Action plan
Contents
Backbone Teams
This is a draft of the purpose, roles and responsibilities of the various teams and how we will work with one another. The various teams can insert their most current thinking and plans here so that others have a sense of what everyone else is thinking and doing.
Knowledge Architecture & ICT Team
To join us, contact Justin Lee justin.lee@nus.edu.sg
Team Purpose
1. Design the structure of the knowledge base to ensure it is user-friendly and suit the needs of teams working on specific social causes [e.g. How should the wiki pages look and feel? One page or many pages? Hyperlinked? Content page?]
This includes identifying the categories of information useful for the purpose of identifying needs & gaps. E.g. it is important to have a resource directory to understand the full range of organizations working in a particular field.
2. Develop the editorial and validation principles so that social cause teams can flag, bracket and check the quality of information inserted by participants [e.g. by taking reference from how wikipedia verifies inserted information]
3. Help provide technology support and advice on what platforms can best provide functionalities required
Guiding Sensibilities
-We should respect and preserve diversity of views (within the team, and also in the work of designing the knowledge base)
-VWOs often lack confidence in their research abilities and think they don’t really know enough, and that only researchers or ministry have authoritative knowledge. We should seek to democratize research and empower them to participate in knowledge production
-We should learn and improve along the way, and be flexible about how the knowledge architecture should look like, taking feedback from the users in various social cause teams
How We Will Work
-The convenor of the team is responsible for 1) mobilizing meetings, 2) seeking inputs on agenda items, 3) securing a location, 4) facilitating the conversation, and 5) taking down key decision points to be recorded in this governance document. This role will be rotated and every person in the team will have a chance to play this role.
-All decisions will be taken down and immediately recorded in this ‘governance document’ so that there is a live and succinct document that reflects all our decisions and views. Nothing we discussed should be wasted--it either leads to a decision, or if they are aspects not yet resolved, we will park those issues in ‘Unresolved Issues’ for future discussion.
-The convenor should therefore be free to modify and edit this governance document as they deem fit--even deleting and restructuring--as long as it improves the clarity of our goals, actions and roles.
-Each team member can solicit for help, outsource, seek advice in whatever way they feel appropriate to the goals we are trying to achieve.
-We also aspire to short and effective meetings.
What We Will Do: Outcomes to Achieve and How to Get There
1 Study wikipedia editorial process
Develop editorial policy and process to validate and check facts so that social cause teams have clear guidelines on how to do it independently
Insert guidelines and FAQ section into the wiki site
2 Knowledge architecture & testing of user experience
- Lien to create Seniors page - Sharon to create a Youth at Risk page - Fung Shing to create Mental Health page - Justin to add Ex-Offenders, Migrant Workers, Disability page
After it is up, we will then take up roles of VWO, academic, concerned citizen, service user etc to insert a range of possible actions like comments/edit wars/deletes so that we can more concretely decide what are sensible policies to set
3 Training for User Groups in the Social Cause Teams
4 Study needs assessment frameworks, tools and processes
-Study existing wiki pages, note user experience -check out intellipedia Usable needs assessment framework that will act as a guide for developing the knowledge architecture on the wiki pages (wire framing?)
5 Study prioritization frameworks
Develop a prioritization framework to help social cause teams think through how to prioritize gaps; and to help prioritize across different social causes
What We Have Done
Older Test Wiki Platform https://sgsocialneeds.wiki.zoho.com/
There are issues with 'cut & paste' functions, and for edits, user has to load the whole page and find the specific paragraph they want to contribute to.
Deliverable 1: Editorial Policy & Process
The knowledge architecture team has developed a set of basic editorial policies and recommended processes that can act as guidelines for each needs assessment project. The editorial work itself should be done by the anchor organisations. Frequency of editorial work (As often as you like, but at least once a month?) See main page for editorial policies.
-We agreed that we will develop the policies as we go along--as we test the system and as the social cause teams start using them--as it is difficult to imagine all possible scenarios in the abstract.In principle, we think that the editorial guides should be as short and simple as possible so that it does not become intimidating for new users who need to read the guide. These guidelines and FAQs can become more complex as the initiative takes off, and users become more sophisticated as well.
-We noted the possible longer term ethical and moral issues with the project, and agree to think carefully about legal liabilities if they emerge.
-It should not matter the status of the person providing the information, but only the quality of that information. (e.g it doesn't matter if it is an expert or someone with credentials, we will assess and validate each factoid according to the same principles. Therefore, we have agreed that we will allow anonymous users. [For the validation of privileged information only organisations will have, e.g. waitlists, client profiles of a centre, we will have to flag it if unverified; and where the organization is agreeable, they should put down a contact person who has verified that info?]
-We agreed that users can be allowed to insert knowledge gaps to indicate what is worth knowing. This will allow researchers and academics an easy overview of what is worthwhile investigating. In that way, the research community can also be mobilized in a more targeted way to do projects that are specifically useful for the community. Student researchers are always looking for topics and this directs them to areas already identified and even priortized by the sectors. Ongoing projects that seek to address this knowledge gap can also be inserted [e.g.: “Ongoing survey of caregivers of adults with autism by Irene Ng of NUS Social Work” or “Planned case-study of aftercare agencies by IPS”]. This allows an overview of all relevant ongoing projects and can generate possible partnerships.
