted and recorded, culminating in over 300 hours of recorded material.

Summary of the Call

Badael is looking for a digital archiving technical specialist to design and develop the infrastructure for a digital tiered-access Oral History Archive in which the interview material can be archived and made partly-available to the public in order to realize the full potential of this invaluable resource of feminist knowledge. The archive will need to be comprised of three sections determined by accessibility: (1) a section accessible to the general public, (2) a section only accessible by request, and (3) a private section only accessible to Badael personnel. The archive will be an online platform with audio recordings and/or transcripts of the women’s interviews available to the public, carefully anonymized and in complete respect of the different levels of consent received prior the interviews.

Specific Requirements and Deliverables

This call requires a technical specialist to work in collaboration with Badael and lead the design and digital construction of the infrastructure for the digital archive.

Given the sensitivity of much of the interview material and the differing levels of consent received from the interviewees, it is crucial that the digital archive has tiered access.

1. Public access – this would be material open to the general public at any time.

2. Access by request – this would be material only accessible upon request. A request would be submitted; Badael would evaluate the request; access would be granted or denied as per Badael’s final decision.

3. Classified or private – this would be material not open to the public in anyway, even request, and would only be accessible to select Badael personnel.

Due to limited funds, Badael will not be able to dedicate significant funds for the development of the archive from zero. We are considering using an open-source platform as a more economical option but we are not limited to this and Badael is open to alternatives proposals from applicants, including constructing from scratch if the proposal is deemed financially feasible. Please be sure to specify details of this in your application proposal.

The technical specialist will be expected to fulfil the following tasks as part of the development process:

· Conduct an assessment of the archive needs. This would be based upon interview material that needs archiving, and the current and future needs/requests of Badael as per the Oral History Program (future development; ongoing interview uploads etc.)

· Develop several technical designs for Badael to consider and discuss with the specialist. Designs would need to consider:

o If opting for open-source platform, specify the platform and its appropriateness

o Design and layout for the front-end access to the archive

o Technical infrastructure and database design for the backend access to the archive, including:

§ Administration platform for the management of the archive content

§ Administration platform for the management of tiered access and access requests

o Further design considerations may be added following the needs assessment and inputs from the technical specialist or Badael.

· Create and finalize the entire archive solution and infrastructure that meets Badael needs and requests based on the selected final technical design.

· There may be the option of extending the contract to facilitate ongoing maintenance of the archive as per request of Badael and interest of contracted party.