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Agricultural Information: Roadsigns to the future
Conference: Frontiers in Forest Information
Oxford, 5-7 December 2005Peter Ballantyne
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Synopsis
• Challenges for agricultural information and knowledge managers [in developing countries] as they accelerate into the fast lane of the information super-highway
• With help from:
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Policy Context: Aid Goals
• Millennium development goals [September 2000]– Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger– Achieve universal primary education– Promote gender equality and empower women– Reduce child mortality– Improve maternal health– Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases– Ensure environmental sustainability– Develop a global partnership for development
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Policy Context: I4Development
• WSIS Declaration of principles (2003) – [we] declare our common desire and commitment to
build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge
• Agenda 21 chapter 40 (UNCED 1992)– In sustainable development, everyone is a user and
provider of information
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Cross-cutting trends• Changing information demands
– From ‘growers’ to ‘rural people’ and communities
• Diversifying information sources– From ministry extension and research to
multi-source contacts, advisers and media• Integrating information mechanisms
– From single tools in parallel to integrated / inter-connected platforms
• E-science, e-learning, eXtension, e-tc
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The Web• Information explosion - more info than before• Info-diversity – more, and more diverse,
producers and sources• Information scatter - across many sites• Indexing nightmare - more miss than hit
– How to get below the ‘surface’• Information myopia - most rely on few places
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Harnessing the Web• Mobilizing local/own content
– ‘being present’, ‘being found’, ‘getting around’– beyond publishing - to utilization
• Seeking and discovering the ‘right stuff’ – beyond access - to utilization
• Exploiting new tools? The web ‘2.0’– federated searching; ‘Googling’; Blogging; RSS;
Wikis; Standards, …
• (s)low bandwidth?
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‘Open’ Movement
• Open source software• Open access
– OA Archives (and institutional repositories)– OA Publishing– Open Archive Initiative
• Open licensing (‘copyleft’, creative commons; science commons … )
• Revolutions in access?• Revolutions in publishing?
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Knowledge Mgt/Sharing
• Tacit / explicit• Local / global• Connecting; collecting• ‘Communities’• Relationships• Partnerships and networking
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Challenges, Opportunities
• Beyond getting and providing access?– Collectors and custodians -> connectors;
enablers, facilitators, catalysts, conversationalists
• You’ll never walk alone– community, collaboration, partnerships
• Act local…. Connect global
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…to be properly knowledgeable, the centres and the peripheries need to be in conversations with the other
…
Wendell Berry
IAALD: convening and connecting
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IAALD• leading global community of practice for
information specialists in food, agriculture and the environment
• mobilizing, accessing and applying information to achieve a more productive and sustainable use of the world’s land, water, and renewable natural resources.
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IAALD• connects agricultural information specialists worldwide,
providing platforms and spaces for information dissemination, exchange and knowledge sharing;
• convenes agricultural information specialists worldwide, organising meetings and catalyzing dialogue among all agricultural information stakeholders;
• communicates and advocates the value of knowledge and information to its members and others, improving the status and practice of agricultural information management and dissemination;
• collaborates with members and other partner organisations, facilitating educational and other opportunities across agricultural information communities.