Our work will include:
1-List of possible actions to address: vandalism, slander, editing wars, illegal removing of content, misinformation, self-serving or marketing information etc.
2-How to address them: banning users who vandalise recurringly, flagging
Deliverable 2: Knowledge Architecture-Structure of the Pages and Content
-Portals and sub-pages: eg Main ‘Disability’ page with broad needs, but sub-pages that include sub-segments, eg Adults with Autism that can be on a separate page? -one possible existing structure is this: need statement, existing resources, gaps and their causes, possible solutions -What if contributor wants to change the structure of the page, not just add contents to it?
-We agreed that there are two key goals for our system: 1) Credibility of information; 2) Participation and commitment (getting as many people on it as possible).
-Users should be able to contribute to existing pages, but also create new pages if they want. However, the pages and content they create need to serve the objective of understanding needs, assessing gaps and their causes, and offer possible solutions. Therefore, a generic article on ‘music therapy’ may not be suitable if it merely provides an encyclopedic insert of this area, which is what a wikipedia article would already do.
-However, we agreed that if ‘interventions’ become commonplace across the domains of needs (elderly, ex-offenders, disability etc), then it might be more meaningful to have these stand-alone pages (counselling, arts-based therapy, design thinking etc).
-We discussed using a word cloud to map out all possible areas that should be inserted and creating those pages or inserts first as a placeholder so that users know how best to contribute to them. This may reduce the confusion about what information goes where.
-We also discussed that a master list of organizations and resources would be useful. Currently, in the main page that is structured around a client type (eg elderly), the existing services, policies, community resources that are relevant to or address that need are parked within the need heading. These may have to be manually pulled out to be placed in a master list or ‘Resource Directory’ by the editors.
-We also considered the possibility of having a separate portal on ‘Types of Community Assets’ so that we broaden the horizon that there are various types of solutions possible, eg Community Arts, Game Designers, Data Scientists, Engineering for Good etc.
-It is possible that the scope of the social cause be defined properly. Possibly there could be portals created for large domains like ‘Disability’ and ‘Elderly’ and individual pages for client segments within: eg Adults with Autism, Children with Special Needs / Vulnerable Seniors Facing End of Life Issues, Isolated Seniors, Active Agers etc.
Technical functionalities to check on:
-Is it possible for editors or users to be informed of an edit to the information that they submitted?
-We agreed that users need not be updated on all sorts of minor changes, but only on significant contributions.
Deliverable 3: Prioritization Framework
Unresolved Issues
-should the collaboration also become charity analysis to evaluate effectiveness of NPOs/VWOs (like Guidestar, Charity Navigator) or stick to its understanding needs function? [current thinking: no, not really, keep needs at the focus first]
-will prioritization cause discontent? [current thinking: possibly, and we don't necessarily have to do it, but if we do, we can also seek greater engagement and participation from large consortium of stakeholders]
-will individuals who participate feel constrained in sharing information? [current thinking: not really a problem, they don’t have to provide anything their organization is not willing to share, but even providing what they can will already be helpful]
Former & Next Meetings
30 Aug 2016 at Singapore International Foundation 27 Sep 2016 at Lien Centre for Social Innovation (SMU) 25 Oct 2016 at Institute of Policy Studies (Bukit Timah Campus) 29 Nov 2016 at Lien Centre for Social Innovation [Eric to join for ICT part?]
Marketing & Comms / Outreach & Volunteer Recruitment
To join us, contact Justin Lee justin.lee@nus.edu.sg
Team Purpose
-Help tell our story, what we want to do, and why we are doing it (?) -Reach out to possible organizations with collaborative potential -Recruit individuals who would like to volunteer in various capacities; explain what they can do and who they should get in touch with
Guiding Sensibilities:
-Person trying to engage is not client but volunteer -incentives and recruitment, what is the profile we are targeting? -volunteer engagement (how to stay longer, and feel part of group) -how to get on the first item of google search? Internet marketing -how to encourage funding? Cater to funder you are targeting
Facilitator / Connectors
To join us, contact Justin Lee justin.lee@nus.edu.sg
Team Purpose
-Coordinate across backbone teams and anchor organizations interested in specific social causes -Stitch together supply, demand, solutions -Monitor and evaluate progress, encourage and provide support to partners where possible
Guiding Sensibilities: (to help clarify purpose) -Like a ‘masterplanner’ -Need to motivate other actors to ‘co-create solutions’ -Facilitator of what? Needs assessment, of asking the right question, of activating power of crowdsourcing -bring together people to purpose, and people to people
Should leverage on existing networks organically: -eg AfterCare Network -Already existing associations and membership organizations
Facilitators are NOT: -champions of causes -providers of solutions -providers of core resources
Challenges to Overcome: -cohesive at an organizational level? Within orgzn buy-in (eg within NVPC) -tall order to ask for ideal state where people collaborate and share accountability? -who will play ball if data is open? -territorialism and ownership of responsibility?
Roles, Responsibilities & Tasks
Suggestion that the Connectors team mobilize and provide platform for each sector (disability, elderly, ex-offenders) in the event that the social cause teams are unable to mobilize the whole sector.