The web sites

Modern knowledge management thinking urges us to devise information and communication tools for two main purposes - to facilitate interactions and the flow of tacit knowledge among people, and to facilitate access to explicit knowledge encapsulated in information resources.

In the project therefore, the e-mail interactions were complemented with a web-based facility where information resources could be found and shared. Thus, alongside the online discussions, a web 'magazine' was maintained on the OneWorld web Think Tank site and updated throughout the period.

This site served as a 'home page' for the project, linking readers to the different conferences as well as to information on the partners and further sources of information. Since the Think Tank pages were not restricted to the conferences, the pages also highlighted and linked to other water and sanitation materials that might be of interest to the readership. The water and sanitation Think Tank was produced in both English and French. However, the French content was less wide and less frequently updated. As well as the main web site on OneWorld, each e-conference had its own web site where all the messages are archived. In 1999, the web pages on OneWorld averaged 3,000 hits per month. Six thousand hits were recorded in the first three weeks of January 2000.

Aside from the 'magazine' element of the web site, a search bar contained several quick search and finding tools. From here, a range of library and Internet databases in the sector coulde searched; there was also a multi-search option to search across several general development resources. An option to search the specific 'story' database associated with the web site was also provided.

The web site began as a OneWorld facility , its content was directed by an editor provided by IRC. Generally updated twice a month or more, the complementarity between the content of the e-conferences and the content of the web site took time to develop. By the middle of the second conference, changes in the conference discussions were being flagged on the web site. The planned full editing access by the editor in the OneWorld web authoring system did not materilize in time..