Knowledge Management in an Academic EnvironmentKimberly Silk, MLSData LibrarianOctober 20, 2009

AgendaWhat is the MPI, who works there, and a bit about our physical and digital collectionsWhere we startedWhat we builtWhy it’s not quite rightWhat we learnedWhat we’re doing nextQ & A

What is the MPI, who works there, and a bit about our physical and digital collections

Where we started

What we built

Why it’s not quite right

What we learned

What we’re doing next

Q & A

What We DoWe 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 conduct relevant research to shape debate about economic prosperity and to inform private, public and civic decision-making.We’re located in the MaRS Centre at College & University

We are an academic think tank that studies global prosperity in terms of location, place and city regions.

Who We AreThe Institute consists of:Two senior researchers (Richard Florida & Kevin Stolarick)Four-person “operations” team (Executive Director, Receptionist, Office Manager and Data Librarian)2-3 Post-Doctoral Fellows4-5 Research Assistants/AssociatesVarious visiting faculty and researchers from other international institutionsA growing community of international academics and young faculty who conduct research and teach in our area of interest.

Two senior researchers (Richard Florida & Kevin Stolarick)

Four-person “operations” team (Executive Director, Receptionist, Office Manager and Data Librarian)

What We’ve GotA growing library of over 2600 volumes made up of books, journals, magazines and reports. This collection is housed in our library, which is non-circulating and managed separately from the UofT library system.A motley collection of approximately 500 GB of research data in various formats (excel, SAS, SPSS, Stata, 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 teamA variety of other documents and data sets that are collected on an ad-hoc basis from other institutions.

How We Began our KM Journey It all started in June 2008…The immediate, urgent priority was to build a system to support a large project the MPI was developing for the Premier of Ontario (Ontario in the Creative Age report)We had a large team of 15 researchers who were working on various components 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 OCA report.

Requirements & ChallengesSite 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.

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.

Short-term Solution: MS SharePoint (on the cheap)SharePoint comes in 2 versions:SharePoint Windows Shared Services (WSS)Included in Windows 2000 OS (free!)Basic document managementNo social media, content management, business intelligence, etcSharePoint 2007 (MOSS)Not free - $5000 plus $95 per user True content management, business intelligence, social media, forms wizard, user profile management, personalization, content syndication, powerful searching, reporting, and more.Consult http://www.sharepointprovider.com/moss-hosting/compare-wss-moss.asp for a useful at-a-glance comparison.

The Verdict: SharePoint works … sort ofWhat Works:Good integration w/ MS OfficeWeb-based interface is available anywhereVersion controlRolling back to previous versionsSimple, easy to use interfaceWhat 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 SPMS is NOT open source

In the meantime, we tried these other tools … and we like them!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

What We Learned:Diving right into building a collaborative environment before getting a handle on organizing your information assets could be perceived as putting the cart before the horse….… but, you have to start somewhereDiving in without any planning or strategy provided us with a great way to learn about how we work, both online and offlineEven though SharePoint was not completely successful, it did the job we needed it to do at the timeAnd, we now know much more about our requirements and what we want our KM implementation to look like.

Moving towards Social Knowledge ManagementNow that we know more, we’re ready to push furtherIt’s not just about managing knowledge; it’s about managing the social interactions that create knowledgeAnd, it’s about capturing that knowledge, making it accessible and able to be sharedWe also need to preserve “gold” versions, while allowing our team to create new iterations of these documents and data which represent creativity and innovationAll of this, so that we may live long and prosper 

What’s Next?We now have time to plan:We have a 6TB server containing a whole lotta files. We MUST get organized. Inventory has begun.We know that SharePoint isn’t the whole answer; it’s worth revisiting InMagic Presto and SocialText to re-evaluate their products in light of what I’ve learned in the past yearI’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?

Thank YouKimberly Silk, MLSKimberly.Silk@martinprosperity.org