Public service IT professionals' body to begin using the professional social network
Socitm has announced plans to set up a network on the Knowledge Hub online collaboration platform.
The association for public service IT and digital professionals said it is one of the first organisations to take advantage of the new Network facility on the platform. It will set up and manage a community on behalf of 1,650 members, and enable them to collaborate with the wider community that uses the Knowledge Hub.
It said its members and partners will be able to take part in the various discussion groups and use services on the hub. These include a policy discussion area where it hopes to increase its visibility in local government.
The Knowledge Hub - which has been run by CapacityGrid since its sale by the Local Government Association last year - is a host to more than 1,500 community groups that deal with a range of local government topics, although its users also come from other sectors such as police authorities, the NHS, the voluntary sector and central government.
Socitm plans to formally launch the new network at its spring conference in London next week. There will be a phased implementation that will lead to the network being fully integrated with the organisation's website.
Ian Singleton, head of member services at Socitm. "We previously had a number of disparate portals and online collaboration tools that weren't being effectively utilised. Many of our members are already familiar with Knowledge Hub as part of their day job or through its ongoing Web Improvement and Usage Community. That was a big positive for us, alongside with it being an open standards technology.
"Through our partnership with Knowledge Hub, we are confident of enhancing our membership offering by providing the digital tools that our members really need."
This story was amended on 21 April to clarify that, while the LGA is a founding partner of the Knowledge Hub, it has now been sold to CapacityGrid.
