^{Date Published: 11 Aug 2008 9:21am}

The 2008 AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference saw the launch of the AFAC Knowledge Web, the fire, land management and emergency service industry’s knowledge sharing website.

The site was officially opened to users on the opening night of the AFAC Bushfire CRC Conference by AFAC President Euan Ferguson AFSM.

In discussing the new site Mr Ferguson stated the industry had taken a giant step forward in its ability to share and access knowledge between organisations.  

“The Knowledge Web is going to provide a great platform for the industry to share, collaborate and to learn form each other.  As each agency contributes to the site the Knowledge Web will grow into an immensely powerful resource for the sector,” he said.

The Knowledge Web features a range of collaborative features such as:

• forums
• posting comments
• document uploads
• electronic alerts
• e-newsletters.

These features allow members to:

• upload documents to the site to share with other agencies
• view and download material that other agencies choose to share
• participate in forums and post comments on documents
• subscribe to email, RSS and newsletter communications
• post events to the calendar
• join communities of interest (2009 development)
• and will be used as an online collaboration space for AFAC Groups.

The Knowledge Web has been launched as a Beta Version; Beta being web terminology for “A development status given to a program or application that contains most of the major features, but is not yet complete.”  Beta Versions are often released to users so they can report any bugs they encounter or any changes they'd like to see before the final version is complete.   This feedback is then used to guide the next round of development.

AFAC Manager of Communications, Jay Gleeson who project managed the building of the Knowledge Web with Mel Bedggood and Nancy Morghem, said the site was released as a Beta version as input and feedback from users was needed to guide the development planned for the next 12 months.   

“There is more work to be done including ongoing work on search optimization, navigation refinements, content development and workflow processes and development, along with growing online communities of interest.  We look forward to getting feedback from our users, both the good and the bad, so that the site can grow and develop into the something the industry has real ownership over and that all stakeholders are happy with.

The Knowledge Web is a public site that has a large membership area open to all staff and volunteers of AFAC member agencies and approved industry researchers. 

You can visit the site at www.afac-kw.com.