Robert Bristow wrote:
> We have a requirement for some software that will allow our MBAs and our
> alumni to set up their own online communities with minimal input from our
> side. Something on the line of e-groups or similar. I know we could point
> them at the available offerings, but this is part of our drive to increase
> the value of the City experience.
>
> Any pointers?
Ask Clive Holtham for the best Group Support Systems to support such
interaction. You've got some of the best expertise in the country in-house.
Failing that, it depends on exactly what you are looking for:
Are you interested in web portals with personalized pages?
- then have a look at ezPublish or PHP Nuke.
Or group time and contact management software, so that MBAs can
organize their own project group meetings?
- then have a look at TWIG, Web Calendar, and web based project
management software (search on http://freshmeat.net/).
Do you want to support asynchronous discussion forums?
- then mailing lists are easiest to learn and use, unless you need more
structure. In that case go for threaded systems not weblog types unless
you want people to get lost. w-agora is pretty flexible, as is Usenet.
Do you want to support synchronous real-time chat?
- then if you don't just want to direct people to use ICQ or MSN, set
up a Jabber server, which can talk to all of them.
Start by working out what people want to do in these specific
communities, before searching for software. Then put together a
collection of different tools to meet their specific needs. A good
example of such a collection is the set of tools built up at
http://www.sourceforge.net/ to support open source software
developers.
But if you really want to get it right, it needs investment and research.
Which takes you back to Clive.
--
Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast, School of
Management and Economics, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland (UK)
mailto:[log in to unmask] Tel. 028 90335011 FAX: 028 90335156
http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/staff/dave/
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