Introduction to knowledge sharing systems: considerations for the conceptual design of TAPipedia

Introduction to knowledge sharing systems: considerations for the conceptual design of TAPipedia

Nikos Manouselis, CEO Agro-Know

[email protected]

background

An extraordinary company that captures, organizes and adds value to the rich information available in agricultural and biodiversity sciences, in order to

make it universally accessible, useful and meaningful.

http://www.agroknow.gr

indicative partners & clients

• Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)• Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR)• International Fund for Agricultural Developmen

(IFAD)• World Bank Group• UK’s Dept for International Development (DFID)• Michigan State University (MSU)• Wageningen University & Research (WUR)• French Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA)• International Centre for Research in Organic Food

Systems (ICROFS)

advocates of open

• CIARD.net: a global movement dedicated to open agricultural knowledge

• Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN): make agricultural and nutritionally relevant data available, accessible, and usable for unrestricted use worldwide

making different systems work together

• Agricultural Interoperability Interest Group (IG), Research Data Alliance (RDA)

• Knowledge & Learning Systems Group, Global Food Safety Partnership (GFSP)

my (formal) role in the group

• Provide feedback on review related to web-based information and knowledge sharing platforms to the CD in agriculture consultant

• Draft report on the conceptual design of TAPipedia shared and discussed with wider CD Expert Group (workshop) and feedback incorporated in conceptual design of TAPipedia

• Feedback from CD Global Task Force addressed in the final concept report

my (desired) added value

• Help design a system that can use IT & online channels to scale up awareness creation, knowledge sharing, knowledge co-creation

key concept & options

TAPipedia

TAPipedia

another “…ipedia”

a Wiki-based encyclopedia?

• Collaborative editing

• Multilingual content

• Contextualisation of pages

• Linking of pages to multimedia, data, other sites

• One, big central system

a “repository” (~ a database)

a tropical agriculture repository

a repository with CD for AIS material?

• Uploading and/or describing (“tagging”) content

• Management, preservation, cataloguing of files of a specific type/format (should not mix e.g. publications with data sets)

• Difficult to manage interactive data types (e.g. videos)

• Limited collaboration capabilities

• One, big central system

a search engine

an ag-search engine

a search engine for CD on AIS material?

• A very big catalogue (index) of relevant resources

• Fast search functionalities

• Number and quality/relevance of results depends on coverage

• No collaboration, limited contextualisation

• An information broker

• One, big central system running on top of others

A collaboration portal

an innovation collaboration portal

a collaboration portal for CD on AIS?

• An online space for a community to communicate, share resources, express opinions

• Interactive, dynamically updated (if used)

• Focus on collaboration, can be customised for specific languages/communities

• Knowledge resources of relevance to the particular community

• One big, central system for all vs. many systems appropriate for each community

“so, what should we build?”

“and if we build it, will they come?”

“and how it will be different to the X we have now?”

my initial recommendations

Separate Independent (variably linked) actions

Collective and Cohesive Approach(More Collaboration, Coordination, Communication, Connection)

taking stock of existing work

Global CD for AIS Knowledge Hub

Local CD for AIS Knowledge Hubs

Source diagram from Open Models concept paper: http://bit.ly/1p729Jm

embrace & facilitate sharing of local knowledge

create a network of knowledge hubs

Global CD for AIS Knowledge Hub

Regional/local knowledge sources

Regional/local hub

Interconnected regional/local knowledge sources & collections on CD for AIS

Regional/local knowledge sources

Regional/local hub

Regional/local knowledge sources

Regional/local hub

…etc

need to prioritise

1. Who are the most important stakeholders & actors to serve?

2. Which is the most important knowledge that they need to do their job, better?

3. Which is the top difficulty that they have today, which could be hopefully addressed by introducing a new IT system?

What should TAPipedia do?

1. To help TAP members and local stakeholders to discover methods & tools that will help them identify and assess emerging capacity development needs for AIS

2. To help local stakeholders discover AIS knowledge from other regions that could be of value for their stakeholders

3. To help TAP members to present, explain and communicate the framework on CD for AIS so that it may be easily adopted & implemented

4. To help local stakeholders share their own applied and context-specific AIS knowledge that addresses the needs of their stakeholders

quick round: what if you could only chose one?

1. To help TAP members and local stakeholders to discover methods & tools that will help them identify and assess emerging capacity development needs for AIS

2. To help local stakeholders discover AIS knowledge from other regions that could be of value for their stakeholders

3. To help TAP members to present, explain and communicate the framework on CD for AIS so that it may be easily adopted & implemented

4. To help local stakeholders share their own applied and context-specific AIS knowledge that addresses the needs of their stakeholders

wrapping up

thank you!

[email protected]

www.agroknow.gr