Knowledge Management – Taking the Web to the Next Level
The purpose of this initiative is to offer a solution that will enable WVC to more effectively manage and distribute knowledge through various modalities to internal and external customers.
his initiative supports three of the four proposed strategic priorities for 2008-2012, listed below. Every bulleted item can be satisfied by improving WVC’s knowledge management and distribution systems. Specifically:
Wenatchee Valley College’s communications with internal and external audiences will be timely, accurate, and responsive.

Improve communication to students using multiple tools and modalities that expand access to information

Expand information resources for high school students, parents, teachers, and counselors that develop awareness of college programs, services and expectations

Develop two-way communications tools and systems that promote ongoing dialog among college employees and with constituent groups
Wenatchee Valley College’s core focus is student learning. Students will be supported in the learning process with programs, services, and delivery modes that meet their educational needs.

Increase flexibility in the delivery of programs and services and identify and remove barriers to student access

Ensure that adequate tools and technology are available to support quality teaching and learning
Develop the fiscal, capital, technological and human resources needed to achieve strategic priorities and operate the college efficiently and effectively.

Apply current and emerging technologies to improve access and responsiveness in programs and services throughout the college
It is apparent that our current web strategy is not meeting the district’s needs:


The public web site is not reaching our target audience. WVC does not have the in house expertise to define the on-line environment that would most effectively reach our customers or potential customers.
 People can’t find the information they need. In most instances, this is not a matter of creating new content, but of accessing, organizing, formatting and publishing the information that already exists in our My Document files, email archives, public folders, and file cabinets.

It is too difficult to post information to the web, especially in non-traditional formats. We are using a home-grown web content management system that does not have the functionality to distribute information anywhere, at any time, on any device, through multiple modalities. Additionally, our ad hoc approach to multimedia development is not sustainable, and has not produced the desired outcome.
The frustration with our web site reflects broader issues that affect our overall institutional effectiveness. They keep us from being efficient at marketing, knowledge management, and knowledge distribution. This proposal does not directly address marketing; this should be left to professionals. However, it is reasonable to assume that an effective marketing strategy will require WVC to improve its ability to manage knowledge and present it in many different forms.
One other less obvious issue is that since our current web site is based on an internally developed content management application, the college is vulnerable to an extensive loss of service should our web developer leave WVC. It would take new staff months to either become familiar with the million lines of code that make up our current web application or implement another solution.

The district will satisfy the 2008-2012 strategic initiatives identified above.

More people, staff and students, will be publishing information to the web, and through different modalities.

We will remove the vulnerability we have with using a home-grown content management system that is known by only one person, which could result in an extended loss of service.
In addition to satisfying the 2008-2012 strategic initiatives identified above, this is a true institutional initiative in that potentially, every staff member and student could participate in its on-going development. The success of this initiative depends on the participation of all who want a direct way to send and receive information in a variety of modalities. It will require us to adopt new roles for working in this environment. These roles and their suggested participants include, but are not limited to:
Role Responsibility
Technical people, who are responsible for Can be absorbed by current technology

installing SharePoint on the servers and monitoring its health. This also includes database administrators who create databases and schedule backups.
Knowledge manager works with staff and business units to plan and develop site architecture and functional requirements.
Solution builders are people with any kind of background who are responsible for using technology to solve business problems.
Sometimes solution builders are IT staff, but they may also be power users.
Developers write code for extending
SharePoint or creating custom solutions.
They also create and maintain intranet templates, user and document permissions.
Designers are responsible for SharePoint’s look and feel. This could be as simple as changing the color scheme to completely branding SharePoint to be consistent with internal policy.
Subject matter experts are personnel who understand the business functions of the college.
Web reporters post content to the web. staff.
Can be absorbed by current technology staff.
Technology staff, PIO Web reporter, teaching/learning center coordinator, various power users.
New or revised position for Technology
Department, requested in 2008 budget request.
Hire a marketing firm to devise web page templates specific to target audiences.
Project specific.
Anyone and everyone, staff and students. SharePoint accommodates personal, departmental, work group, and enterprise sites that can be designated as public or internal information.
Teaching/learning center coordinator,
PIO Web reporter.
Interactive multimedia developers make content specifically for the web. They are familiar with video editing, audio editing, graphic production, and animation.

