APO website: New and improved!

APO recently underwent a complete website upgrade. With more than 43,000 resource pages, 4,000 user profiles, 6,000 organisation pages and 30,000 author pages to migrate to a new system, this was no small task for our team. 

We  switched over from our old website to our upgraded website in March 2020 – the moment that COVID-19 social distancing restrictions began – throwing a few unexpected spanners in the works. But we did it, and the modifications were made with our users foremost in our minds. Our main priority was safely migrating all of our resources to the new system, with minimal interruption for our users. Please note, if you are a registered APO user, you’ll need to log on and reset your password before 30 September 2020.

Improved website features

• A refreshed homepage that communicates the services we have to offer and a carousel display of our most recent content  highlights.
• The browse page has been completely refreshed and simplified to house 15 top-level subjects from APO’s own Public Policy Taxonomy with the new additions of ‘National security’ and ‘Technology’. Click on each of the subjects to find the next level of subjects and associated resources enabling you to browse your specific area of interest. 
• Individual collections pages have been restyled with a carousel of  featured resources. 
• Individual resource pages have been restyled to include clickable links to the associated subjects and a direct link to the resource. On the right hand side you will find ‘more like this’ and the collections the resource belongs to.  
• A report broken link button now appears at the bottom of every resource page, for logged in users, so you can quickly tell us if there is an issue with the resource.

Updated information pages

We used the upgrade as an opportunity to refresh the content for many of our information pages. We highly recommend visiting these to find out more about who we are and what we can do for you.  

• About page including our newly announced APO Advisory Board members.
• How to use APO page including simplified steps to add a resource.
• Services page including curated collections, websites and newsletters, as well advertising, metrics and DOI minting.
•  Collections page  with both Feature and Standard Collections now visible on one page.
• APO Projects page showcasing our experience in developing tools and infrastructure for policy research and practice.
• APO Policies and Guidelines page with our updated and simplified Content Policy.

Preparing for My APO+

As many of you know, to continue to grow and evolve, we are developing a new subscription service called My APO+. This will allow APO to continuously improve and meet our policy community’s needs, and to thrive as a self-sustainable public good. In preparation for this exciting new service, we have made several changes to make the website function more efficiently. 

• Resource page views have been removed and this function will later become available as part of My APO+.
• We are replacing RSS feeds with a My APO+ feature to create specialised topic alerts. You can get in touch with us at editors@apo.org.au if you’d like to discuss this change.
• Our ecommerce system is currently undergoing a major upgrade to simplify the process for users wishing to place an advert and in preparation for My APO+ subscriptions. However, this is not affecting our existing Advertising service and our free calls & notices have been in particularly high demand during COVID-19, so keep them coming.

Comments and suggestions 

As always, we value your feedback. Please use the Feedback form to Contact us. Or, if you wish to engage in any of our services, you can use the contact emails provided on our Services page. Thank you for your continued support. We hope you enjoy the improvements we’ve made to APO.