ANSA's mission is to strengthen the capacity of it's members which span the entire U.S. and three continents. By turning to the Web, ANSA vastly increased its ability to provide direct resources and education to all of its members.

Working closely with ANSA staff, FarmHouse Studios designed, developed and implemented an online Resource and Learning Center powered by ANSA's own membership.

A key challenge in designing the Resource and Learning Center was figuring how to integrate it seamlessly into the current ANSA web site. Working with ANSA staff, we developed a revised site map that kept the main structure intact but emphasized the new resource databank throughout the site.

ANSA wanted to keep the basic design template it was currently using so we worked mainly on structuring a easy to use and accessible content well. Relying on standard information architecture techiques we developed dashboard models for the various entry points into the resources providing a portal that felt familiar and useable by regular users of the site.

The Resource and Learning Center houses a range of documents, web links, graphics and other media in a centralized databank used throughout the ANSA web site.

The center also contains an interactive calendar, threaded discussion board, collaborative workgroups and a professional development center providing online education modules to ANSA members.

A central goal of the Resource and Learning Center is to leverage member knowledge to support the other members. Chefs in many of the member programs share recipes which are uploaded, stored and organized within the center and available to all members.

Members can create robust collaborative workgroups with a simple click of the button. Each workgroup contains a member directory, resource library, document tracker, task manager and event calendar. Features such as a brainstorm tool also serve as key parts to foster collaborative work among ANSA members.

To promote the sharing of member knowledge and technical assistance, any registered member can create an online learning module. An simple step-wise process walks members through the module creation process and publishes it when it's complete. Using such a model helps capture and archive pertinent knowledge that aids all ANSA members.

A robust and fully customized content management system allows ANSA staff to update and manage the site at any time without having to chase down a web developer or know coding of any kind.