This looks to be an excellent idea similar to the social enterprise that I co-founded in the United States - IdeaEncore Network (http://budurl.com/PA0130).
Our experience supports the need for such a repository and I agree with most of nemo's points above. In our experience, this is not a technical issue (though the technology is critical), it is primarily and incentive alignment issue. How to encourage people and organizations to take the time to share more materials and to share them more broadly.
To that end, the following are a few addition attributes that I would suggest you consider:
1. add a method of aligning individual AND organizational incentives for sharing. We have built our tool to enable organizations to create earned income (selling ideas) as a 'nudge' to take the time to share.
2. add a method of protecting intellectual property while encouraging sharing. Creative Commons (http://budurl.com/PA0130a) has done this work superbly in over 80 countries.
3. DO require sign-in to download and rate/comment. We use this as a method of ensuring a feedback mechanism to those who shared items (so it's possible to know who benefited) and also a way to enforce licensing.
4. Encourage organizations to place audience appropriate links to sub-sets of the master list on their own (or co-branded) websites. As an example, we have a service whereby associations and other organizations can subscribe to a standardized RSS feed or can create a customizable feed (RSS or iFrame or we host) to create their own online library from the common pool of resources.
The combination of the above, we hope, will reduce re-invention of tools/templates AND, importantly, create a self-sustaining, self-reinforcing knowledge sharing network.
Off-list, we would be happy to share lessons and explore ways to collaborate (so you don't have to re-create your own technology platform, for instance).
This is fantastic advice and http://ideaencore.com has been one of models we have continually revisited in our research for this idea.
In terms of your suggestions, a lot of what you mention hinges on whether we house documentation etc. as compared to links. If we did (and actually even if we didn't), I think exploring an incentives scheme is well worthwhile. But I guess you have some pretty large bandwidth in your hosting package?!
If we went with hosted content, then I'd definitely be thinking along the lines of user-designated CC licences where the user could select their licence class.
Sign-in re: enforcing licensing is an important point I had not considered! How do you monitor this - is it more just for your reporting cycle?
Would love to chat further about collaboration. My Skype username is: donniemaclurcan.
Online peer mediation is always a tricky one to pull off. This will need some thought.
Establishing authenticity will be the site's greatest challenge
Maintaining the reliability and datedness of articles is also tricky.
I think a solid system will require users to take significant 'ownership' of their articles. Have their name next to the articles and have them responsible for maintaining it. Giving other users a system to support the author of the article by letting them know something's out of date or might be incorrect etc. Rated articles translate into ratings for the author, weighting their articles in search results and weighting their vote correspondingly.
There's a lot of templating to go into something like this... the immediate search functionality is what we call an AJAX realtime search lookup... also the existence of an API to allow the site to extend to other mediums - all of these basically mean you're looking at a Service Oriented Architecture with a decent database. I can really only recommend a .Net application backend and SQL Server database, which is what I develop in. Hosting is usually slightly more expensive, but development and maintenance is much less painless and more reliable than open platforms such as php running on mySql.
Thanks - some great points. I particularly like your ideas on authenticity. Perhaps something like the 'Web of Trust' model used here: http://www.betterplace.org/ should be considered?
As demonstrated by this SICamp site, there are also some pretty nice Drupal modules to kick things off and one could add in a trust-based ranking system for contributors based on a combination of level and quality of engagement.
I believe http://actnow.com.au has a well-established system for user moderation that may be worth looking into.
I'm not sure I have enough experience in social innovation to comment on the usefulness of the purpose (help people to find resources for social innovation in Australia), but my common sense tells me it is a good idea, and I trust you for that!
About the toolbox implementation, here are my 2 cents: make it a public wiki!
Everyone could access it, you could search it. You can even put some forms for people to submit their resources. And courageous registered users can edit the wiki, add other's people recommendation. If you want to prototype it, Google Sites (wiki), along with something like Google Spreadsheets forms would be of great help. I'm sure there are plenty of other tools that would be great for that too.
Thanks Laurent - a public wiki with a split interface that incorporates a user-friendly search function (e.g. http://seek.com.au) was along the lines I was thinking. Good ideas to explore re: Google - thanks.
Re: An Online Toolbox for Australian Social Innovation
Just a couple of examples from Headshift's project files that might give you some ideas:
Involve's People and Participation
* Overview http://www.headshift.com/projects/2008/06/involves-people-and-participat...
* Site http://www.peopleandparticipation.net/
(this is running on Atlassian Confluence - they offer a free license for non-profits)
Channel 4's Medicine Chest
* Overview http://www.headshift.com/projects/2008/06/medicine-chest.php
* Site http://www.medicinechest.info/
(I know this is a different topic, but some of the principles are the same)
Re: An Online Toolbox for Australian Social Innovation
Hi Don,
This looks to be an excellent idea similar to the social enterprise that I co-founded in the United States - IdeaEncore Network (http://budurl.com/PA0130).
