Knowledge Management for Development2024-03-29T12:58:19ZRamavhoya Nortonhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/RamavhoyaMafunzwainiNortonhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1545887579?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://www.km4dev.org/group/technologyforkm4dev/forum/topic/listForContributor?user=1x4s0gyj75x0s&feed=yes&xn_auth=noCommunity Technology Learning Lab (CTLab)tag:www.km4dev.org,2012-07-23:2672907:Topic:564892012-07-23T22:12:38.412ZRamavhoya Nortonhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/RamavhoyaMafunzwainiNorton
<p>A Community Technology Learning Lab (CTLab) is currently underway in a subgroup of KM4Dev's email group at <a href="http://next.dgroups.org/groups/km4dev-l/ctlab" target="_blank">DGroups</a> to reflect on our experiences in using technology to support collaboration and learning, and the practice of technology stewardship. For more information please see the <a href="http://wiki.km4dev.org/CTLab" target="_blank">CTLab wiki</a>. </p>
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<p>A Community Technology Learning Lab (CTLab) is currently underway in a subgroup of KM4Dev's email group at <a href="http://next.dgroups.org/groups/km4dev-l/ctlab" target="_blank">DGroups</a> to reflect on our experiences in using technology to support collaboration and learning, and the practice of technology stewardship. For more information please see the <a href="http://wiki.km4dev.org/CTLab" target="_blank">CTLab wiki</a>. </p>
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<p> </p> Survey on Virtual communities of practice (VCoPs) knowledge sharingtag:www.km4dev.org,2011-04-27:2672907:Topic:243442011-04-27T10:03:34.041ZRamavhoya Nortonhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/RamavhoyaMafunzwainiNorton
Dear Km4dev members:<br></br><br></br>This is to humbly remind you to participate in the survey on knowledge<br></br>sharing within VCoPs. I will really appreciate if you take a few of your<br></br>minutes to fill in the questionnarire (see the link below) as I have got<br></br>a deadline and as my success in my doctoral research project depends on<br></br>your participation and focuses on km4dev VCoPs. (NB - thank you very<br></br>much for those who have already filled the survey). <br></br><br></br>Please follow the Link below…
Dear Km4dev members:<br/><br/>This is to humbly remind you to participate in the survey on knowledge<br/>sharing within VCoPs. I will really appreciate if you take a few of your<br/>minutes to fill in the questionnarire (see the link below) as I have got<br/>a deadline and as my success in my doctoral research project depends on<br/>your participation and focuses on km4dev VCoPs. (NB - thank you very<br/>much for those who have already filled the survey). <br/><br/>Please follow the Link below to fill in the survey: <br/><a target="browserView" href="http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=s76ec4q2pcde7nd898850" class="weblink">http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=s76ec4q2pcde7nd898850</a> <br/><br/><br/>Information on the research (optional)<br/><br/>Subject - Questionnaire to be used for e-mail interviews with various<br/>moderators and members of virtual communities of practice (VCoPs) <br/><br/>The purpose of this letter is to introduce a survey to investigate the<br/>potential use of an information and knowledge flow model in active<br/>VCoPs. If found applicable the model could be used for further research<br/>in this field, for example approaches to improve the efficiency of<br/>information and knowledge sharing, especially the tacit and explicit<br/>knowledge, within a particular VCoP. The results of this research will<br/>form part of a doctoral thesis.<br/><br/>The attached questionnaire should take approximately 20 to 25 minutes to<br/>complete. <br/><br/>Informed consent<br/><br/>The participation of moderators and members of VCoPs in this survey is<br/>completely voluntary. Participants are assured that their information<br/>will be kept strictly confidential and anonymous. No references will be<br/>made to specific individuals. All responses will be used for academic<br/>purposes only. <br/><br/>Institution: Cape Peninsula University of Technology <br/><br/>Your participation in this survey will greatly determine and contribute<br/>to the research completion and output.<br/><br/>Please follow the Link below to fill in the survey: <br/><a target="browserView" href="http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=s76ec4q2pcde7nd898850" class="weblink">http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=s76ec4q2pcde7nd898850</a> <br/><br/><br/>Thank you, in advance! <br/><br/>Mr Hermon Ogbamichael<br/>D. Tech, Informatics<br/>Faculty of Informatics and Design<br/>Cape Peninsula University of Technology<br/>mailto: ogbamichaelh@cput.ac.za <br/>+27 73 084 8325 (mobile)<br/>+27 21 422 2148 (office)<br/><br/><br/>Professor Pieter van Brakel<br/>Research supervisor<br/>Faculty of Informatics and Design<br/>Cape Peninsula University of Technology<br/>mailto: vanbrakelp@cput.ac.za <br/>+27 82 966 0789 (mobile)<br/>+27 21 469 1015 (office) <br/><br/> SharePoint for KMtag:www.km4dev.org,2010-10-27:2672907:Topic:143972010-10-27T22:36:12.000ZRamavhoya Nortonhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/RamavhoyaMafunzwainiNorton
