DFM Info hub specifications

The Dried Fish Matters proposal mentions the establishment of an "info hub" as a core project output and knowledge mobilization support.

This working document summarizes the knowledge management goals of the DFM project and outlines an evolving strategy for meeting those goals using existing platforms and the DFM Knowledge Base.

Current DFM knowledge management systems

The info hub was originally conceived as an integrated knowledge management system modelled on ISSF (Information System on Small-Scale Fisheries). DFM has in practice adopted several platforms that serve dedicated functions in the knowledge management workflow:

• Zotero (publications database),
• OneDrive (internal document management),
• YouTube (video management),
• the project website (public-facing information about the project),
• WordPress blog, Twitter, and Mailman email list (news and announcements), and
• Dataverse institutional repository at the University of Manitoba (research data archival).

Info hub specifications listed in the project proposal document

These passages are taken directly from the proposal submitted to SSHRC (emphasis added throughout).

1. The final component of the first two years of the project is the development and launching of the Dried Fish Matters website and information hub. The former will serve as the project’s first line of knowledge dissemination to the general public; the latter will be a repository for a wide range of information and media related to dried fish, including geospatial visualizations of the social economy of dried fish in South and Southeast Asia.
2. The DFM information hub is a research tool. It is a custom-built web database through which the partnership will engage in knowledge mobilization. The hub initially will be a site where DFM will upload various preliminary outputs from the project. Later in the project period, it will serve as the host for the raw data collected in the project. As more audiences begin to interact with the hub, it will become a unique collaborative space for sharing information and materials related to dried fish. As the only online space for sharing knowledge of dried fish, the hub will have considerable appeal for fisheries specialists, food security practitioners, and national and international organizations in Asia and around the world. The hub will be designed with open code so that it can be migrated to other hosts if needed. The hub aligns with the University of Manitoba’s strategic research priority to support research on safe, healthy, just and sustainable food systems.
3. [The] online hub is a critical part of our Web-based knowledge mobilization strategy.
4. [Project outcome] Online information hub and academic publications that present multi-dimensional maps and descriptions of regional and local value chain(s); e.g: comparative institutional maps of responsibility for dried fish sector; comparative cultural attachments to dried fish; comparative maps of intensity of labour exploitation; drivers of change.
5. Our flagship digital knowledge mobilization platform will be the DFM online information hub. There we will follow FAIR data sharing practices[1] to make our original survey data available for re-analysis as well as a host of other products of our research including images, video, recipes, research and policy briefs, and GIS-based visualizations of our emerging understanding of the social economy of dried fish in South and Southeast Asia. The online information hub will have interactive functionality to permit comments and discussion. It will also allow for crowdsourcing of information on dried fish and for the collation of gray literature on the social economy of dried fish.
6. [Academic stakeholder impact] Summaries of [DFM-sponsored] articles will be translated into local languages, disseminated locally, and published on the online information hub.
7. [Other impact] Practitioners, Civil Society Organizations, and the General Public: While our online information hub will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers, it will also appeal to participants in dried fish chains, NGOs working in fisheries, and the general public. Although the platform will be in English, we will post documents and videos in regional languages that will allow us to broaden our reach to NGOs active in fisheries, and participants in the social economy of dried fish. This latter group is very large as it includes dried fish consumers, and bridges into the general public category as well.
8. When linked to the umbrella DFM information hub, all of these [knowledge mobilization] activities will have an important impact in terms of creating awareness, facilitating the sharing of knowledge about dried fish among multiple audiences, and building networks among groups involved in the social economy of dried fish.
9. [Government impact] Our website and DFM information hub will have policy pages and areas to target government audiences. We will prepare targeted research and policy briefs for government agencies which we will also make available online.

Summary of info hub design requirements

• Geospatial visualizations
• Dissemination of preliminary outputs, including in local languages
• Videos, images, and other media
• Collation of grey literature
• Raw data archival (for reuse)
• Data sharing with non-academic stakeholders, governments, policymakers
• Open source
• Crowdsourcing
• Commenting and discussion functionality

MediaWiki

Most of these requirements are directly satisfied by the MediaWiki-based DFM Knowledge Base platform.

• Open source: MediaWiki is a free server-based software, licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It powers thousands of websites around the world, including Wikipedia.
• Data sharing, dissemination of outputs: The platform allows for documents to be shared openly, searched, organized by category, etc.
• Crowdsourcing: Anyone can create an account and edit pages using a visual editor interface, similar to a word processor. MediaWiki contains robust spam controls. On this site, to protect against spambots and vandals, users are required to validate an email address AND respond to a question about DFM before making edits. Unwanted changes, including all edits made by a given user, can very easily be rolled back.
• Commenting and discussion: Click or tap on the "Discussion" link at the top of any page to bring up a page with threaded discussions. Users can be notified of changes and can mark discussions as "resolved". (Help)
• Local languages: The Translate extension provides a built-in workflow for translating specific pages and ensuring they remain up-to-date as the source document changes.
• Visual media: Images can be uploaded, documented, inserted into pages as thumbnails or large-size figures, and viewed as a gallery or slideshow. This site is configured to integrate with Wikimedia Commons, such that images can be referenced from that repository as though they were available locally.
• Geospatial data visualization: Mapping is possible within MediaWiki itself; we have the possibility to create basic visualizations with marker points, pathways (lines), and areas (polygons). Marker points can link to pages in the knowledge base. See the discussion of data visualization.

