components explained
The World Is Not Small for Everyone: Inequity in Searching for Knowledge
From a recent article in Management Science1 it appears that whereas:
- The "small-world" argument in social network theory emphasizes that people are, on average, only a few connections away from the information they seek.
there seems to be empirical support for the argument that:
- such a network structure does not benefit everyone: some employees may have longer search paths in locating knowledge in an organization—their world may be large.
It is important for achieving development outcomes that the drivers for societal inequity are neutralised (ref: two mechanisms - periphery status and homophily - jointly operate to aggravate the inefficiency of search for knowledge).
At atria.us (improving communications) an approach is explained for facilitating heterophilous search behaviours that cross social boundaries.
Systematized content commons have this purpose: contribute to make the world of knowledge smaller for all members of society.
Solid wiki foundations that enable sustainable and equitable value constellations
The systematized content commons consists of these wiki-based components:
- a global agreement: the Convention on Knowledge Commons;
- a methodology: the Collective Regulative Bundle (CRB) methodology
- five dictionaries:
- on interactions (interact)
- on atomic entities (ens)
- on actants (roles that entities fulfill in interactions)
- on constraints
- on indicators
- two atlasses:
- an actor atlas, with actor maps for relevant territories; each actor map has its own administrator
- an initiative atlas, with different kinds of nodes supporting multi-stakeholder initiatives (projects and programmes); each node has its own administrator. Baseline and blueprint nodes can be shared among various initiative nodes.
A practice vision for global to local development
Communications in development will be based on a high-quality web-of-open-access-wikis, rather than on content packaged and frozen in brochures, reports, books and other "silo" presentation formats that were created in the printing press age.
The proposed systematized content commons enable the substitution of the "content-silo based communications in programme and project communications" by "web-of-wikis based communications." (a conjecture, the validity of which is being demonstrated).
Purposes served by the wikiworx.info components
To bring to the area of socio-economic interactions the patterns and tools of knowledge translation that are already demonstrated in health care, around International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). The ICF browser is available in Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish and Turkish (ICF Browser)
Development, Sustainability and Growth Reporting
Content commons based reporting on development, sustainability and growth can be conducted at personal, corporate, sectoral, national and international level. This can be done with cross-cutting reporting standards explored in A multi level monitoring and evaluation standard in health care systems: exploring the option (at Scribd).
ICT-reliant Operations in a Global Market Place
Shared classifications are part of content commons. They are an essential enabler of efficient logistics processes. See the work of CEN Workshop on 'Multilingual eCataloguing and eClassification in eBusiness' (WS/eCAT) - ePPS & CC3P projects for more details.
Assessment and Interventions
In clinical settings, for pico and micro level actors and their interactions, the systematized content commons can be used for functional and resource-endowment status assessment, goal setting & action or intervention planning and monitoring, as well as outcome measurement.
Socio-economic Policy
In landscape settings, for meso and macro level actors and their interactions, the systematized content commons can be used for lean monitoring and evaluation, collective goal setting, policy planning, as well as outcome measurement.
Research & Innovation
Indexing of research projects and results by means of content commons (and the included classifications) will facilitate comparability and cumulativity of the research and innovation projects and their results.
The Basic Change Cycle
With systematized content commons provided, a change cycle would involve an initiative node that is constructed to describe (requirements for) services supporting particular stakeholders; this is demonstrated by the Application Cases. Each case demonstrates the utility of the systematized content commons in planning and implementing joint initiatives that follow the Collective Regulative Bundle methodology.
Each case will in principle be supported by a baseline, a blueprint and a number of initiative nodes, one per delineated action. All baselines, blueprints and initiative nodes are listed in the Initiative Atlas. The initiative node should only contain those details of the case that cannot be included in any of the dictionaries, nor in the Actor Atlas, baseline nodes, blueprint nodes or pre-existing initiatives in the initiative atlas. Guidelines for the initiative node are also provided. Other content is linked via weblinks.
CRB-compliant joint initiatives will feed, by creating wikis following the initiative node guidelines, the cumulative growth of the dictionaries and atlas while deploying their contents:
- Atomic entities such as principals, institution objects, entitlements and claims are described in the Entity Dictionary and interact according to patterns that are described in the Interaction Dictionary, yet are compliant to constraints described in Constraint Dictionary .
- Actor Network Theory allows both animate and inanimate actants to participate in interactions. In the Actant Dictionary, the possible roles in interactions of Principals, these are described in the Actor Atlas, are refined, and added to it are other important classes of inanimate actants, especially information actants, or info-actants such as documents, events and services.
- The description of patterns is largely neutral regarding valuations that establish proportions in the interactions, for instance, what is the price of a bread, or what income threshold separates the poor from the non-poor? To support further quantitative and qualitative refinement of the interactions and claims of principals, we must use metrics and measurements. These are introduced in the Indicator Dictionary. The indicators support a range of activities, including the definition of attributes of Institution Objects and Principals, and the specification of quantities in interactions.
DISCLAIMER: Each of the wikis with systematized content commons will be under construction for several more months, volunteer contributions are made alongside tutorial authoring ongoing at http://www.atria.us. Each test relies upon shared systematized content commons. The utility and coverage of these content commons will grow exponentially with the number of contributors.
See Public Domain Day: January 1, 2012 — The (Life Plus) Seventy Year Itch . . . at Duke Law, Center for the Study of the Public Domain.