Richard Vines

Collaborating across institutional and jurisdictional boundaries: enabling the emergence of a national innovation system through public knowledge management

Public institutions involved in research that aims to strengthen the productivity, profitability and adaptiveness of industries face a multiplicity of challenges when managing for the emergence of cost effective solutions to problems. We reflect upon the learnings of a Government sponsored Visiting Fellow’s programme that we describe as a knowledge management (KM) intervention within Australia’s primary industries Research, Development and Extension (R, D and E) system. Our central concern is to draw upon the learnings of an internet-based initiative in the United States called eXtension to show how ‘traditional’ D and E activities can be transformed. We argue that organisations and networks involved in such D and E activities need to perceive themselves as belonging to systems that are socio-technical in nature. That is, the development and deployment of cross-jurisdictional and cross-institutional innovations are shaped by both the social interactions between people and the systematic use of technology to support distributed learning. We explain how the elements of an integrated model to support public KM can be developed to create the conditions for enhanced innovation. Our findings have relevance to a wide range of other industry sectors considering contemporary service models involving public and private partnerships.

Interoperability and the Exchange of Humanly Usable Digital Content

Throughout this book, it has been clearly articulated that the emergence and use of schemas and standards are increasingly important to the effective functioning of research networks. However, what is also equally emphasised is the danger posed if the use of schemas and standards results in excessive and negative system constraints – a means of exerting unhelpful control over distributed research activities. However, how realistically can a balance be facilitated between the positive benefits derived in the course of centralised coordination through the use standards versus the benefits from allowing self-organisation and emergence to prevail at the edge of organisational networks?In this chapter, we set out to explore how differing approaches to such problems are actually finding expression in the world. To do this, we have engaged in a detailed comparison of three different transformation systems, including the CGML system discussed at length in the previous chapter. We caution against any premature standardisation on any system due to externalities associated with, for example, the semantic web itself.

Cultivating capability: The socio-technical challenges of integrating approaches to records and knowledge management

Purpose This paper aims to advocate that significant human and systems-based capabilities (termed “socio-technical capabilities”) need to be developed in government departments and other public sector organisations to support more effective description of information resources, collections and their context in online environments. Design/methodology/approach The ideas in this paper draw upon the findings of several action research interventions undertaken within a government department in Victoria in Australia since 2011 as part of a knowledge management initiative. Specific focus is given to the design and development of a new record-centric knowledge curation tool (KCT). Findings Effective functioning of KCT relies upon the input of well-structured, standards-based metadata used to describe collections, information resources and their context. The central claim is that the move towards standards-based descriptions will fundamentally change the capabilities required to manage, search for and disseminate knowledge and records. Research limitations/implications In addition to the capabilities discussed, management of records and knowledge through time requires commitments to stable repository, workflow and administrative systems, and working with contemporary systems involves technical knowledge such as the use of application programming interfaces. These aspects are not discussed here. Practical implications The capabilities discussed in this paper are socio-technical in nature. This means there is a requirement to shift current perspectives about who is responsible for managing organisational information as collections. Originality/value While some of the concepts discussed will be familiar to information professionals, the paper provides a unique description of how existing archival and recordkeeping practices are being integrated in innovative ways within organisations outside the information management professions.