Designing a knowledge management approach for the CAMRA Community of Science

Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management, pp. 315-325.CAMRA (Center for Advancing Microbial Risk Assessment) gathers a community of scientists that investigate several stages in the life cycle of biological agents of concern. This paper describes the knowledge management (KM) approach adopted for CAMRA’s community of scientists. The approach includes knowledge facilitators, a web- and repository-based KM system, and use-centered design. The approach relies on a KM methodology that addresses the most common causes of failures in KM approaches that was complemented with a use-centered design methodology. The resulting combined methodology represents a unique way of implementing KM to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration. We describe the principles in our design and the initial steps undertaken to implement it for CAMRA. We conclude by laying out our future steps

Engaging creative communities in an industrial city setting: A question of enclosure

This article discusses the politics and practicalities of research process in a major government-funded, academic/community collaborative research project on cultural assets in Wollongong, a regional industrial city 85 km south of Sydney, Australia. It does so through the theoretical concept of ‘enclosure’, which helps illuminate how policy discourses are framed, and reveals capacities to challenge and reframe policy imaginations through research. The setting is pivotal: Wollongong has a legacy of steel and coal industries that dominates contemporary discourses about the city’s future prosperity. Cultural industries such as music, film, art, circus and theatre have at various times been either marginalised as insignificant to economic futures or, when they have been noticed, have been worked into city planning in very particular ways – as cultural pastimes, as prospects for economic diversification or as means to renew socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Such visions have rested on notions of what constitutes ‘culture’ and ‘creativity’, with a focus on the performing arts, while other forms of vernacular creativity have remained largely unnoticed. Our research project has sought to respond to this, identifying and engaging with people involved in forms of vernacular creativity outside the arts orthodoxy among Wollongong’s blue-collar and youth populations (including surfboard shapers, Aboriginal rappers, custom car designers and alternative music subcultures). Our hope is that such engagement can better inform future planning for cultural industries in Wollongong. However, engaging with such creative communities is complicated, and in different times and places research strategies confronted apathy, suspicion, absence of representative organisation and ‘consultation fatigue’. We discuss our efforts at engagement with creative communities beyond the arts orthodoxy, and appraise some of the prospects and difficulties of the research methodologies adopted. Keywords: Cultural industries, engagement, enclosure, community, vernacular creativity, Wollongong, Australi

Dynamic Capitalization and Visualization Strategy in Collaborative Knowledge Management System for EI Process

Knowledge is attributed to human whose problem-solving behavior is subjective and complex. In today's knowledge economy, the need to manage knowledge produced by a community of actors cannot be overemphasized. This is due to the fact that actors possess some level of tacit knowledge which is generally difficult to articulate. Problem-solving requires searching and sharing of knowledge among a group of actors in a particular context. Knowledge expressed within the context of a problem resolution must be capitalized for future reuse. In this paper, an approach that permits dynamic capitalization of relevant and reliable actors' knowledge in solving decision problem following Economic Intelligence process is proposed. Knowledge annotation method and temporal attributes are used for handling the complexity in the communication among actors and in contextualizing expressed knowledge. A prototype is built to demonstrate the functionalities of a collaborative Knowledge Management system based on this approach. It is tested with sample cases and the result showed that dynamic capitalization leads to knowledge validation hence increasing reliability of captured knowledge for reuse. The system can be adapted to various domain

All Culture is Local

This book is an outcome from a five year Australian Research Council funded research project, CAMRA cultural asset mapping in regional Australia project (LP0882238). Over this time four universities, four local governments, and peak regional, state and federal agencies sought to develop knowledge that would enable better informed planning for arts and cultural development in rural and regional communities. Over the course of the project, it became evident that rural-regional local government staff and cultural decision makers need better place-specific data and are keen to learn from the experiences of other local governments to inform their own planning. This book is CAMRA’s response to that need and includes 17 case studies on good practice in (1) Cultural Mapping and Data Collection and (2) Cultural Planning. The case studies have been written with the aim of making ideas and processes transferrable for any regional local authority - with the resource implications made clear – and are ordered using Australian Standard Geographical Classification-Remoteness Areas for local government area

Report on Coastal Mapping and Informatics Trans-Atlantic Workshop 1: Potentials and Limitations of Coastal Web Atlases

