As this project is going to be based off of open source intelligence, our biggest resource will be an internet search engine. While most people would, and rightfully so, depend on google, there are many other search engines available for use. One very interesting tool is
ChaCha Search. ChaCha Search will take your search term and gather appropriate and relevant results from all the major search engines. What makes it unique is that it offers you the opportunity to search with a human guide. The guide will go over the results and personally pick the ones that best answer your search. While it is not the fastest or most efficient way to search, it can be a helpful resource when you are having difficultly finding information on google.
As we search the internet, I decided to collect all the relevant information and save it as a wiki. The benefits of this method are two-fold: First, my research will be available on all computers with internet access. Second, a wiki will allow other users to view, edit, and add to my research - its collaboration features and ease of use can't currently be matched by any other tool out there. I created my at wikispaces.com - it is accessible at http://culrich.wikispaces.com/
I have already added information about mining projects and companies to the wiki, and will be updating it as my research continues. The wiki is set up as public, meaning any person who accesses it can add and edit the pages - feel free to participate. Next up we will try to find some Web 2.0 tools to perform the analysis step. If you have encountered any tools that would be helpful with the analysis phrase, please leave a comment.