I am no fan of Microsoft's products, and at the beginning I thought that SharePoint<br></br>
was one of its biggest blunders... but now I find it to be especially<br></br>
well-suited to create a collaborative space. Read-on to find out why!<br></br><br></br>My
organization is creating a global intranet using SharePoint 2007 (an<br></br>
upgrade to 2010 is planned). At the beginning, with my experience of<br></br>
Open Source systems (mainly Drupal) I was appalled by the ugly<br></br>
documentation provided by MS, by the…
I am no fan of Microsoft's products, and at the beginning I thought that SharePoint<br/>
was one of its biggest blunders... but now I find it to be especially<br/>
well-suited to create a collaborative space. Read-on to find out why!<br/><br/>My
organization is creating a global intranet using SharePoint 2007 (an<br/>
upgrade to 2010 is planned). At the beginning, with my experience of<br/>
Open Source systems (mainly Drupal) I was appalled by the ugly<br/>
documentation provided by MS, by the lack of out-of-the-box features and<br/>
the difficulty of creating new ones, and by the code it generates. <br/><br/>Since
the training of all users falls on my shoulders, the first item was an<br/>
issue only for me, since users do not need to read what is produced by<br/>
Microsoft. Lucky them! I had to read several pages of technical details<br/>
that were often pointless, while some key features where not mentioned.<br/>
Thanks to Google and the large SharePoint user base, this issue can be<br/>
fixed with a <u>careful combing of online documentation</u>. This leads<br/>
to the main barrier to using SharePoint: while it is a very powerful<br/>
platform, several of its most interesting features are not immediately<br/>
visible, hence it can easily be regarded as unsuitable and dumped.<br/>
Nonetheless, I think it is an excellent choice for a corporate intranet.<br/>
After literally months of frustration, this is not a statement that I<br/>
make light-heartedly. <br/><br/>Compared to other platforms, <u>SharePoint
is quite complex to setup</u>, hence most likely you will need to hire<br/>
someone to help you with the development. Be VERY careful in the choice<br/>
of the consultants. The award-winning (!!) provider who installed the<br/>
system for us completely botched the process, and not only failed to<br/>
deliver some developments, but they even messed up some out-of-the-box<br/>
functionalities, with the results that now our team of developers has to<br/>
work hard to fix all of them (if you are thinking of hiring a provider<br/>
with HQ in Canada, feel free to drop me a line to check if it is the<br/>
same that we had the misfortune of hiring: stay away from them!!)<br/><br/>Once
your system is up and running, you will notice some nice features:<br/>
users can easily setup <u>email notifications</u> to track changes<br/>
across the whole site (very powerful feature), participate to forums<br/>
simply sending emails, customize the way they access information in a<br/>
number of ways, etc. One feature that I love is that <u>each user can<br/>
create his/her own site</u> to store online their documents, share<br/>
information securely with their colleagues, create personalized pages<br/>
with relevant news and dashboards, publish a blog, and much more. While<br/>
not all of the above features are unique to SharePoint, two areas where<br/>
it shines are <u>permissions management</u>, and <u>integration with MS<br/>
Office and Windows</u>: truly excellent! While this may not be important<br/>
for social networking, for a collaborative platform they are killer<br/>
apps. For example, users can access document libraries like folders on<br/>
their computer, and save files to them without the need to open the<br/>
browser, thus removing any limit between their computer and the online<br/>
storage. You can use MS Excel or MS Access to modify attributes of large<br/>
number of items (for example, if you want to add/modify the taxonomy of<br/>
a whole document library, you can create the classification in MS<br/>
Excel, and then Copy&Paste it!) or create new PowerPoints<br/>
handpicking slides from the previous presentations. A great<br/>
characteristic of Sharepoint is that it is modular: every site can have<br/>
sub-sites, and each sub-site can have its own document libraries,<br/>
workflows, list of administrators and users, etc. This makes it <u>very<br/>
scalable and flexible</u>, and being able to share the burden of<br/>
administering the site can be a boon. If you are a fan of FireFox, you<br/>
can add a toolbar to access the document libraries, upload images, share<br/>
