A Knowledge Management Toolkit for the GMS

Introduction

Free and open source software for sharing knowledge, such as digital libraries, learning and content management systems, weblogs, and wikis, have immense potential for the development of urban and rural communities in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). These tools are the building blocks for projects in e-government and e-learning, and can provide communities a platform for discussion and resolution of knowledge-based problems.

Although these tools are free, there are still many barriers that prevent communities from using them effectively. The most important barrier is knowledge: communities are often unaware of the capabilities of these tools, how to install and use them, and how to adapt them to address their needs.  Another significant barrier is language: many tools still lack support for the languages of the GMS.  Other barriers include the usability of the software, and the compatibility of tools for exchanging information.

Objectives

The main objective of this project is to support the ability of GMS communities to effectively use knowledge management tools.  More concretely, the objectives of this project are:

1. Development of a Knowledge Management Toolkit for the GMS.  This toolkit includes:

• Several complementary open source knowledge management tools, including digital libraries, weblogs, wikis, and content management systems.
• Online training material necessary for communities to easily begin using these tools to share their knowledge.
• Localization of training material and interfaces into the GMS languages.

2. Development of a Federated Search across the KMTk applications.  This allows the members of the community to easily find content created by other members.
3. Development of an architecture that will allow the KMTk to integrate the KMTk applications of the community together more tightly (e.g., a “portal”), and to include external content (e.g., through RSS).
4. Work closely with new and existing communities to understand their needs, and to deploy and effectively use these KM tools.

The Knowledge Management Toolkit

This toolkit will have several components:

1. Knowledge management applications. The toolkit will contain several types of applications for sharing knowledge within communities, with multiple examples of each type:

• Content Management Systems support publication of documents, multimedia, and other content on the web, and services such as search and user-management. Examples: Joomla!, Drupal, and Plone.
• Digital Libraries support indexing, organizing and searching over sets of documents. Examples: GreenStone, DSpace.
• Learning Management Systems support individual and group learning through web-based publication of courseware. Examples: Moodle
• Weblogs, or “blogs”, are web-based personal diaries that support archival, organization, and search. Examples: Blojsom, WordPress, Roller.
• Wikis are web-based publishing environments that allow many authors to edit a single document. Examples: MediaWiki, TWiki, XWiki

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2.  Localized knowledge base. The toolkit will also contain learning material demonstrating how each type of application could be used to publish a real-world collection of documents.  This learning material will be localized (e.g, video with different soundtracks/captions), and will demonstrate the most basic operations of the selected software (e.g., installation, adding content, publishing, ...).
   
3.  Tools for exchanging content. The toolkit will contain a set of basic tools for linking the knowledge management applications.  These tools will support exporting and importing content between the applications, as well as mechanisms for searching across the different applications.  These tools are essential for helping users efficiently reuse their content within the different applications.
4. Distribution.  The toolkit will be developed for easy installation and deployment, and can be assembled on a CD-ROM for distribution to the members of the GMSARN.  The AIT will develop and maintain a web-based version of the content.

Conclusions

The open source community is actively developing a wide range of knowledge management tools that can potentially serve as building blocks for community development projects in the GMS. The objective of the Knowledge Management Toolkit is to reduce the significant barriers that members of the GMS face in installing and effectively using these knowledge management tools. 

The diversity and complexity of these tools is, on one hand, a source of confusion and hesitation for GMS communities to select and begin using any one tool, and on the other hand a resource for innovation and flexibility.  Selecting any single set of tools would not be an acceptable solution for the diversity of GMS members, or sustainable over the unforeseeable long-term market forces in the open source community.