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

Jan Jacobs. Conditions and Functions of an Informal International Knowledge Network Considerations for ICT Support. 4 th Metaphorum Conference St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007. Overview. The International Knowledge Network (IKN). 1. 2. Functions of the network. 3.

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

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  1. Jan Jacobs Conditions and Functions of an Informal International Knowledge NetworkConsiderations for ICT Support 4th Metaphorum Conference St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  2. Overview The International Knowledge Network (IKN) 1 2 Functions of the network 3 Functions of communication Specific conditions of ICT use 4 IKN experiences and strategies 5 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  3. 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) 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  4. The International Knowledge Network for Sustainable Development (IKN) 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. • … 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  5. The International Knowledge Network for Sustainable Development (IKN) 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. 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  6. 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. 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  7. 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. 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  8. 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. 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

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

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

  11. 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. 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  12. 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. 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  13. 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. 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  14. Discussing communication problems, needs, and potentials 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  15. Small group experimentation with technologies. Implementing technologies for use in IKN. 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  16. 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. • … 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

  17. Thank you for your attention! http://home.arcor.de/anjamocker/ikn/index_ikn_eng.html 4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9-10, 2007

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