LibTech 2010: Knowledge Management in an Academic Environment: A Case Study
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The document discusses the challenges and experiences of the Martin Prosperity Institute in implementing social knowledge management and collaboration tools, specifically SharePoint and Confluence. It emphasizes the importance of iterative design while acknowledging SharePoint's limitations in user experience and social media functionality. The institute seeks to engage with a community of practice to explore and share solutions for academic knowledge management.
LibTech 2010: Knowledge Management in an Academic Environment: A Case Study
- 1. Social Knowledge Management in an Academic Research Environment:A Case StudyKimberly Silk, MLSData Librarian March 18, 2010
- 2. AgendaAbout us: Who is the Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI)?
- 5. Why it’s not *quite* right (and some days, awful)
- 6. What we learned, and what we’re doing next
- 7. A sneak peak of the latest prototypeWhat is the Martin Prosperity Institute?We are an academic think tank that studies global prosperity in terms of location, place and city regions.Led by Director Richard Florida, we take an integrated view of prosperity, looking beyond economic measures to include the importance of quality of place and the development of people’s creative potential.We’re part of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Canada.
- 8. Who We Are: The Research Team
- 10. Our Challenge: Collaboration, with Control
- 11. Who will use this site?
- 13. Our Quick & Dirty Evaluation Process
- 14. SharePoint: WSS vs. MOSS
- 15. Our Short-term Solution: MS SharePoint (on the cheap)SharePoint was an Easy Win (for now):Free!Already installed on serverCompliant with our IT deptGreat document mgmtVersion controlIntegration with MS OfficeSecureMulti-level user accessAccessible via webQuick to implementFree!
- 16. MPI Portal 1.0
- 17. The Verdict: SharePoint works … sort ofWhat Works:Great integration w/ MS OfficeWeb-based interface is available anywhereVersion control is very goodEasy to roll back to previous versionsEasy to see who edited the document lastWhat Doesn’tRequires users to log in repeatedly; no single-sign-onDependent on IE browser; other browsers render the page incorrectlyLimited features, especially when wanting to add feeds and other external contentHeavy simultaneous use causes it to freeze; Users have to remember to access all their work via SharePointLimited social media toolsNo fun!!
- 18. In the meantime, we tried these other tools … and we like them!
- 19. What We Learned aboutIterative Design & Rapid PrototypingWe began by thinking about content, and organization, which are both important;Diving in without any planning or strategy provided us with a great way to learn about how we work, both online and offline;SharePoint works, although it’s not completely successful;We didn’t think enough about the most important component: people.
- 20. Moving towards Social Knowledge ManagementKM is not just about managing knowledge; it’s about mining the social interactions that create knowledge.We want to capture knowledge, and then place it in a context to the people who have created it, and have and will use it.
- 21. How to Improve SharePoint?SharePoint exists, is used, and it’s great for document management.But, the usability leaves a lot to be desired, and it offers very few social media tools.How to take advantage of the strengths, and improve on the deficiencies?Rewarding User Experience
- 22. What We’re Trying NowCan proprietary and open source softwareget along??
- 23. The Best of Both WorldsSharePointIt’s already installed, and our files are already thereOur users are familiar with itOur IT dept supports it (MS platform)Lots of spaceExcellent securityConfluenceBetter user experience (UX)Easy to add social media Easy to add external contentPersonal spaces that are easy to customizeLots of pluginsWhy Integrate? Cross-product searching
- 24. Content sharing between SharePoint and Confluence
- 25. Take advantage of the easy-to-use Confluence interface, and still have our documents and data supported by IT.And now: a sneak peek of the MPI Portal 2.0(drumroll, please!)
- 27. Who Else is Doing This? Join Me!SharePoint and Confluence are not the only solutions. What are you trying?I’m looking for a community of practiceThere are lots of corporate KM groups out there, but not many in the academic spaceI’m looking for a group of like-minded colleagues who want to explore these issues with me, and find solutionsIs anyone else connecting Confluence and SharePoint?Are you in? Email me at Kimberly.Silk@MartinProsperity.org
- 28. Thank YouKimberly Silk, MLSEmail: Kimberly.Silk@MartinProsperity.orgTwitter: @kimberlysilk
Editor's Notes
- #3: Agenda:About us: Who is the Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI)?Our ChallengeMPI Portal 1.0Why it’s not *quite* right (and some days, awful)What we learned, and what we’re doing nextA sneak peak of the prototype
- #4: Who are We?We are an academic think tank that studies global prosperity in terms of location, place and city regions.Led by Director Richard Florida, we take an integrated view of prosperity, looking beyond economic measures to include the importance of quality of place and the development of people’s creative potential.We’re part of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Canada
- #5: The Institute consists of:Two senior researchers A four-person “operations” team2-3 Post-Docs4-5 Research AssociatesVarious local and international visiting faculty and researchersA growing community of international academics and young faculty who conduct research and teach in our area of interest.
- #6: Our Collection:A growing library of over 2600 volumes made up of books, journals, magazines and reports.A motley collection of approximately 500 GB of research data in various formats (excel, SAS, SPSS, Stata, raw and aggregated data, plain text), journal articles, draft articles, white papers, etc.A shared network drive that continues to fill up with works in progress produced by the MPI team.A variety of other documents and data sets that are collected on an ad-hoc basis from other institutions.
- #7: Priority One: Get Organized!The immediate, urgent priority was to build a system to support the authoring of a large report the MPI was developing for the Premier of Ontario.We had a large team of 15 researchers who were working simultaneously to build one large report. Some where located in a single office, others were in other offices (but all within the city)We also had a series of 22 working papers being developed by 22+ academics that would be released following the report.
- #9: Requirements & Challenges:Site must be secure and allow multi-level permissionsFull-text searchMultiple authors collaborating on a wide variety of document types: excel files, documents and PowerPoint slidesThe researchers wanted synchronous and asynchronous sharing – sometimes, but not alwaysVersion control was an issue; who was the last person to update a document? We needed to “roll back” to previous versions now and thenThe team needed to collaborate, but also be able to work without dependencies on other team membersTeam leaders needed to be able to publish interim versions of the report to show to the client for feedback.
- #10: Our Quick & Dirty Evaluation ProcessWe decided to find a solution would provide a “front end” to allow users to find what they needed, quickly. The files themselves would reside on a large 6 TB server acquired specifically for MPI’s growing data collection.We evaluated a variety of solutions: Dspace, SocialText, Octopz, InMagic Presto and SharePointNone provided an obvious solution, so we decided on the next best thing: good enough for right now.
- #12: SharePoint was an Easy Win:Free!Already installed on serverCompliant with our IT deptGreat document mgmtVersion controlIntegration with MS OfficeSecureMulti-level user accessAccessible via webQuick to implementFree!
- #14: Sharepoint works… kind of.
- #15: EndNote for managing our citation librariesWordPress blogs for various side projects which are public (Music, Working Paper Series) and for our own internal play-spaceWikis – Confluence, specifically – for managing walled garden projects
- #16: We began by thinking about content, and organization, which are both important;Diving in without any planning or strategy provided us with a great way to learn about how we work, both online and offline;SharePoint works, although it’s not completely successful;We didn’t think enough about the most important component: people.
- #17: KM is not just about managing knowledge; it’s about mining the social interactions that create knowledge.We want to capture knowledge, and then place it in a context to the people who have created it, and have and will use it.
- #23: I’m looking for a community of practiceThere are lots of corporate KM groups out there, but not many in the academic spaceI’m looking for a group of like-minded colleagues who want to explore with meAre you in? Email me at Kimberly.Silk@MartinProsperity.org