Graspeo: a Social Media Platform for Knowledge Management in NGOs - Andrii Vozniuk, Adrian Holzer, Sten Govaerts, Jorge Mazuze, Denis Gillet
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Graspeo is a social media platform designed for knowledge management in NGOs, developed to address the specific needs of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). It features decentralized content and permission management through hierarchical spaces, allows integration of diverse knowledge sources, and supports peer-to-peer synchronization for offline access. The platform aims to prevent knowledge fragmentation and ensure timely access to critical information, especially in emergency situations.
Graspeo: a Social Media Platform for Knowledge Management in NGOs - Andrii Vozniuk, Adrian Holzer, Sten Govaerts, Jorge Mazuze, Denis Gillet
- 1. Graspeo Social Media Platform for Knowledge Management in NGOs A. Vozniuk*, A. Holzer*, S. Govaerts*, J. Mazuze**, D. Gillet* * EPFL ** MSF Switzerland Requirement 1: Source-Agnostic Knowledge Aggregation Requirement 2: Flat Knowledge Organization Requirement 3: Online and Offline Knowledge Access browser Graspeo Bookmarklet User front-end Graspeo API HTTP requests Graspeo UI MongoDB web content Sync Client Server File System Graspeo Server JSON responses onlinesystem Client File System Standalone Application Sync Client Graspeo UI Client File System Standalone Application Sync Client Graspeo UI back-end p2p synchronization middleware User offlinesystem Graspeo provides decentralized content and permission management by using hierarchical spaces with flat membership. A space is the central concept in Graspeo that encapsulates the context of a knowledge sharing. A space in Graspeo can be loosely compared to a folder with associated set of members. Each member of a space has a defined permission in this space. Graspeo allows flat space ownership so that a space can be co-owned by several members permitting decentralized permission management. Graspeo supports integration and management of knowledge coming from heterogeneous sources in multiple formats, including uploaded files, web content, as well as from existing KM systems. Additionally, it supports social interactions (for example, discussions and ratings), which are often used as means of knowledge sharing. Implementing this requirement allows to have all relevant knowledge in one place preventing fragmentation. Try yourself at graspeo.org Timely access to critical information is crucial for any organization operating in situations of emergency. Deploying an adequate information system tailored to specific organizational needs and matched to the organizational structure is essential. To understand the knowledge management needs of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), one of the leading NGOs in the humanitarian and medical fields, we conducted in total 145 hours of in-depth interviews. We identified three key requirements for an effective knowledge management system specifically designed for large distributed NGOs. We have designed and built from ground up a novel social media called Graspeo to fulfill these requirements. MSF employs over 33'000 staff worldwide and has an organizational governance structure with 24 headquarters and an operationally driven structure with 70 missions. The complex structure of MSF brings to the surface challenges related to distributed large scale knowledge management (KM). In order to synchronize offline and online content, Graspeo relies on a peer- to-peer data synchronization framework BitTorrent Sync. For this purpose each space has an associated secret BitTorrent Sync key. Thanks to the local peer discovery protocol, Sync is able to find local peers and synchronize directly with them potentially benefiting from a faster local network. The data does not need to go through a central server. This allows to still perform local data exchange when the central server is not reachable and eventually synchronize with it when it becomes available again. Peer-to-Peer Synchronization Middleware The Graspeo online system is a single page web application built with JavaScript end-to-end. Thanks to powerful search and content viewer it is possible to find and access documents online without any custom software. Online System The online content of Graspeo can be synchronized to a user's device (laptop, tablet, smartphone) file system using the peer-to-peer middleware and be made accessible offline when no Internet connection is available. Offline System