Jun 11 2010

Collaboration on the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

This is a request for help in letting others know about a collaborative site we have set up for the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, to ask if you know of similar sites…and to ask for your input on making the site more useful. To help with the input I have posed some “peer assist” questions at the bottom of the page (with a little irony in that I believe the 1st place peer assists were used was at BP).

First…here is a link to the site

http://sites.google.com/a/csunkm.com/oil-spill-collaboration/

You should be able to view the site without logging in…but will need a Gmail account to add content to the site.  If you do not have a Gmail account there is a link to their registration site on the bottom of the first page.

Background

As part of our Master’s in KM program at CSUN we regularly talk about current events and how KM is and could be used within the context of those events.  Examples include what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan…and now the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Last week in one of our weekly calls we were talking about the application of KM to the spill….discussing how KM tools and techniques could be used to help those working on and impacted by the spill.  As part of the conversation we started to look for sites that had been set up were anyone interested in and working on the spill could share what they are doing, ask questions, post observations and begin to talk about lessons learned.  To our surprise we could not find any publically available site.  So we took a stab at creating one.

The intent of the site

Provide a place where anyone interested in the problems associated with the spill could come together to find out who else was working on the problems and what were they finding.  An underlying goal is to increase awareness of the CSUN KM program by branding it with the CSUN KM name.

The layout of the site

The site has

  • an intro page that outlines the purpose of the wiki and a little bit about how to use it.
  • Contacts and areas of interest (the yellow pages),
  • Specific areas of interest (clean up in marsh areas, clean and containment in open ocean, beach clean up, wildlife preservation and rescue)  This includes a table where people can indicate what projects they are working on and what they are finding as well as recommendations – and then the ability to link to a template where they can provide additional information…or link to an external site.
  • A map – not interactive….
  • Links
  • Photos, videos, document

The technology

CSUN’s version of the Google Wiki

Peer assist questions:

  1. Based on the web 2.0 tools that you have seen and used what recommendations would you have for this site.  - what would you add- would would you modify- what would you delete
  2. Do you know of anyone that is good with Google maps that could help make the map interactive.  What we want to do is allow people to locate their project on the map along with some indication of the type of project and a link back to the project description.  From my perspective this would be one of the most powerful features of the site
  3. Based on your experience how much work do you think it will take to moderate and maintain the site?
  4. What would you do to publicize the site
  5. Is there an opportunity to get sponsorship for the site from any organizations that you are aware of?  The idea would be to get funding to support future development of the site.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

categories Uncategorized | Allan Crawford | comments Comments (0)