FootballNews Knowledge Base - Your comments wanted.

Post by **admin** » Sun May 06, 2007 1:55 pm

FootballNews has been considering setting up a football knowledge base focussed on coaching resources.

The concept is that the users can contribute articles, information, advice etc that go into the knowledge base and are then available for re-use by others. For example in the coaching forum MegaBonus has just recently put in an article on team formations - this is the type of of article that can go into the knowledge base. Other items would be training exercises.

For this to work it will require support from the coaching community - they have previously expressed their support for this feature so I dont have much doubts about that.

The main question in my mind is the method of implementing the knowledge base. The most obvious method, to me, is to make use of commercial support and knowledge base software (of which we already have a running at Webzone). The benefit of this software is that it is very structured and gives us added benefits to manage some of the email flows we receive at footballnews. You can view an example of what the a knowledge base looks like here:

http://www.footy4kids.co.uk/

or the small Webzone knowledge base here:

http://support.webzone.net.au/helpdesk/ ... =&mod_id=2

The disadvantage of the commercial knowledge base software is that is it is a closed/secure system.

An alternative method is to implement a wiki style system. This is less structured and far more open. While it does not provide the email management benefits of the commercial knowledge base software and will be a first time installation for the Webzone staff - it does seem to better suit what the FootballNews Knowledge Base is setting out to achieve - a user contributed football coaching resource.

Here is a tikiWiki website:

http://www.cmswiki.com/tiki-index.php

Here is the biggest wiki site of them all - wikipedia running media-wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Wiki

Sorry if this is a little technical however we are keen for your feedback because it will be your resource to use.

Squizzy · Post by **Squizzy** » Sun May 06, 2007 2:13 pm

Admin,

Excellent idea but I'm afraid it's too technical for me.

I like the "footy4kids" site - as in, I think it's good frame. That's my 2 bobs worth.

MegaBonus · Post by **MegaBonus** » Thu May 10, 2007 10:08 pm

i'll leave the technical stuff to you techno geeks

but i'm happy to provide resources where possible

Post by **johnydep** » Sun May 13, 2007 10:59 pm

Great idea Admin.

Both have advantages, probably staying with what you already have would be easier, the only disadvantage i see is that articles will become stagnate.

The Wiki is my favourite. It will allow people to update articles so they stay relevant for the changing times, though it will take a lot of monitoring and work to limit spam.

So unless you have lots of good people to monitor the site It'd probably be better to have something like the "footy4kids" site.

Post by **admin** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:26 pm

Hi,

Just to update you on this - we have kicked off this project. We have decided on mediawiki for the coaching knowledgebase.

We will start testing it shortly before making available to a wider group.

Post by **admin** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:19 am

Hi,

We are now testing the coachingWiki knowledgebase.

If you are interested in contributing and being involved in the testing phase then reply to this message or send an email to webmaster@footballnews.com.au

Post by **admin** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:27 am

Also would be very keen to hear your views on how you think information in the knowledgebase should be structured/categorised.

If you have any thoughts then please tell us.

Post by **johnydep** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 10:25 pm

admin wrote:Also would be very keen to hear your views on how you think information in the knowledgebase should be structured/categorised.

If you have any thoughts then please tell us.

A video database, or a section to post links to relevant training videos that can be hosted on Youtube.

Storage of PDF

Post by **admin** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 10:54 pm

We are about to go live with the coaching Wiki.

It has been tested for a few months but it lacks any contnet at this stage.

So it will be up to some interested parties to add to it.

BillShankly · Post by **BillShankly** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 10:57 pm

admin wrote:We are about to go live with the coaching Wiki.

It has been tested for a few months but it lacks any contnet at this stage.

So it will be up to some interested parties to add to it.

who has tested it?

BillShankly · Post by **BillShankly** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 10:22 am

whats going on with this admin