The district will satisfy the 2008-2012 strategic initiatives identified above.
Specific outcomes will be included in each project description per the existing
Application Development Request questionnaire.

As the intranet and public web sites are redeveloped the risk of extended loss of web service will diminish. This can be measured.

Measure the growth of participation in web publishing.
 Measure the “greatest hits” and share the information with participants.
Implement the Microsoft SharePoint Suite as WVC’s knowledge management solution.
Although there other options, five of our sister colleges (Bellevue, Big Bend, Cascadia,
Peninsula, and Yakima Valley) have adopted SharePoint. It runs on the .NET platform,

which has been selected by the college system for future application development.
These colleges are already collaboratively developing web applications.
Successful implementation of the plan will require the right tools and organization.
SharePoint is a family of technologies that provides a server infrastructure for knowledge management and distribution. SharePoint makes it possible to engage all users through the tools they employ everyday – Microsoft Word and Excel, Internet Explorer, and
Outlook. Unlike our current environment, SharePoint greatly reduces the need for technical support for most of its operations.
The following chart describes SharePoint’s main functions and how we could use them to develop the following applications that have been requested by WVC staff:
SharePoint Suite Capabilities
Consolidate diverse content from multiple file shares and personal drives into a centrally managed repository with consistent categorization and document/web part-level security.
Publish web content with an easy-touse content authoring tool and a builtin approval process.
Apply information retention, protection, and auditing policies to
Requested web development projects

Incorporating multimedia and interactive features into web sites

Enterprise image library for original works

Searchable policies and procedures

Policy-based records management

Convert Public Folders to the web

Delivering web pages to mobile devices

Posting student-created websites, blogs, bulletin boards, forums and wikis

Moderated discussions with students

Personal and departmental web sites

On-line survey instrument

A method for digitizing, securing and business records to help ensure legal and regulatory compliance. accessing student and employee records on-line

Comply with federal regulations for storing electronic documents generated
Streamline content-driven, collaborative business processes by by employees

A curriculum management system with document versioning and automated providing the tools and platform for automating the tasks of these review and approval

PIO approval for publishing to public processes.
Deliver real-time communications to customers from the applications they sites.

Instant surveys

Instant messaging

Live chat use most.
Office 2007 is one of SharePoint’s core applications. In the SharePoint environment, users can save Word and Excel documents as html (web format) files, on internal and/or external sites. And although it ’s basic functionality is nearly the same as that of Office
XP, the user interface has been reorganized enough to be confusing. Most technology

staff have been working with Office 2007 for a couple of months with no training. We have concluded that a workshop on Office 2007 basics would have substantially shortened our learning curve.
As for dynamic , interactive sites , the district needs to provide multimedia production equipment such as digital cameras, video cameras with sound, microphones, and special editing software, and make it, and training, available staff and students. For the
Wenatchee campus, the natural venue for this activity is the Teaching/Learning Center.
It is also recommended that the Community Relations department and the Omak campus be provided with the same tools.
Since it is possible that every employee could participate in this initiative, it is imperative that our resources are structured to leverage the expertise that currently exists, and focus our personnel toward specific and prioritized ends. Specifically:
1. Move management of the web environment and web application development to the Technology Department. This will consolidate the district’s technical staff, unify the response to district priorities, and facilitate projects that require multiple technicians to accomplish. Marketing, publishing and content maintenance duties will remain with Community Relations or other departments as applicable.
2. Forge a relationship between the PIO web reporter in the Community Relations
Department and the Teaching/Learning Center Coordinator that focuses on interactive multimedia development. Both departments utilize these technologies in the completion of their missions, and would benefit from developing best practices that they could ultimately share with other web reporters.
3. Develop a support group for web reporters. The group will be the first trained to publish to the web, and develop and share best practices and techniques.
4. Revive the Application Development Prioritization process. On a quarterly basis, the technology director meets with Cabinet to report on current project status, and to review new the application development requests and prioritize them.
If this proposal is funded as of July 1, 2008, based on the knowledge we have now
(February 2008), the implementation plan would be as follows:
Task Timeline – Begin date
Setting the Stage
Train staff and convert them to Office 2007.
Train Publication Specialist and Teaching/Learning
Center Coordinator in interactive multimedia content
Spring/Summer 2008
Meet with decision-makers and departmental staff to identify functional requirements and priorities for both the intranet and internet, and prepare a detailed implementation plan for SharePoint.
Spring/Summer 2008
Technology staff implement the SharePoint technology Summer 2008
Summer 2008

