It's coming......APSA's new Knowledge Base website kicks off with Phase One.

Guess what?

APSA is in the process of replacing our current Internet site with a more member-focused repository for all information appropriate for member engagement. In addition, the objective is to provide secure "portals" (views) for Board and committee volunteers to find and share information and knowledge with others in the delivery of their mandate for APSA. We are calling this a Knowledge Base and our audience is everyone involved in the APSA community.

What is a Knowledge Base (KB)?

The fundamental body of knowledge available to an organization, including the knowledge in people's heads, supported by the organization's collections of information and data.

Why are we doing this?

During the winter months, the APSA Board met a number of times to develop a Strategic Plan for 2009-2011. The four key strategies included: Engaging membership, stewarding volunteers, ensuring sustainability of APSA through knowledge transfer and exploring more collaborative networks. A knowledge base is core to everything we want to deliver so that volunteers can use their time effectively.

Here are specific reasons for embarking on this project:

  • Provide quick and easy access to current and complete APSA information and knowledge.
  • Enhance communications across all APSA stakeholders.
  • Reduce amount of time spend "finding" and "sharing" relevant information. Reduce staff time providing files for Board and committee members (currently staff is the 'hub').
  • Provide ability for staff to easily maintain and manage the information in a consistent way (need easy-to-use content management system and templates).

 

First we need the big picture...

We need to be smart about how we do this, making sure that we understand your needs before we jump in and start to develop what we think you need! That's why we hired Edge Consulting to work with us in this first phase. (Edge Consulting has lots of skills and experience in knowledge and information management). Once we understand the overall requirements and what's possible, we can determine the subsequent phases, and the best tool to use for delivering the requirements and the actual launch date.

We will keep you posted along the way......