Knowlage transfer/communication tool for work enviroment.

daveg

Firstly apologies if this is not the best place to post but I thought Net/Comms was the most appropriate forum.

I need to come up with some idea’s for a knowledge transfer and communications tool within my work group. This tool will also be used for internal communications. I’m new to this area and am completely stumped as to what to suggest. As I’m used to boards my first suggestion was going to be an internal VBulletin forum (like boards but internally hosted) but I don’t know if this would be appropriate or possible. This medium would need to fulfil the following:

• Communications tool for the department (Calendar of events etc).
• Area for research scientists to write up and share reports and technical data.
• The medium must allow reports/data to be shared in separate locations (ie. By project etc).

A “blog” has been mentioned but I’m unsure as to what constraints a blog would have. I know what the simple term blog means but would it be as broad as a Vbulletin forum?

Does anyone have this type of medium in place within their workplace? Does anyone have any idea of the costs associated in setting up an internal Vbulletin forum?

Thanks in advance.

monkey tennis

Sounds like a Wiki would suit some of your needs. Maybe a combination of a BBS and a Wiki would do the job.

You can set up both for next to free - [L/W]AMP server and phpBB or similar, with a Wiki bolted on.

daveg

Thanks monkey tennis. Have you any links to a Wikki that would demostrate what it can do?

ob

What platform have you in place to run this on?

If you're using Windows servers, then maybe have a look here, they have many starter kits, some of which include forums.

On the Linux side, there are many you could use, have a look here for some ideas. [Edit]Actually a lot of these are php based so can be used on windows servers as well...[/Edit]

daveg

I'll have to check out what platforms are in place (only in this job a week) but I'm nearly sure all desktops run Xp Pro and the server runs Windows.

petes

How about an intranet or internal website. Server 2003 comes with one as standard which includes announcements, discussions, etc. PM me for a screenie if you want.

Capt'n Midnight

if you want a simple wiki try http://wikiserver.org - runs on windows / mandrake / MAC

you can save all the pages to a single file - so a sinch to transfer to any platform later on , images have to be backed up separatley

you can embed html if you need to

img:path\image.jpg to add pictures

Edit - for the above which reminds me it also highlights may types of code with @code= / @endcode tags

daveg

Thanks for all the replies. Let me just say I'm not all that techie when it comes to this sort of thing. I really do think IT dept should be the ones calling this..

Anyway we are running Windows 2003 server. We do have an intranet and some work is currently being done on that. Petes PM sent.

WizZard

Maybe look at MS Community Server?

ob

Sharepoint Services would seem like the ideal solutions for you. It's free for Windows Server 2003, a breeze to setup, and has everything you need, you don't need to be a developer to customise it.
There are also lots of templates for it...

Oh, and version 3.0 has been released, you need the .net framework 3.0 though.

Have a look at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/default.mspx, it has all the info you need, even some flash demos.

daveg

Thanks a million for all the info lads. If anyone else has any suggestions please post. I'll review all the technologies mentioned with our IT department to see which is the most relevent.

Thanks again.