Digital Code of conduct and Maturity Index

As part of Arts Council England and Heritage Lottery Fund's (the Partners) commitments to the DCMS Culture is Digital initiative, the Partners have been tasked with creating a Digital Culture Code (the Code) and a Digital Maturity Index (the Index) for the arts, culture and heritage sectors.

The intention of both is to support organisations in the arts, culture and heritage sectors to increase and develop their digital maturity. The Culture is Digital report defines digital maturity as the process of embedding digital activity across an organisation as part of the strategic vision and throughout every part of the business, from its creative output and audience outreach through to e-commerce and the skills of its staff.

The Partners intend that the Code and the Index are delivered as a unit with the Code providing the principles of achieving digital maturity in an organisation (the what and the why) and the Index providing a self-assessment tool to measure progress against a principle (the how).

The Partners therefore intend to commission a web-based product with two main elements to its construction:

Content - text content of the code and index that draws on best practice in digital implementation in the arts, culture and heritage sectors Technical build - web interface and database to house the code and index

Included in the project should be a period of user testing with a representative and diverse sample of organisations from the sectors involved in order to inform content development and test the technical aspects of the product.