Workshop Proceedings:Governments, industry sectors, academic institutions and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have a tremendous stake in the development and management of geospatial data resources. Coastal mapping plays an important role in informing decision makers on issues such as national sovereignty, resource management, maritime safety and hazard assessment. Efforts to improve data accessibility are driven by legislation on topics such as Environmental management, open access of public sector information and data standards and harmonisation. The development of Geographic Information System (GIS) based web mapping products has improved the usability of GISs by non-specialists. This, combined with community needs, has resulted in the growth of a niche group of interactive coastal web atlases (CWAs) around the world, developed to address the needs of the coastal and marine community. The 2006 Green Paper on Future Maritime Policy in the European Union stated: “a veritable Atlas of EU coastal waters… could serve as an instrument for spatial planning” (European Commission 2006, p. 35), illustrating the increasing recognition of the potential of CWAs, even at an international level. Funding was obtained through the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Marine RTDI programme in Ireland to organize two trans-Atlantic workshops on coastal mapping and informatics. The first workshop, entitled “Potentials and Limitations of Coastal Web Atlases,” was hosted by the Coastal and Marine Resources Centre (CMRC) at University College Cork in Ireland in July 2006. This workshop brought together key experts from Europe and North America to examine state-of-the-art CWA developments, share lessons learned, determine future needs in mapping and informatics for the coastal practitioner community and identify potential opportunities for collaboration. A coastal web atlas is a collection of digital maps and datasets with supplementary tables, illustrations and information that systematically illustrate the coast, oftentimes with cartographic and decision-support tools, and all of which are accessible via the Internet. Access to the various components can be provided in different ways. The typical CWA contains a number of general features, including: geospatial data and metadata; a map area for data display; a legend and/or layer list; tools to interact with the map and data; data attribute tables; topical information; powerful server and software technologies; and a wellrounded atlas design to meet atlas and user needs. As part of the workshop, a number of representative coastal web atlas case studies from both sides of the Atlantic were presented by developers. This report provides an overview of the case studies, which highlight key aspects of CWA development and operations such as atlas purpose, institutional support, technology and functionality. Those included as case studies are: The UK Coastal and Marine Resource Atlas; De Kustatlas Online, Belgium; The Marine Irish Digital Atlas; The Oregon Coastal Atlas; North Coast Explorer, Oregon; and Mapping Tools for Coastal Management, Virginia. During the workshop, four working groups were established to identify issues related to atlas design, data, technology and institutional capacity. Each working group focussed its discussion by carrying out a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis. Examination of the various points which were raised by the four working groups led to the identification of a number of cross-cutting issues. The design and usability of an atlas are keys to its success. An atlas should clearly communicate its purpose, be visually appealing, be kept as simple as possible, use efficient technology and management systems and have a flexible design to enable growth and change over time. Ultimately its success relies on the atlas users, so efforts should be made regularly to ensure that it meets the needs of those users. An output of the workshop was a list of considerations for atlas design and implementation on topics such as data content and display, metadata, atlas interface, atlas tools, technology, user feedback and support for maintenance and future developments

Divided We Stand: Exploring the Alcohol Industry Framing of the Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Act Consultation.

The policymaking process is complex and fraught with challenges. The challenges and complexities make the process prone to contestation and capture by vested interests. Recent studies on the alcohol industry and their involvement in alcohol policies highlight the use of frames and framing (i.e. linguistic devices) as industry strategies for influencing alcohol policy processes. The frames used by alcohol industry actors in recent policy debates reflect and acknowledge cleavages and fragmentation within the industry. They also signal that cleavages within an industry can, in turn, affect their reputation and legitimacy. But is this always the case? As such, this study, takes frames, framing, and their possible implications seriously, and explores the role frames and framing play in contested and complex policy spaces, which are likely to be fraught with cleavages. Drawing from the Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Act which was highly contested, first amongst industry actors and then between industry actors and policymakers, this study seeks to unravel the role frames and framing play in: (1) the construction and constitution of cleavages, and (2) the maintenance of intra, inter, and extra-industry legitimacies, despite strong contestations. Scotland offers a fertile ground for the study because in recent years, Scotland, under the Scottish National Party (SNP) government, has introduced many public health driven policies. Scotland has also gained traction as a global pacesetter in public health policies. The data sources used in this thesis comprise of documents and semi-structured interviews. The data was analysed and interpreted using a theoretical approach to thematic analysis guided by frame theory and legitimacy theory. The study found that: (1) a discursive approach to deconstructing industry cleavages overcomes some of the challenges inherent in the conventional functional and structural approaches to understanding cleavages, and offers further insights on interest-based cleavages; (2) actors in a policymaking process use frames and framing to simultaneously contest and collaborate; and the ability to create a balance between contestation and collaboration is critical in constructing and maintaining both intra and inter industry legitimacy; (3) the government adopted various complementary discursive strategies that helped to sustain the alcohol industry’s legitimacy; (4) cleavages do not often negatively impact on intra-industry cohesion nor the industry ability to work with the government, as previous works tend to suggest. Based on this finding further policy recommendations were advanced