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About CEE
Centre for Environment Education (CEE) established in August 1984 as a Centre
of Excellence supported by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government
of India, and affiliated to the Nehru Foundation for Development (NFD). The
Centre inherits a rich multi-disciplinary resource base and the varied
experience of NFD, its parent organization, which has been promoting
educational efforts since 1966 in the areas of science, nature study, health,
development and environment.
CEE, a national institution with its headquarters in Ahmedabad, has a mandate
to promote environmental awareness nationwide.
CEE's primary objective is to improve public awareness and understanding of
environmental issues with a view to promote the conservation and wise use of
nature and natural resources. To this end, CEE not only creates expertise in
the field of environmental education, but also develops innovative programmes
and educational materials, testing them for validity and effectiveness. These
programmes and materials are designed flexibility to permit suitable adaptation
for use across the country.
Business Need
CEE was looking to develop a well engineered knowledge management
infrastructure. The underlying aim was to take advantage of existing knowledge,
stimulate the development of new knowledge and ideas, acquire the knowledge
directly and painlessly, enable automatic classification and inter-relate it
with an objective of making it globally accessible so that the right knowledge
can be obtained and efficiently used by the Knowledge worker.
About System - Solution
The basic premise recognized is that Knowledge Management is the discipline
that helps spread knowledge of individuals or groups across organizations in
ways that directly affect performance. Knowledge Management envisions getting
the Right Information within the Right Context to the Right Person at the Right
Time for the Right Business Purpose.
Knowledge needs to be collected from all existing sources including people,
systems, data stores, file cabinets and desktops. All knowledge of value is
stored in the organizational knowledge repository. For virtual teams, this
knowledge would be immediately conveyed to those people and systems that could
use it. The concept of Knowledge Communities is being used. It operates
independently of organizational structure. A knowledge community will have
knowledge requirements specific to its area of interest.
Knowledge Management Component Architecture was devised that consists of
knowledge portals, knowledge components, and the knowledge repository.
A Knowledge Portal is a starting point web site where members of a knowledge
community begin to enter, find, and access knowledge using the various
knowledge artifacts. The knowledge portal may be designed to focus upon the
type of work expected to be done by the knowledge user. Knowledge portal
profile modes so far determined are:
1) Knowledge
subject matter access
2)
Collaboration
3) Community
description and
4) A
combination of the above.
A knowledge component is a self-contained, reusable object that can be used
independently or assembled with other components to satisfy knowledge
management requirements.
The Knowledge Repository consists of servers where knowledge indices and, often
knowledge artifacts (documents, presentations, databases, charts, graphs,
plans, audio files, and/or video files) are made accessible. Some searching may
cross knowledge servers. Global Virtual Knowledge Repositories are
inter-connectable Knowledge Repositories, globally distributed, that look to be
a single entity to portals and knowledge components. One search searches all.
A robust Dynamic Content Management that makes it really easy to add new fresh
content to the website that includes variety of information like Knowledge
forums, Photographs/Images, Latest News, Main Menu Links, Publications and much
more has been provided. The dynamic content management system enables mapping
of organizational knowledge generation resources to the online application in
order to be able to embed the application into organizational work flow. Almost
every piece of information visible on the website can be dynamically changed
without any hassles. It allows modifying of information simply from the web
browser without knowing HTML or any additional software requirements.
The search facility would allow / help users to locate information rapidly
throughout the knowledge management application websites / associated sites and
default database. The extensive search would enable users to extend their
search span across multiple environmental debate / newsletter / discussion /
reference paper for single keyword enhancing understanding and relationships
between different environmental topics / issues. This will allow switching over
to any other site of KM environment. The traditional search methods will be
enhanced to meet with the requirements of the user. The search criteria would
be based on keywords designated / defined by administrator and would be
extending up to entire KM sites / associated sites and database / other
databases. The definition of key word would be set by administrator allowing
him / her to populate database with newer words as and when encountered.
The discussion forum will allow the web users to interact / discuss on the
latest debates posted by administrator on KM sites or initiate new debates on
other related issues. The distinct features of the Discussion Forum are as
follows:
- View Ongoing Debates
- Post opinion on Debate
- Initiate New Debates
- View Past Debates
- Search for a Specific Debate
- Link to E-mail Account
- Acknowledgement
Choosing the Right Vendor
CEE was looking for a dependable vendor who could understand the needs of a
Knowledge Management system and can deliver quality solution at a competitive
price point. VBSOFT exhibited their clear understanding of the requirements of
a KM system by conceptualizing the system and demonstrating the same.
Results Meet CEE's Expectation
The results were absolutely in line with CEE. Right now from this system CEE
has created 3 new knowledge sites.
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