Over the next few days, I'll be a facilitator at AsiaSource 3, a open source geek camp for NGOs, very small businesses, and government institutions, with participants coming from all over Asia and other parts of the world. AsiaSource differs from other conferences in that it's informal and interactive; or at least that's how we hope it will be.My track will be "Managing Your Information", something I've put together with a chap from Indonesia named Handoko. Below is a precis of what we'll be covering:
About this track
As technology continues to pervade human activity, digital information accumulates at a phenomenal rate. These data come from many different sources, and may be structured or unstructured. The challenge now is to find context and relevance, turning this data into meaningful information that stakeholders can use for decision and collaboration.
Day 1: Getting Started
* Getting to know each other
* What do we want out of this track?
* What do we understand about managing information?
* What does FOSS have to do with managing your information?
* What challenges do you face in managing information in your organization now?
Hands-on activity: Working with Ubuntu
* Introduce the participants to Ubuntu using our preinstalled laptops.
* Get Ubuntu running on their desktops, either through LiveCD, USB pendrive, or Wubi install.
* Introduce Synaptic as a directory of software; supplement with SourceForge, if possible
* Ask more experienced participants to guide the less experienced participants.
Day 2: Creation and Transformation
* Where does all your data come from?
* File Formats and Services: Open vs Proprietary
Hands-on activity: Getting to Know OpenOffice.org
* Spreadsheet challenge
* Design a spreadsheet to act as participants database
* Transforming the spreadsheet
Day 3: Management and Distribution
* How do you organize your files?
* Metadata: Data on data
* How should we organize our wiki?
Hands-on activity: Using MediaWiki
* Creating accounts on MediaWiki
* Have the students create their personal wiki pages
* Upload files into MediaWiki, add tags, start discussions
Day 4: Analysis and Context
* How do you maximize your data?
* Data Mining
* Deep Internet Search
Hands-on activity: OpenOffice.org Base
* Creating an OO.o database
* Converting a spreadsheet into an OO.o database
* OO.o forms
* Google Docs spreadsheet forms to OO.o database
Day 5: Maintenance
* Considerations in maintaining data
* How do you maintain your data?
Hands-on activities: Encrypting data on your hard disk, Backing up data, Maintaining Versions
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