Iowa’s Department of Education has chosen prominent, Chicago-based web development and support firm, Promet Source to build their Iowa Core website as an independent website with improved functionality, UI/UX, SEO and strategy for growth. Promet Source brings myriad experience in the education sector having worked with Chicago Public Schools, Conceptual Academy (online learning system) and numerous universities including Marquette, University of Northern Iowa, Rowan University. University of Southern Mississippi, and many more. Promet is recognized for delivering Drupal-based solutions that provide these organizations with complex integrations, interactive features, online communities and best-in-class information architecture.

The Iowa Core (formerly known as the Iowa Core Curriculum and the Model Core Curriculum) provides academic expectations for all of Iowa's K-12 students. The site provides educators a well-researched set of standards in literacy and mathematics and essential concepts and skills in science, social studies, and 21st century learning (civic literacy, financial literacy, technology literacy, health literacy, and employability skills). It identifies the essential content and instruction of critical content areas that all students must experience.

The Iowa Core project will commence this month (April, 2014). Promet Source will build the Iowa Core website with strong UI/UX, improved access to curriculum and resources, improved social features, strong SEO configuration, and a strategy for future content creation. Further, the site will be created with a responsive design; the site will adjust fluidly between desktop, mobile and tablet. Additionally, Promet will develop a site adhering to best practices in website architecture, navigation and front end design.

Promet Source plans to give an innovative user experience both for educators utilizing Iowa Core and for those creating and maintaining content & resources on the site. The site shall address the different needs of different users; it will be designed around personas with special attention to UI/UX and navigation.

The new Iowa Core website will be built in Drupal, an open source CMS. Custom modules will be created and implemented to support the Iowa Department of Education’s needs. Promet Source will provide different means for the Iowa Core to showcase their resources: model curriculum, resource links to instructional materials, scope & sequence documents, professional learning resources, and more. To support future growth of the site, Promet will develop dynamic content types and templates to replace static content (e.g. PDFs and word documents).

Promet Source will launch the new site by July, 2014. Agile Development will allow for a fast deployment. “While the project might be completed in a short time frame, we are committed to the success of our clients’ projects not just for the length of the development effort, but for the entire life-cycle of the application,” said Andrew Kucharski, President of Promet Source, “We look forward to supporting educators into the future.”