Conditions and Functions of an Informal
International Knowledge Network
Considerations for ICT Support
4
th
Metaphorum Conference
St. Gallen, March 9
-
10, 2007
Jan Jacobs
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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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
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007
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)
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007
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.
…
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007
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.
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007
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.
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007
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.
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007
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.
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007
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.
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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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.
Jan Jacobs
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10, 2007
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.
Jan Jacobs
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10, 2007
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.
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007
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.
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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Discussing communication problems, needs, and potentials
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10, 2007
Small group experimentation with technologies. Implementing
technologies for use in IKN.
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007
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
.
…
Jan Jacobs
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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007
Thank you for your attention!
http://home.arcor.de/anjamocker/ikn/index_ikn_eng.html
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