Building a Knowledgebase
<div>There is a PersonalBrain 101 recorded event on <a href="http://www.thebrain.com/site/about/events/pkb/default.html" rel="nofollow">Creating your Personal Knowledegebase</a>.</div>
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<div>In <a href="http://forums.thebrain.com/post?id=3641248" rel="nofollow">this forum post</a>, Papaalpha posed a question:</div>
<div>[Edited from the original text to combine multiple posts together]</div>
<div>I'm wondering if anyone has set up The Brain to 'teach' knowledge? For example, if I wanted to 'teach' information about an AIRPORT, I could use 'airport' as a 'parent' and then under 'airport' I could put 'runways', 'taxiways', 'aprons', 'helipads', 'lighting'....etc<br />
Under the 'children', I would put 'definitions of..', 'uses', 'dimensions'...etc.<br />
Has anyone done something similar?</div>
<div>My goal (module objective) would be to take someone who knew nothing about airports (except that there are a lot of aeroplanes there) and teach them everything about an airport that an air traffic controller needs to know. There are new terms/abbreviations to be learned but these could be included within each 'child thought'.</div>
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<div>In Reply:</div>
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<p >Papaalpha, it's an interesting question, and without too much knowledge of the procedures or areas, here's how I might go about it.<br />
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<ol>
<li>For your home thought, add some information in the notes about <br />
<ol>
<li>Navigation</li>
<li>Instant Search (prompt to type something in the instant search box, and if nothing comes up hit enter to do an advanced search).</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>In advance, think about your topics and what would thought types and tags would best serve your informational structure. Remember you can only report on types, but view all thoughts grouped under tags. <br />
For example, I would create a category for each area and color code the categories. Areas such as Runway, In-flight etc. Also create a category for keywords.<br />
Then create tags such as Procedures, FAQ, Important, and others, once again depending on your content.<br />
</li>
<li>At the beginning, use only outline view, and build your knowledgebase in only parent - child relations. Treat it as an outline, with thoughts being classifications and children as sub-classifications. Try to limit the number of children, but don't skip them it's a logical progression.<br />
Also, don't forget the comma trick. If someone is going to search for runways and you want a list of sub-classifications to display in instant search when Runway is typed in, when you create the subcategories make sure you name them ", [subcategory]" when creating so that they will be called "Runway, [subcategory]".<br />
Finally, if your brain is based on a manual or other resource, you can use the chapter or similar markers in the thought names.<br />
</li>
<li>Once you have your classifications and are happy with them, now add the information. Tag them as appropriate. Make the thought names as descriptive as possible. Attach documents, links etc as necessary. Use the labels as referrers to the page number in the manual, or other information they can easily look at.<br />
If you can, attach graphics, even if it's a picture of the cover of an attached book. This makes the KB more visually interesting. Don't be afraid to add images, graphs, or other explanatory pictures. Mousing over an image is very useful, and it's a good way to display information.<br />
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While you are doing this, also start thinking about jump thoughts. Can this thought link to another area? Does it make sense? If it does, create a tag called jump and attach it to the thought.<br />
Finally, are there multiple keywords that can be associated with the thought? If so you can consider adding the keyword as a parent thought, with the category of keyword, and color coded. That way in instant search you can easily identify keywords and go to the actual thought (thanks to dyslucksia for fleshing out this method).<br />
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<li>Once you have your detailed information, click on the jump thought tag. Now go through each thought that has that tag and add the appropriate jump link to the other thought.</li>
<li>Done? Great. Now use Expanded view, and view a complete section at a time. Does it flow? Does it make sense? Did you miss anything? <br />
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</ol>
<p>Obviously this is a large undertaking. Keep in mind, this is just one persons idea of how to go about this. Take what you think will work, and leave what won't for you.
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