notes, access all admin screens without browsing all the menus, etc.<br/>
(love it!) There are many other good points, but let me stop here.<br/><br/>In
short, SharePoint simplifies sharing and disseminating knowledge<br/>
through a number of channels, it reduces duplication of effort, grants<br/>
excellent access to the stored information, and can greatly enhance<br/>
collaboration. For the end user, it is pretty simple to use, thus it is<br/>
accessible even to those that are not too familiar with web technology<br/>
(usually, these are field workers that have a wealth of invisible<br/>
information.) <br/><br/>While SharePoint can be great for KM, you need to
be aware that it is not easy to reap these results, and <u>some parts of<br/>
it are far from perfect</u>. <br/><br/>The wiki are VERY basic. Blogs are
ok, but not amazing. Integration with Facebook or Twitter, for example,<br/>
is possible only if you have some programming experience in JavaScript<br/>
(feel free to ask me how I did it.) If your site is in a secure area<br/>
(https) the RSS feed generated by SharePoint cannot be read by<br/>
SharePoint (Brilliant! It is common fault: Google Reader does not read<br/>
the RSS feeds from Gmail, too.) <u>On Codeplex you can find some free<br/>
add-ons</u> that expand these out-of-the-box functions, but installing<br/>
them takes some developer’s time. Not a huge issue, but it adds to the<br/>
total cost of the solution. Also, if you want to have a reasonably<br/>
good-looking site (and want to add some functionalities) you will want<br/>
to purchase the Server Publishing add-on, too. I feel that is a key<br/>
component for SharePoint, thus do factor its licence cost in the budget.<br/>
Get ready to have some developer working on the site, too. <br/>If you
want to break the information silos, and aggregate items from different<br/>
areas you can <u>use the Content Query Web Part</u>, but as it is<br/>
out-of-the-box it is of very limited use. You can customize it to make<br/>
amazing stuff... but it requires programming skills in HTML, CSS, XSLT<br/>
(and JavaScript, if you want fancy things.) There is no Web Part to play<br/>
video or audio files, and slideshows can be created only for whole<br/>
pictures libraries. You can overcome all these limits using the Content<br/>
Query Web Part (it is known as the Swiss Army Knife of SharePoint!!)...<br/>
but that is not easy (feel free to ask me a document about it, too.) A<br/>
quite surprising issue is that the text editor on SharePoint works only<br/>
for Internet Explorer, and it outputs horrible HTML code that may not<br/>
display correctly on every browser. Again, you can easily fix this<br/>
installing TinyMCE, CKEditor, WhizzyWIG (IMHO, the top 3 best Open<br/>
Source text editors) or Telerik RADeditor (not Open Source, but the Lite<br/>
version is free), but you need to factor in again some developer’s<br/>
time. Also, <u>user management is not ideal</u>, and a few minor<br/>
functions do not work as smoothly if are not using internet Explorer.<br/><br/>One
of the biggest limits, and I do not see any way out of it, is the<br/>
accessibility from low bandwidth areas. If you want to save bandwidth,<br/>
an interesting characteristic of SharePoint is that it automatically<br/>
creates a “web preview” and a “thumbnail” version of every image<br/>
uploaded to a Pictures Library. However, every single page on SharePoint<br/>
is shipped with two fairly large files: Core.js and Core.css. These<br/>
cannot be modified or else you lose the warranty. Also, SharePoint<br/>
injects a number of additional files depending on which page you are<br/>
looking at. You can package all the files in one, minify the sum, and<br/>
set the system to serve your new files instead of the standard ones, but<br/>
that is an hassle, and it just reduces the problem. Even if page<br/>
caching is enabled (and it should be!!) the site will be quite slow at<br/>
first page load for a user in a low bandwidth environment, and there is<br/>
no way out of it. If you are using it to create an intranet, your users<br/>
will have enough motivation to wait for the first download, and then it<br/>
should be ok. <u>If you are creating a site that is intended for the<br/>
general public, and a relevant part of it is in low bandwidth areas, you<br/>
are probably better off using something else.</u><br/><br/>The bottom
line is that at the beginning you will probably want to scream at<br/>
SharePoint, but once you have learned how to tame it, it can be a great<br/>
tool. It <u>can be pretty expensive</u>, though, unless you have some<br/>
internal resource that can research on Codeplex and Google, and then<br/>
handle all the tweaks that are needed. While I do not think it would be a<br/>
wise choice for a public-facing site with target users in low bandwidth<br/>
areas, it can be excellent for an intranet, or an environment where<br/>
sharing documents and collaboration are important... if you have the<br/>
resources to handle it. <br/><br/>Comments?