Knowledge Repositories
in Action: Case of the
InterAmerican Development Bank
 Karen Mokate – karenm@iadb.org
 Kyle Strand –kyles@iadb.org
 Joseph Busch - jbusch@ppc.com
KMWorld 2010 – Washington, D.C.
http://www.iadb.org
The Inter-American Development Bank Discussion Papers and Presentations are
documents prepared by both Bank and non-Bank personnel as supporting materials for
events and are often produced on an expedited publication schedule without formal editing
or review. The information and opinions presented in these publications are entirely those
of the author(s), and no endorsement by the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board
of Executive Directors, or the countries they represent is expressed or implied.
This presentation may be freely reproduced.
Outline
 IDB Background & Context
 IDB Knowledge Products
 Building our Institutional Knowledge
Repository
 Challenges Ahead
 Lessons Learned
Inter-American Development Bank
MISSION: To accelerate the
economic and social
development of our
borrowing member
countries, both individually
and collectively.
Inter-American Development Bank
Development Financing
- Loans / Grants
- Technical Assistance
- Research
48 member countries (shareholders)
- 26 in LAC (majority share)
Offices in 29 countries
Inter-American Development Bank
2000 Staff Members
Plus $53 million per year in consultant services
A Bank?
A DEVELOPMENT Bank…..
A DEVELOPMENT Bank….
KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTS
Databases
Technical Notes
Working Papers
Project Preparation Reports
Evaluations
Presentations
Training Materials
Lessons Learned
Books
More…
IDB Products – past paradigm
Sovereign Guaranteed
Financial Products:
loans, grants,
Non-Financial
Products:
development
knowledge, others
Non-Sovereign
Guaranteed Financial
Products: loans, grants,
IDB Products – current perspective
Sovereign Guaranteed
Financial Products:
loans, grants,
Knowledge Products:
analytical work and
capacity-building
Non-Sovereign
Guaranteed Financial
Products: loans, grants,
Another Approach to the Business Case:
Search for / Reuse of Knowledge Products
If we can save 23 minutes of
time per week per staff member,
the investment in the
knowledge repository pays for
itself in a single year.
Objectives, Mantra
ACCESSIBILITY
VISIBILITY
Challenges to Better Accessibility
• Scarce recognition of the INSTITUTIONAL
ownership of our knowledge products
• Inadequate management and maintenance, as
well as obsolescence of e-docs system
• Extremely sparse metadata
• Inadequate, out-of-date and neglected search
capacity
• Multiple, fragmented, non-validated vocabularies
• No enterprise management role or governance for
search, vocabulary, metadata
Challenges to Visibility of KPs
Publications Page: links to pdf file, with no
related knowledge products, no additional
data, no user interaction
Challenges to Visibility of KPs
2
Google links to pdf file, with no link-back,
no links to related KPs.
Search
Controlled
Institutional
Engine
Vocabulary
Knowledge
Repository
(IKR)Governance
Platform
&
Management
Search
Engine
Controlled
Vocabulary
Platform
Governance
&
Management
IKR Component: Search Engine
• Global & Publications Page
• Intranet pages (SEC, LEG, SCF, Infolinks, others)
• Intranet Search Portal (Zahorí)
Search Engine
Controlled
Vocabulary
Platform
Governance &
Management
Search
Engine
Controlled
Vocabulary
Platform
Governance
&
Management
Order, consistency for metadata
Higher
Education
Post-secondary
Education
Tertiary
Education
Facets in our Vocabulary
•Document Type
• Access Control
•Organizational Unit
•Countries & Regions
•Topics & Sectors
Search
Engine
Controlled
Vocabulary
Platform
Governance
&
Management
Repository Platform
D-SPACE –
Metadata and
links
Users /
Producers
(KPs)
IDB Docs files
Knowledge Products
(within IDBDocs)
IDB Docs Metadata
Search Engine
Controlled
Vocabulary
Platform
Governance &
Management
Knowledge Repository
D-SPACE –
Metadata and links
IDB Docs files
Knowledge Products
(within IDBDocs)
IDB Docs Metadata
Vivisimo
Search
IKR Component: Repository Platform
Content ingest (Bank Knowledge Products)
Pilot groups: RES, ICF, SDS, INDES
Next: SCF, OVE
BRIK
Accessible and Visible
Access by Collection
Search by Author
Search
Engine
Controlled
Vocabulary
Platform
Governance
&
Management
IKR Component:
Governance & Management
Advisory Group Consultations  IKR Policy Proposal
•
•
•
•
•
•
Definition of Knowledge Products
Access policies and controls
Policies and practices for ingesting KPs into the IKR
Mandate for ingest of KPs into the IKR
Institutional priorities during ingest of KP stock
Ownership permissions re: KP stock in IDBDocs
Search
Engine
Controlled
Vocabulary
Platform
Governance
&
Management
Ingest Workflow
KP produced,
approved
1
Submission
2
Departmental
Review
3
Centralized
Quality
Control
Accessible and
Visible in BRIK
Next Steps
•Ingest of identified KPs
•Training and support to departmental editors
•Approval of IKR policies
•Training and support to authors, editors
•Identification and ingest of siloed products
•Incorporation of Vocabulary into Software and
into D-Space
•Definition and implementation of a
“gatekeeper” role
Pending Challenge: Multilingual Development
Metadata
1 language
Metadata
multiple languages
Lessons Learned
 Manage each of the four components as a project, manage
their coordination proactively
 Include the management/governance dimension from the start,
build up the support for the decisions that will have to be made
 Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
– Across the organization
– Buy-in, engagement
– Engage management. Create a business case and sell it.
 Start out with those units/groups that want to work with you,
and keep the group open
 Manage the repository as a living entity, the goal is not an
short-term investment or an immutable finished product
Thank you
Questions?
Comments?
Karen Mokate
Kyle Strand
Joseph Busch
karenm@iadb.org
kyles@iadb.org
jbusch@ppc.com
www.iadb.org