Knowledge Portal Project

Using a Web-enabled portal, the Northeastern University Information Services division (IS) created a 'living library' to support and maintain a hardware/software environment serving 30,000 students, 8,000 faculty members, administrative departments and visitors. The portal allows reuse of tacit and explicit knowledge, constant updating, collaborative use of resources and value-added leverage of existing people and information. The portal allows us to direct projects to people with the most appropriate experience and expertise.

Challenge

As a non-profit educational institution, this project was based on a need to do more and better work with a static or declining annual budget of $28 million and a nearly unchanged staffing level. The IS division wanted easy access to a vast body of knowledge including project plans, functional requirements, technical specifications, product white papers, training materials and customer feedback survey data. The portal links the IS team to any number of related information sharing and communication services such as Domino TeamRooms and Discussion databases, Quickplaces, electronic mail, instant messaging, Remedy (our problem resolution/trouble ticket tracking system), staff alerts and news items. The portal also captures staff biographical data and expertise levels, allowing individuals to exploit tacit knowledge by quickly identifying "local experts."