Connections with other platforms

Diagram illustrating the main data management systems in use by DFM.

We need to retain connections with other tools and platforms:

• Raw data must be archived on Dataverse. Datasets can be cited in the Zotero library and listed automatically online (see http://driedfishmatters.org/publications.html).
• Videos can be hosted on YouTube and listed or embedded in pages in the knowledge base. They can also be listed in the Zotero library and included in the online listing.
• Grey literature is in the Zotero library. We may wish to explore the creation of special collections or annotated bibliographies that can be browsed separately from the Zotero web interface.
• For more sophisticated visualizations, such as heat maps or maps produced through interactive queries, we will need to use external tools or plugins. This is a point for discussion in WG1.

OneDrive

In the first stage of the project we have been using shared folders in OneDrive for the management of reference documents, media, and working drafts. Our project has experienced several complications with this platform, mainly as we are unable to make use of the Microsoft 365 collaboration tools outside the University of Manitoba, which has made it difficult for users to find and edit documents.

• Project members who use devices configured with institutionally-managed Microsoft accounts encounter errors accessing our shared OneDrive folders.
• Links do not persist across versions of a document, if the document is copied or renamed, or may cease functioning for reasons that are difficult to troubleshoot.
• The search function in the online client is broken; the only way to find documents is to synchronize the OneDrive folder with a local computer.
• Revision history for Office documents is difficult to navigate and lacks advanced functions (e.g., viewing or rolling back edits by a specific user).
• There is no standalone notification system to alert users to new changes, comments in shared/tracked documents, etc.

Other design needs specified by WG1

Four main design requirements are listed below, based on comments in the initial meeting of DFM Working Group 1: Social Economy. The bullet points below each requirement identify suggested implementation criteria.

• Our platform facilitates collaborative writing of documents that create or summarize knowledge about dried fish economies across sites and regions.
  • Draft documents are available online.
  • There is a clear revision history for each document.
  • The editing process does not require significant technical skill.
• DFM-affiliated researchers (and other stakeholders) are able to contribute to texts occasionally and informally, according to their evolving interests, without being required to participate consistently in a formal group or team.
  • Work is accessible to everyone at any time, not exchanged only through mailing lists or meetings.
  • It is very straightforward to make small, incremental changes to documents.
  • The process of creating an account in the system is simple but secure.
  • Robust controls are in place to guard against unwanted contributions (spam and vandalism), while allowing collaborators and other stakeholders to contribute and update knowledge in their own expert domains.
• We have a mechanism for discussion of texts and other outputs.
  • Each discussion thread is retained in one place, so that the history of the thread/conversation can easily be viewed.
  • Users are able to receive (and potentially assign) notifications of issues that concern them.
  • Ideally it is possible to mark discussions as "resolved".
• We are able to collaborate in the production of visual documents such as videos, photographs, and maps.
  • It is possible to create collaboratively-authored maps with points of interest (e.g., research sites, fish markets).
  • We have tools to visualize flows of dried fish across value chains.

Metadata requirements

The "FAIR Guiding Principles"[1] are mentioned in the project proposal. They are copied below for reference; we should link each of these principles to the Knowledge Management platforms in use.

To be Findable:

• F1 (meta)data are assigned a globally unique and persistent identifier
• F2 data are described with rich metadata (defined by R1 below)
• F3 metadata clearly and explicitly include the identifier of the data it describes
• F4 (meta)data are registered or indexed in a searchable resource

To be Accessible:

• A1 (meta)data are retrievable by their identifier using a standardized communications protocol
  • A1.1 the protocol is open, free, and universally implementable
  • A1.2 the protocol allows for an authentication and authorization procedure, where necessary
• A2 metadata are accessible, even when the data are no longer available

To be Interoperable:

• I1 (meta)data use a formal, accessible, shared, and broadly applicable language for knowledge representation.
• I2 (meta)data use vocabularies that follow FAIR principles
• I3 (meta)data include qualified references to other (meta)data

To be Reusable:

• R1 meta(data) are richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attributes
  • R1.1 (meta)data are released with a clear and accessible data usage license
  • R1.2 (meta)data are associated with detailed provenance
  • R1.3 (meta)data meet domain-relevant community standards