integrating principles of social innovation and knowledge management
DESCRIPTION
This presentation and discussion delivered by Richard Vines and Dan Cotton was one of the many presentations made at the National eXtension conference in 2014 in Sacramento California. It draws on the collaborations that have been emerging between Victoria's Department of Environment and Primary Industries, the Australian Grains Research and Development Corporation and the US eXtension Foundation. These collaborations involve the piloting of two learning networks in the Australian Grains Industry drawing upon the lessons learned from the eight years of operation of eXtension across the US Land Grant network of Universities. The discussion that followed brought to to the surface some of the underlying challenges that Australia might face as it investigates the relevance of the US eXtension model and how it might apply in an Australian context. It also raises an emergent hypothesis about whether there really is an appetite to investigate possibilities, principles and policies for multi-national science based collaborations.TRANSCRIPT
Integrating principles of social innovation and knowledge management The eXtensionAus pilot project as an emergent case study
Richard Vines, Department of Environment and Primary Industries, Victoria Australia
Dan Cotton, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, United States,
Together better than separate?
Photo: courtesy of the Gale family, South Australia
The US period of 1960, 61
• DEPI Visiting Fellow’s initiative (Dan Cotton, Craig Wood, Jill Heemstra)
• GRDC / DEPI / eXtension Foundation agreement• International collaboration around themes of interest
/ challenges (field crop diseases, crop nutrition, and related knowledge systems)
• Visit to the US to explore the depth of mutual interest
Framing the discussions:
Where have eXtension Visiting Fellows been to?
Melbourne
Comparison of science-based collaboration systems Relevant to the eXtensionAus project
• National Research, Development and Extension (R, D and E) Framework
• Multi-institution types as signatories• Agreed state government leads for
different R, D and E strategies• University funding through Australian
Research Council and others • National Funding Entities - Research
and Development Corporations (e.g. GRDC)
• Keen focus on integrating the private sector in D and E activities
• State centric institutions – Land Grant Universities (R and D)
• County level extension (E) programs• National priorities - USDA / NIFA
through program funding initiatives • Transformative education across
different levels• Strong Lincoln legacy and values• Extension Committee on
Organization & Policy• eXtension Foundation
Australia United States(relevant to eXtension)
National R, D and E priorities
Fragmented audience centric collaboration systems
No equivalent of theeXtension Foundation yet
State system priorities
Eight years experience in pioneering audience centric
collaboration systems with the eXtension Foundation
Disruption by digital media
convergence?
Are traditional models of science-based collaboration systems being disrupted in different ways? – should we share this journey?
Shared problems? Social innovation and knowledge sub-systems are fragmented and disconnected
Science based knowledge
creation(“R”)
Knowledge curation and packaging
(“bridging “R” and “D”)
Knowledge integration
– industry sector stakeholders(“D” and “E”)
Knowledge Capability and
Education(“R”, “D” and
“E”)
Commitment to audience centric collaboration systems and e-platforms to
support collaborative problem solving
Comparison of approaches to theme based collaborations
Australia United States(Land Grant Networks)
Dairy community of practice with industry tagging
• Archived dairy cattle webinars• Upcoming diary cattle webinarsCattle facts and beef tips• Business Management• Calf and heifer management• Facilities• Food safety• Genetics• Health and diseases• Learning lessons• Mastitis and milking management• Materials in espanol• Milk marketing• Nutrient management Other resources• State newsletters• State extension websites• Consumer links
Dairy moving forward – national R, D and E strategy (published as a PDF document)
Themes:
• Feedbase and nutrition
• Animal performance
• Natural resource management and climate change
• People
• Farm Business management
• Cross linkages between priorities
Strategic thoughts around content curation: two types of knowledge space – Anecdotal and evidential
Acknowledgement to the eScholarship Research Centre: University of Melbourne
Principles of content curation for evidential knowledge
Acknowledgement to the eScholarship Research Centre: University of Melbourne
Like eXtension’s
“people” application
Towards a collaboration system frameworkTo support science-based collaborations
Learning Network (Shared context)
Operational
Strategic
Learning network charters and action planning, impact monitoring
Strategic framework and umbrella shell agreement
Service design and co-investment
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………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……… Technology, including mobilityContent
Informatics / metadata / tagging
Inter agency policies to support institutional teams
Commitments Platform
Can we work together on good practice collaboration systems and platforms?
