sensemaking

The SciLands is a mini-continent and user community in the virtual world platform Second Life devoted exclusively to science and technology. There are over 20 science and technology related organizations in the SciLands, including government agencies, universities and museums.

Lately I've posted on the need for the enterprise to not use email for everything, and the enabling tools that are more appropriate, especially network centric tools that add the dimension of getting things done via informal circles without relying on just your close colleagues and your hierarchy.

How storytelling communicates complex ideas In this group of pages, some of the underlying mechanisms of storytelling and its relationships to knowledge and knowledge management are revealed: Narrative vs abstract thinking : Jerome Bruner Communications as media : the conventional view of Roman Jakobsen Communications the interactive view : Walter Ong Communications as social flow : David Bohm Stories and archetypes : Carl Jung Engineering vs ecological viewpoints : John Seely Brown Storytelling and the literature of persuasion : Homo vendens Storytelling and genuine persuasion : Storytelling and seduction : Jean Baudrillard Storytelling and openness : de Bono Why isn't storytelling taken seriously? Who's to blame? Why does science despise storytelling? Storytelling and zen: Eastern concepts of knowledge Storytelling and post-modernism: Jean-François Lyotard

NKOS is devoted to the discussion of the functional and data model for enabling knowledge organization systems (KOS), such as classification systems, thesauri, gazetteers, and ontologies, as networked interactive information services to support the description and retrieval of diverse information resources through the Internet.

"Cyber English is a pedagogical experiment in practical theory in developing an alternative option to tradition education and a project to answer the various voices of America for better educational practice"

This ethnographic study investigates how a project group deals with the contradiction between distributed knowledge in boundary-spanning collaborative processes and the expectation that software systems will provide unified, codified knowledge. Group and individual activities were observed over a period of 18 months, to examine the ways knowledge was presented, recognized, shared, or otherwise managed during joint design of business process and IT systems change. The study explores how knowledge and expertise were translated across organizational boundaries, and identifies four stages in the development of group understanding of how to manage sensemaking and expertise across knowledge boundaries: focus on defining shared goals; acknowledging and sharing tacit knowledge about organizational practice; identifying external influences; and explicit knowledge generation.

CK-12, a non-profit organization launched in 2006, aims to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the US and worldwide. Using an open-source, collaborative, and web-based compilation model that can be manifested as an adaptive textbook - termed the "FlexBook", CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality educational web texts.

This project will 1. Provide useful findings about * why and how people use electronic information * how system design features affect how well systems meet the needs of users * how system design features affect the actual use of systems. 2. Apply diverse user-research interpretations to the inquiry, in order to * focus on both commonalities and diversities in findings and interpretations * develop boundary-bridging concepts that enable more effective application and collaboration in both system design and user research.

Your Home for Faceted Classification Tools Facetmap is both a data model and a software package, created to let users browse complex metadata while retaining a simple, familiar, menu interface.

CKAN is the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, a registry of open knowledge packages and projects (and a few closed ones). CKAN is the place to search for open knowledge resources as well as register your own.

State of the World Forum was founded in 1995 by Jim Garrison with Mikhail Gorbachev, who served as the Convening Chairman.

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This is a resource page for CCL's Visual Explorer™ with descriptions of the tool and its multiple uses for creative conversations and dialogue. VE™ supports strategy making, visioning, culture transformation, creative problem solving, coaching, classroom facilitation, teambuilding, visual sensemaking, resolving complex challenges, and leadership development.

If companies cannot develop a culture of knowledge sharing and innovation, it's primarily because they are having a hard time measuring the benefits. All metrics of intangibles -and KM in particular- are shaky, and the most promising ones, based on network analysis (VNA) still have a long way to go before they become generally accepted practices. In the meantime, organizing a knowledge market might be the best way to go. Let's imagine what it would look like… First, a separate organization for shared knowledge services would have to be set up, if it doesn't exist already. For lack of a better phrase, let's cal it the corporate university. The problem is that corporate universities, when they exist, are focused on executive programs, which is a very small part of the problem.

The MOBY system for interoperability between biological data hosts and analytical services The MOBY-S system defines an ontology-based messaging standard through which a client will be able to automatically discover and interact with task-appropriate biological data and analytical service providers, without requiring manual manipulation of data formats as data flows from one provider to the next.

As my thesis work, I created and evaluated a programming system for middle school girls called Storytelling Alice that presents programming as a means to the end of storytelling. Storytelling Alice includes high-level animations that enable users to program social interactions, a gallery of characters and scenery designed to spark story ideas, and a story-based tutorial.

Human Proteinpedia is a community portal for sharing and integration of human protein data. It allows research laboratories to contribute and maintain protein annotations. Human Protein Reference Database (HPRD) integrates data, that is deposited in Human Proteinpedia along with the existing literature curated information in the context of an individual protein. All the public data contributed to Human Proteinpedia can be queried, viewed and downloaded.

This is the homepage for an ongoing research and development project named PATIKA - Pathway Analysis Tools for Integration and Knowledge Acquisition. Within this project so far, among others, an ontology has been defined; a pathway database (which integrates and interfaces with several public pathway databases) has been constructed; and some software tools have been developed for effective integration, querying, analysis, and manipulation of pathway data.

Action research is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a "community of practice" to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Action research can also be undertaken by larger organizations or institutions, assisted or guided by professional researchers, with the aim of improving their strategies, practices, and knowledge of the environments within which they practice.