Introduction
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![link=[[Media:{{{Release}}}]]](/File:2030_bicycling_plan.jpg)
![link=[[Media:{{{Release}}}]]](/File:Flanders.jpg)
If you are already familiar with this wiki, its structure and purpose please use the topic links on the right to get straight into the content. You do not need to know much about a wiki to search for content but it will help.
This knowledge base is built using Semantic MediaWiki an open-source extension for the MediaWiki platform, which is the software behind Wikipedia. It extends the standard MediaWiki functionality to allow for more sophisticated data management and querying capabilities.
Semantic MediaWiki adds the ability to define and store structured data within a MediaWiki installation, and to query that data using the Semantic Web standards of RDF and SPARQL. This enables users to create complex data relationships and to perform advanced data analysis within the wiki.
We are using the Semantic MediaWiki to creating a knowledge management system to manage information about how communities around the world are using technology to facilitate civic engagement, share resources and deliver services.
Interface
The Forms extension for MediaWiki is a tool that allows users to create and manage forms for adding, editing, and retrieving structured data within a MediaWiki installation. The Forms extension is built on top of the Semantic MediaWiki extension, which provides the underlying data management and querying capabilities.
With the Forms extension, users can create custom forms with fields for capturing specific data, such as names, addresses, and other information. These forms can be used to create new pages or to edit existing pages within the wiki. The data entered into the forms is automatically stored in the wiki's underlying database and can be queried and displayed using Semantic MediaWiki's powerful querying capabilities.
The Forms extension provides a user-friendly interface for managing forms, making it easy for even non-technical users to create and manage structured data within a wiki. This can be especially useful for organizations that need to capture and manage large amounts of structured data, such as research institutions or corporations.
Preparing to add Content
To prepare to add content to a Semantic Mediawiki with forms, a user should follow these steps:
- Familiarize yourself with the purpose and structure of the wiki: Before adding content, it's important to understand the purpose and organization of the wiki, including the categories and templates that are used to structure the content.
- Read the guidelines for adding content: We provide guidelines for how to add content, including standards for formatting, organization, and tone. These guidelines should be reviewed and understood before adding any content.
- Familiarize yourself with the forms: Semantic Mediawiki provides forms that make it easy to add and edit structured data, such as infoboxes, tables, and lists. You should familiarize yourself with the available forms and understand how to use them to add content to the wiki.
- Plan the content': Before actually adding content, you should plan what you want to add and how it will fit into the overall structure of the wiki.
- Add the content: After familiarizing yourself with the wiki, guidelines, and forms, you can start adding content to the wiki using the forms provided under the Authors title on the left. Each form starts with "Add a".
By following these steps, a user can prepare to add content to a Semantic Mediawiki with forms and ensure that their contributions are accurate, well-organized, and in line with the wiki's guidelines.
Purpose
This knowledge base for municipal technology projects serves as a central repository for information, best practices, and lessons learned from previous projects. Its purpose is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of technology implementation within a municipality by reducing the time and resources spent on repetitive tasks, promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing, and reducing the risk of project failures.
One of the main benefits of this knowledge base is that it allows municipal technology teams to access a wealth of information quickly and easily, improving the speed and accuracy of decision-making. This information can include project plans, budgets, schedules, and status reports, as well as information on technical solutions, vendor selection, and project management methodologies. By providing a centralized location for this information, teams can avoid having to reinvent the wheel and can instead focus on improving existing processes and solutions.
Another key benefit of this knowledge base is that it promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing among different departments and teams within and between municipalities. This can help to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals and that best practices are being consistently followed. By sharing information and lessons learned from previous projects, teams can also identify areas for improvement and work together to address these issues.
Finally, this knowledge base helps to reduce the risk of project failures by providing a centralized location for project information, allowing teams to track project progress and identify potential issues before they become major problems. By having access to detailed information on past projects, teams can also make more informed decisions, reducing the risk of costly mistakes.
The purpose of building this knowledge base of municipal technology projects is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of technology implementation within municipalities, promote collaboration and knowledge sharing, and reduce the risk of project failures.
Structure
In Semantic MediaWiki, a category is a way to group pages together that share some common characteristics or belong to the same topic. Pages can be assigned to one or multiple categories, and categories can also have subcategories. This allows for organization and categorization of the content within a MediaWiki. Categories in Semantic MediaWiki also allow for data storage and querying, as categories can have semantic annotations that describe the relationships between the pages and the category.
Opencommons has a set of categories that relate to the kind of information being collected on the site. These include
- ActionCluster: There are more than 300 organizations participating in National Institute of Standards and Technology Global City Teams Challenge smart city technology projects, called Action Clusters. These participants include representatives from U.S. cities and states, major cities in other countries, government agencies, private companies, non-profits, universities, hospitals, and a variety of municipal-focused organizations.
- Best Practice: A municipal best practices trip is a type of study tour or field visit organized by local governments, non-profit organizations, or consultants to observe and learn from the best practices and innovative approaches being implemented in other municipalities. The purpose of these trips is to bring together local government officials, community leaders, and other stakeholders to share experiences and knowledge, and to find solutions to common challenges. The trips typically involve visiting different cities or municipalities to see first-hand the various programs, initiatives, and services being offered, and to meet with the local officials and stakeholders to discuss their experiences and challenges. The goal of a municipal best practices trip is to foster learning, collaboration, and the transfer of best practices from one municipality to another, with the aim of improving the quality of life for residents.
