conditions and functions of an informal international knowledge network considerations for ict...

Conditions and Functions of an Informal International Knowledge Network

Considerations for ICT Support

4th Metaphorum Conference St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

Jan Jacobs

Jan Jacobs 24th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

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The International Knowledge Network (IKN)

Functions of the network

Functions of communication

Specific conditions of ICT use

IKN experiences and strategies

Overview


The International Knowledge Network for Sustainable Development (IKN)

Participants: academics and practitioners from all continents. All active in some field of sustainable development. IKN columns:

Research Education Application in practice International exchange and network building Personal and institutional capacity building.

IKN ideology: Exchange and cooperation in partnership. Participatory development, considering from sociocultural conditions and endogenous

resources. Coordinators: Prof. Werner Siebel and Stefan Wolf (Berlin), and Prof. Osvaldo Romero

(Sancti Spiritus, Cuba)



IKN projects (examples): Training of Nicaraguan community representatives in Cuba, to become multipliers of

applicable knowledge of renewable energies. ARCA-Net summer schools and regional conferences (as consortial partner). Master and doctoral thesis projects. El Pan Alegre: integrated waste management, bio gas, and nutrition project. Community development in Mongolia. Intense bio gas research cooperation. …



Informality and personal ties: Easy access and integration of new potential partners No clear limit of participant group Projects emerge through IKN and are supported by it, but do not necessarily belong to the IKN

Each project in the context of the IKN is individual: Group of participants and partners Responsibilities Formal institutional base Financing

Formal institutions: TU Berlin project group under Prof. Siebel, and

other universities and professor positions. Inter-university cooperation agreements NGO AgEnt e.V.


IKN Communication

IKN Communication Resembles personal character and informality. Mainly along personal ties or within project / meeting groups. Hardly any communication of the coordinators to all participants / contacts. Hardly any communication among all participants.

Media Face-to-face personal / group meetings. E-Mail to one or many recipients (no mailing tools). Telephone / VoIP / Instant Messaging. IKN and AgEnt information flyers. Internet forum of Berlin group in 2003. Internet use since 2005 -> see below.


IKN Network Functions

Conceptual Division between Network and Projects:

The network… …is mainly informal and consists of personal ties. …is open to new people and ideas. …has no clear group of members. People participate in different ways and different and

changing degrees of involvement.

The projects that emerge in the network… …have a clearer group of participants. …have more specific goals. …require personal commitment and responsibility. …need to acquire their own funding. …might get legally formalized.


IKN Network Functions

How does the IKN network make possible and support concrete projects?Through… …the brokering of trustful personal connections. …the mediation of other resources. …the dissemination of information. …the provision of identity.

How do the projects help develop the network? Participants get in contact and develop trustful relations on the occasions of concret

cooperations. The IKN’s identity and perspectives develop through its experiences in activities.


Functions of Communication

What communication is needed to provide the network functions?

External -> open internal -> confidential internal communication.

External communication Attractive and comprehensive presentation of the IKN Contact info. Idealy, short presentation of ongoing activity.


Functions of Communication

Open internal communication Involves members as well as new / potential participants. Concerns ongoing and potential activities, ideas, experiences, useful information… More one-to-all and all-to-all communication should support and complement, not

replace, communication through personal connections.

Confidential group communication Need for good knowledge of each other, including cultural backgrounds and institutional

conditions. Need for frequent reassurance of the others’ motivations, intentions, and

understandings. Need for detailed discussions and for coping with conflicts. Collaborative work on documents and data collection.


Conditions of ICT use

No money for commercial solutions & limited own programming knowledge Use publicly available, easy-to-use technologies.

Some participants have very slow computers and internet connections. Use technologically simple solutions.

No coordinator or other person with much time for website editing and maintenance. Shared or distributed responsibility for website and subpages.

No single common language, but many multilingual participants. Tools should support many languages. Neutrality regarding the language of the contents. Sort-by-language function.


Conditions of ICT use (Cont.)

Openness and gradual limits of IKN communication sphere Content should be as public as possible, but as confidential as necessary. Different levels of accessibility / confidentiality Personal user account Easy and non-bureaucratic creation of user accounts.

All participation and communication is voluntary ICT must convince participants. No use can be commanded.

IKN has been acting and communicating for years. New solutions must be non-exclusive to existing technologies and practices. Offer a communication tool kit.


IKN Experiences and Strategies

My analysis and our discussions led to a concept for an integrated Internet Platform for Information and Communication, in the summer of 2005.

Since then, we have not succeeded in implementing such a platform.

Change in perspective: Away from a ‘solution’, thought of as a state or integrated platform. Towards a process of trial and error and – hopefully – overall improvement.

Process of communication improvement characterized by overlapping, recursive activities: Discussions among the IKN participants: what are information and communication

problems and potentials? What could be solutions? Individual or small group experimentation with technologies. Implementing technologies

for use in the IKN. Motivating IKN participants to use new technologies. Developing new information and

communication practices. Making experiences with technologies in practice.


Discussing communication problems, needs, and potentials


Small group experimentation with technologies. Implementing technologies for use in IKN.


Developing new information and communication practices

Motivating IKN participants to use new technologies. Making experiences with technologies in practice.

Our new attempt is to use a patchwork of simple and available technologies: E-Mail Instant Messaging and VoIP through Skype, MSN Messenger et cetera Yahoo! Group Unfinished Drupal content management system. A simple static HTML website. Free blogs, e.g. on blogger.com. File storage and exchange systems, e.g. BSCW. Simple content management system, e.g. Joomla. …


Thank you for your attention!

http://home.arcor.de/anjamocker/ikn/index_ikn_eng.html

conditions and functions of an informal international knowledge network considerations for ict...

Documents

network buildingpersonal

jacobsikn network functionshow

personal group meetings

personal ties

personal commitment

clearer group of participants

community development

tu berlin project group