Our experience supports the need for such a repository and I agree with most of nemo's points above. In our experience, this is not a technical issue (though the technology is critical), it is primarily and incentive alignment issue. How to encourage people and organizations to take the time to share more materials and to share them more broadly.
To that end, the following are a few addition attributes that I would suggest you consider:
1. add a method of aligning individual AND organizational incentives for sharing. We have built our tool to enable organizations to create earned income (selling ideas) as a 'nudge' to take the time to share.
2. add a method of protecting intellectual property while encouraging sharing. Creative Commons (http://budurl.com/PA0130a) has done this work superbly in over 80 countries.
3. DO require sign-in to download and rate/comment. We use this as a method of ensuring a feedback mechanism to those who shared items (so it's possible to know who benefited) and also a way to enforce licensing.
4. Encourage organizations to place audience appropriate links to sub-sets of the master list on their own (or co-branded) websites. As an example, we have a service whereby associations and other organizations can subscribe to a standardized RSS feed or can create a customizable feed (RSS or iFrame or we host) to create their own online library from the common pool of resources.
The combination of the above, we hope, will reduce re-invention of tools/templates AND, importantly, create a self-sustaining, self-reinforcing knowledge sharing network.
Off-list, we would be happy to share lessons and explore ways to collaborate (so you don't have to re-create your own technology platform, for instance).
Scott Bechtler-Levin
IdeaEncore Network
Re: An Online Toolbox for Australian Social Innovation
Hi Scott,
This is fantastic advice and http://ideaencore.com has been one of models we have continually revisited in our research for this idea.
In terms of your suggestions, a lot of what you mention hinges on whether we house documentation etc. as compared to links. If we did (and actually even if we didn't), I think exploring an incentives scheme is well worthwhile. But I guess you have some pretty large bandwidth in your hosting package?!
If we went with hosted content, then I'd definitely be thinking along the lines of user-designated CC licences where the user could select their licence class.
Sign-in re: enforcing licensing is an important point I had not considered! How do you monitor this - is it more just for your reporting cycle?
Would love to chat further about collaboration. My Skype username is: donniemaclurcan.
Donnie
Re: An Online Toolbox for Australian Social Innovation
Online peer mediation is always a tricky one to pull off. This will need some thought.
Establishing authenticity will be the site's greatest challenge
Maintaining the reliability and datedness of articles is also tricky.
I think a solid system will require users to take significant 'ownership' of their articles. Have their name next to the articles and have them responsible for maintaining it. Giving other users a system to support the author of the article by letting them know something's out of date or might be incorrect etc. Rated articles translate into ratings for the author, weighting their articles in search results and weighting their vote correspondingly.
There's a lot of templating to go into something like this... the immediate search functionality is what we call an AJAX realtime search lookup... also the existence of an API to allow the site to extend to other mediums - all of these basically mean you're looking at a Service Oriented Architecture with a decent database. I can really only recommend a .Net application backend and SQL Server database, which is what I develop in. Hosting is usually slightly more expensive, but development and maintenance is much less painless and more reliable than open platforms such as php running on mySql.
Re: An Online Toolbox for Australian Social Innovation
Thanks - some great points. I particularly like your ideas on authenticity. Perhaps something like the 'Web of Trust' model used here: http://www.betterplace.org/ should be considered?
As demonstrated by this SICamp site, there are also some pretty nice Drupal modules to kick things off and one could add in a trust-based ranking system for contributors based on a combination of level and quality of engagement.
I believe http://actnow.com.au has a well-established system for user moderation that may be worth looking into.
Donnie
Re: An Online Toolbox for Australian Social Innovation
Hey Donnie,
I'm not sure I have enough experience in social innovation to comment on the usefulness of the purpose (help people to find resources for social innovation in Australia), but my common sense tells me it is a good idea, and I trust you for that!
About the toolbox implementation, here are my 2 cents: make it a public wiki!
Everyone could access it, you could search it. You can even put some forms for people to submit their resources. And courageous registered users can edit the wiki, add other's people recommendation. If you want to prototype it, Google Sites (wiki), along with something like Google Spreadsheets forms would be of great help. I'm sure there are plenty of other tools that would be great for that too.
Do it!
Laurent
Re: An Online Toolbox for Australian Social Innovation
Thanks Laurent - a public wiki with a split interface that incorporates a user-friendly search function (e.g. http://seek.com.au) was along the lines I was thinking. Good ideas to explore re: Google - thanks.
Donnie