- Chapter: In OpenCommons a chapter is a collection of information about a particular topic or concept. The content of the chapter is written in wikitext, a simple markup language that allows for the creation of links, headings, lists, and other formatting elements. In addition to the traditional wikitext content, a chapter contains semantic annotations, which are special tags that provide structured information about the topic of the page. These annotations allow for the creation of relationships between chapters and the storage of data in a structured way.
- Event: The event form collects relevant events along with their dates and registration page and puts the next five events on the front page of the site.
- Municipality: Municipalities that host projects, organizations, products, news or webinars have a page in the knowledge base that gives basic information about founding, size and location. Municipalities hosting projects that have those municipalities in their "Participating Municipalities" field will be listed on the municipalities page automatically.
- News: The news form collects relevant news along with date and url of the announcement and puts the last five announcements on the front page of the site.
- Organization: Organizations that contribute to the community through projects, products, news or webinars can have a page in the knowledge base that gives basic information about formation, size and executives. Companies with projects, news, people and webinars that have those companies in their teams will be listed on the company page automatically.
- Person: People who contribute to the community through projects, products, news or webinars can have a page in the knowledge base that gives basic information about where they work and if possible link to their linkedin profile. People with projects, news and webinars that have those people in their point of contact will be listed on that person's page automatically.
- Product: The product form collects product literature along with dates of launch and lists those products on the organization site of the product manufacturer.
- Project: The project form collects project information and lists those projects on organization, municipality and person pages for all relevant supporters.
- Supercluster: This is the origional grouping of National Institute of Standards and Technology Global City Teams Challenge ActionClusters by industry sector and is no longer used.
- Webinar: The webinar form collects relevant webinar information along with their dates, presenters, presentations and video recording.
For each of these categories we have a form. The form fill in semantic annotations, which are special tags that provide structured information about the topic of the category. One category does not have a form, Supercluster. This category is not expected to change or require updating often. If changes are needed please contact Wilfred Pinfold. To access the forms for these categories look at the links in the left margin of the site. Under Authors all the "Add a" topics point at forms.
Forms
Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) is a powerful tool for storing and organizing information in a structured way. One of the most user-friendly ways to enter this information is by using forms. If you're new to SMW and don't have any programming skills, don't worry! Using forms is easy and intuitive.
We have created a set of forms that make it easy to add the most popular pages, the links in the left hand menu let you:
Add a Project Add a Organization Add a Municipality Add a Webinar Add a Best Practice Add a Person Add a Chapter Add a Product Add a Event Add a News Add a Report
To use the form, simply navigate to the form by clicking your chosen link and enter the name of the content you want to Create. If the content already exists then you will be given a form to edit that content. The fields might include text boxes, drop-down menus, checkboxes, and more. When you're done, click the "Submit" button to save the information into the SMW.
Using forms is a simple and effective way to collect and store information, even if you don't know any markup language. You can use forms to manage your information efficiently and effectively.
Guidelines
Guidelines for Adding Content to OpenCommons:
- Formatting
- Use a clear and concise writing style
- Use headings to structure the content and make it easy to read
- Use bullet points or numbered lists for lists of items
- Use tables for data or information that is best presented in a tabular format
- Use images and videos] to illustrate or clarify content, but make sure they are relevant and of high quality
- Organization
- Use #Structure of categories and Templates to organize the content
- Make sure the content is relevant to the wiki and fits within the overall structure
- Ensure that links to other pages within the wiki are accurate and up-to-date
- Tone
- Maintain a neutral, factual tone
- Avoid using language that could be interpreted as biased or partisan
- Avoid using language that could be interpreted as selling or promotional
- Avoid using language that could be offensive or inflammatory
- Accuracy
- Ensure that all information added is accurate and verifiable
- Include sources for all information added to the wiki
- Verify that all information added is up-to-date and relevant
- Consistency
- Ensure that the content is consistent with the style and tone of other pages within the wiki
Sources
The best way to provide sources is by uploading them into the page. If this is not possible then an outside link is a good option and failing that using a citation.
Citations on this website are provided using the semantic Cite tool. We have provided templates for:
- article
- journal
- encyclopedia
- conference
- book
- web
- news
The format is to use the Citation reference (or its alias CiteRef) property. For example, a simple in-text annotation is created by <ref>{{Cite | Web 2.0 strategies in libraries and information services}}</ref>. To create the reference you add a paper from the authors forms on the left "Add a Paper" or you can create a page using the Paper template as follows.
{{Paper
|title=Web 2.0 strategies in libraries and information services
|type=journal-article
|author=Byrne, A
|journal=The Australian Library Journal
|volume=57.4
|published=2008-01-01
|pages=365-376
|file=Web 2 0 strategy in libraries and information services.pdf
}}
This results in a reference[1] number in the text where the CitRef is used and a citation at the bottom of the page.
- ↑
Byrne, A.
"Web 2.0 strategies in libraries and information services"
The Australian Library Journal.
Volume:57.4.
2008-01-01.
Pages:365-376.
