Sarah Burns

Oxfam International’s KIC Portal: Web 2.0 in KM Initiatives

Brief Background

Sarah Burns•International Development B.A.Hons

•MLIS II

•Oxfam Canada Intern

•Oxfam Québec Research Assistant

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Outline

•What is Knowledge Management (KM)?

•KM and Web 2.0

•What is Oxfam?

•How does Oxfam use KM?

•Problems with KM in Oxfam

•What is the KIC Portal?

•Web 2.0 Technology in KIC Portal

•How does the KIC Portal help Oxfam’s KM?

What is Knowledge Management?

“Knowledge Management is the deliberate and systematic coordination of an organization’s people, technology, processes, and organizational structure in order to add value through reuse and innovation. This coordination is achieved through creating, sharing, and applying knowledge as well as through feeding the valuable lessons learned and best practices into corporate memory in order to foster continued organizational learning.”

- Dr. Kimiz Dalkir, 2005

KM and Web 2.0

•Communities of Practice

•Community Yellow Pages

•Intranets

•Wikis

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What is Oxfam?

Mission:

To fight poverty and related injustice around the world by working together internationally to achieve greater impact by

their collective efforts.

How does Oxfam use KM?

•Best practices and lessons learned.

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•Collaborative learning and information sharing.

•Communities of Practice

•Intranets.

•Field blogs/podcasts/stories.

Problems with KM in Oxfam

•Funding

•Cross-cultural contexts

•Multi-lingual (both language and lexicon)

•Geographical distance

•Partners without access to internet, computers or electricity.

•Do-it-yourself attitude

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What is the KIC Portal?

www.oxfamkic.org

Web 2.0 Technology in KIC

Allows for creativity, increases communication, creates easy collaboration.

•Search capabilities

•Quick links

•Authoring

•Tagging

•Signaling

Based on: Andrew McAfee’s SLATES model

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How does KIC help Oxfam’s KM?

•Oxfam International funds

•Quickly see what everyone is up to and their latest projects and information.

•Detailed guides for sharing information.

•Four online languages, plus no language restrictions for content added by users.

•Online, easily accessed and maintained by partners and members across the world and updated to the rest through RSS feeds or email instantaneously.

•Allow for selection of Full or Limited Functionality depending on connection speed.

Questions?

www.oxfamunwrapped.ca

www.oxfamkic.orgwww.oxfam.orgwww.oxfam.cawww.oxfamnovib.nlwww.oxfam.org.uk