development and purchase appropriate multimedia equipment and software.
Outsource public site design and template development. Summer 2008
Convert the intranet to SharePoint
Technology staff develops intranet structure per functional requirements.
Summer/Fall 2008
Fall 2008 Train staff how to use Office 2007 within the SharePoint environment (i.e., publish to the web).
Staff begin to populate SharePoint intranet; convert public folders
Meet with decision makers and departmental staff to identify application development projects and gather functional requirements for each project.
Present development project request to Cabinet for prioritization. Begin developing intranet applications per
Cabinet approved priorities.
Convert the public site to SharePoint
Meet with decision makers and departmental staff to identify application development projects and gather functional requirements for each project.
Fall 2008
Fall 2008
Fall 2008/Winter 2009
Winter 2009
Present development project request to Cabinet for prioritization. Begin developing intranet applications per
Cabinet approved priorities
Technology staff develops internet structure.
Import outsourced templates for the public site.
Departmental and technology staff begins moving current public site to the SharePoint environment.
The Teaching/Learning Center Coordinator begins assisting faculty in moving their web sites to the
SharePoint environment
Hire web application programmer to program applications for the public SharePoint site.
Winter 2009
Winter 2009
Winter 2009
Winter/Spring 2009
Winter/Spring 2009
Winter/Spring 2009

Goods and Services
ITEM
Microsoft Sharepoint, Communication Server, SQL software
Content Storage Servers
Environmental upgrades (UPS, rack)
Seed money for multimedia development equipment for TLC, PIO, Omak
Subtotal
0.08
TOTAL
32,000.00
12,000.00
7,000.00
25,000.00
76,000.00
6,080.00
Total $82,080.00
Personnel
This initiative might require some re-distribution of work, and the implementation plan assumes approval and funding for a web content editor. The cost is addressed separately.


Microsoft SharePoint Overview http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/capabilities/ecm/overview.mspx

SharePoint features – 30 pages of details http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/FX101758691033.aspx

Microsoft Communications Server
 http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/communicationsserver/default.aspx

Planning and architecture for Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft
Corporation
Published: March 2007, Author: Office IT and Servers User Assistance
(o12ITdx@microsoft.com)

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 For Dummies by Vanessa L. Williams
John Wiley & Sons 2007, ISBN:9780470099414

Knowledge Management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management

IT Directors at sister colleges: o Russ Beard, Big Bend o Mike Talbott, Bellevue o Steve Baxter, Penninsula o Bill Storms, Walla Walla o Scott Towsley, Yakima Valley

Feedback from college constituents: o Claver Hategekimana o Sheila Dresker o Susan Murray o Kelly Ketcham o Tim Marker o Bruce Maxwell o Kevin Berg o Katie White o Alex Roberts

Application Development Requests for the following projects are available: o Course Outline Management o Corporate Image Catalog o Searchable Policies and Procedures o Special Needs o Document Imaging o Online Survey Instrument