FBI Bureaupedia

In September 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) set up an internal wiki to enable agents and analysts to share lessons learned, best practices, and subject matter expertise. The wiki enables users to share information and link to Intellipedia, the intelligence community's internal wiki.

Business Challenge

The FBI needed a way to retain and share "tacit knowledge" - lessons learned, best practices, and subject-matter expertise gained by FBI employees - throughout the bureau. The agency, like many in the federal government, had seen information gaps develop particularly when agents and analysts retired or left the bureau, taking all their knowledge gained over the years with them. The FBI also saw such information gaps during transitions between administrations and wanted to lessen their impacts.

Approach Taken

The FBI's Chief Information Officer Zalmai Azmi, and Chief Knowledge Officer G. Clayton Grigg collaborated to set up an internal wiki named "Bureaupedia," on which FBI employees can view, create, edit, and search articles on different subjects. The wiki is intended to be a virtual encyclopedia of lessons learned, best practices and subject-matter expertise.

The wiki enables users to link to pages on Intellipedia, the Director of National Intelliegence's internal wiki, to facilitate the sharing of information between the law enforcement and intelligence communities.

The platform is currently in a test period, after which the bureau will launch it agency-wide on the FBI's intranet.

Results Achieved

As of April 2009, the overall Intellipedia project hosts 900,000 pages edited by 100,000 users, with 5,000 page edits per day

The increasing use of Intellipedia among analysts and its ability to help experts pool their knowledge, form virtual teams, and make quick assessments.

In 2009, Don Burke and Sean P. Dennehy, two of the originators of Intellipedia, were awarded with the "Homeland Security Service to America Medal" by the Partnership for Public Service.