Case Study - MKi Observatory

The Milton Keynes intelligence Observatory is a portal run by Milton Keynes Council's Intelligence Team for information about the future growth of Milton Keynes and the surrounding area.

Key Features

The site uses Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd's core software infrastructure to provide:

User-friendly wizards to guide users through the submission of content.
Content management tools, including the use of Wikitext for "rich" content.
A powerful search engine.
Logon via Single Sign-On (SSO).
Flexible access control.
Interoperability, in the form of federated searching.
Site management tools.

The knowledge management facilities of the system allow information to be classified using the Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV) and other metadata fields from the e-Government Metadata Standard (e-GMS).

Working with Partners

MKi employs a devolved model for managing content - with strategic partners able to contribute to the site directly. Access to information can be controlled down to the level of individual users and groups, with each group having their own home page. This allows closed areas to be set up for partner organisations if necessary, while leaving other areas open for public access.

These facilities allow partner pages to be tailored to the needs of partner organisations yet still be in keeping with the style of the Observatory site.

Background

Originally developed as a bespoke system by Hyperspheric in 2004, the MKi site was migrated onto Hyperspheric's integrated knowledge management, collaboration and networking platform, Fountain, in Spring 2008 to take advantage of the many additional features offered by Fountain and the cost savings available.

In addition to the facilities provided by Hyperspheric's Fountain platform, the site features data analysis facilities developed by Nesstar, and mapping facilities developed by GDC.

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