….or is it better to be separate than together?
Is there an appetite to investigate possibilities, principles and policies
for multi-national science-based collaborations?
Emergent hypothesis?
Audience engagement: Can we do better together than separate?
Why might we collaborate – constraints and possibilities?
Are innovation and knowledge systems of interest?
Are there stakeholders willing to engage and invest?
Is there an audience or do we need to create a future?
Are there some next steps? How can this be done?
Innovation and knowledge systemsA Learning Network to support a systematic approach to science-based collaborations
What sort of themes might be of interest at different levels?
• Joint scoping exercise about national knowledge infrastructure? • Platform research and development
• Content curation practices and capabilities
Any lessons / suggestions for Australia as we move in this direction?
Systems , platforms, agreements and strategic
capabilities
Appropriate IP management and harmonisation?
Govt Open IP licenses (e.g. CC
4.0)
Partially protected IP Licenses? Fully protected IP
licenses / agreements
Appropriate Intellectual Property management continuum
Institutional repositories
Closed collaboration systems to support commercialisation
Collaboration Platforms
Discussion point:
Discussion point:Constraints and opportunities for multi-national science based collaborations
CooperationCompetition
National interest Global science
National wealth creation Feeding 9 billion people
Self interest behaviour Values based behaviour
Together better than separate?"The greatest crisis facing us is not Russia, not the Atom Bomb, not corruption in government, not encroaching hunger, nor the morals of the young. It is a crisis in the organization and accessibility of human knowledge. We own an enormous 'encyclopaedia' - which isn't even arranged alphabetically. Our 'file cards' are spilled on the floor, nor were they ever in order. The answers we want may be buried somewhere in the heap, but it might take a lifetime to locate two already known facts, place them side by side and derive a third fact, the one we urgently need.“
Photo: courtesy of Gale family, South Australia
Robert Heinlein (1950)Thanks to Michael Jones for drawing my attention to this quote)
Thank you!Richard Vines, Department of Environment and Primary Industries, Victoria Australia
Hon Fellow, eScholarship Research Centre, University of Melbourne
Tel: [email protected] profile
Dan Cotton, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, United States,
Tel: [email protected]
Photo: courtesy of Gale family, South Australia
Appendices
“times are a changing”: Content curation challenges for e-science
Australia United States
Policy framework
• Shift towards creative commons for Govt
• Federated institutional repositories
• Commitments to metadata harvesting frameworks associated with the Australian National Library (one important standard is the emerging Encoded Archival Context – EAC – CPF Standard)
• Commitments to Australian national data service model: RIF-CS (Registry Interchange Format – Collections and Services)
Policy framework
• Open Government
• Open data rules through the Obama administration
• Not sure that this means for the Land Grant Network of Universities?
Need for practical short term fixes. Need for international collaborations around strategic capabilities
Of course …. this implies there is a need to manage complex-systems dynamics
Learning Network level(Shared context)
Operational level
Strategic level
Support systems level
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Monitoring for
conditions of success
Effective govern-
ance and comms
External knowledge
inputs / support services
An aim is to support a whole system approach to wicked problems across multiple sectors
Related resources / possibilities
• eXtension Australia four – tiered collaboration model• eXtension – AUS knowledge systems learning network
– still to be shaped and tasked
Related publications of relevance• Support systems for cross institutional and cross jurisdictional learning networks: A report
prepared for the Department of Environment and Primary Industries (DPI) as part of the visit to Australia by Dr Craig Wood: Associate Director of eXtension to Australia in March 2013 by the eScholarship Research Centre at the University of Melbourne
• Collaborating across institutional and jurisdictional boundaries: enabling the emergence of a national innovation system through public knowledge management: Knowledge Management Research & Practice advance online publication 19 August 2013; doi: 10.1057/kmrp.2013.41