what is knowledge societies?

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Bhanu R. Neupane, PhD, DBA Maribor November 2014

UNESCO’s role in Creating Knowledge Societies

In the next 3 (three) hours

Globally enough information will be consumed to fill 21 million DVDs 36 billion emails will be sent some 250000 blog posts will be written

– enough to fill the TIME magazine for 256 million years;

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In the next 3 (three hours)

22 million people would have visited Facebook; 2.8 million people would have visited LinkedIn; more than 30 million photos would have been

uploaded; 2.8 million hours of tv and movies would have been

watched on Netflix;

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In the next 3 (three hours)

some 5 million people would have visited Twitter 587 million minutes would have been spent on

Facebook More iPhones would be sold than babies that

would be born in the next 3 hours.

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Shall we be happy and complacent?

Presence of “Knowledge Challenges”, that requires our concerted and synergized action. Erosion of access to certain information and

knowledge Digital divide continues

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The biggest concern is

Are we walking in the right direction and creating knowledge society?

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What is knowledge societies?

A knowledge society generates, processes, shares and makes available to all members of the society knowledge that may be used to improve the human condition.

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UNESCO’s mandate

• is to: “Maintain, increase and diffuse knowledge: By encouraging cooperation among the nations in all branches of intellectual activity”

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Therefore, UNESCO Believes in Building Inclusive Knowledge Societies • Knowledge societies must qualify a few imperatives:

Equitable Open

Inclusive Pluralistic

Building inclusive knowledge societies

Equitable: Knowledge Societies

Equitable Open

Inclusive Pluralistic

Building inclusive knowledge societies

North-South Disparity of Knowledge pool

http://maps.repository66.org

Access to knowledge • WSIS action line C3:

• policies relating to public domain information, • legislation promoting access to information, • research and development to facilitate accessibility of ICTs, • community public access points, • alternative software models (proprietary, open-source and free software), • open access journals and books, • open archives for scientific information, • encouraging research on the Information Society, and • supporting research and development on different software models and licenses.

• AIM at reducing knowledge divide between and among various interconnected development partners.

Memory of the World Facilitate preservation of original materials

Increase awareness of significance and role of documentary heritage.

• Implementation of MoW Action Plan • Memory of the World Registers

MOWLAC opening ceremony at Peruvian National Congress

Results 20th Anniversary celebrations of the

MOW Programme Vancouver Declaration Peruvian Travelling Registry of the

Conquistadors and General Archive of the Nation inscribed on Memory of the World Register

• Develop national information policy frameworks

• Foster collaboration • Sharing of experiences

Information for All Programme (IFAP - Intergovernmental programme)

2013 Riga Ethics Expert Meeting

Focuses on 5 areas: information ethics information for development information preservation infromation access information literacy

Strengthen Member States capacities to address the emerging challenges of the ethical dimensions of the information and knowledge societies

• Capacity-building, policy tools and resources

• IFAP National Committees

World Digital Library

Objectives – Promote international and intercultural understanding

and awareness – Expand multilingual and culturally diverse content on the Internet

Provide resources to educators and contribute to scholarly research Build knowledge and capacity in the developing world

Statistics – 89 partners from some 59 countries; – Spanish (52%) the most widely used language (English only 24%). – More than 10 million visitors since its official launch in April 2009

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Pluralistic: Knowledge Societies

Equitable Open

Inclusive Pluralistic

Building inclusive knowledge societies

Multilinguilism and Information literacy for all

Multilingualism in cyberspace

Broadband Commission for Digital Development In 2014 UNESCO, ICANN and ISOC – Arabic glossary on Internet Governance

World reports on Internationalized domain names (IDNs)

Information Literacy and MIL UNESCO Global Media and Information Literacy Assessment Framework Series of WSIS+10 Research Papers International Conferences on MIL in Knowledge Societies (Russia, Turkey)

Inclusive: Knowledge Societies

Equitable Open

Inclusive Pluralistic

Building inclusive knowledge societies

Inclusiveness

ICTs for Persons with Disabilities

• Harnessing ICT potential for making significant improvements in the lives of these persons

• C3 to be made inclusive…

Inclusive: Knowledge Societies

Equitable Open

Inclusive Pluralistic

Building inclusive knowledge societies

New Delhi ::: 6 August 2007

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Acquire and develop competencies and skills for participating in the making of locally relevant and global open ICT solutions

open data

open cloud

open standards

interoperability

policy frameworks

change management

Free & Open Source software policies and tools

New Delhi ::: 6 August 2007

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Open Access strategy, which is UNESCO’s approach to improve the provision of free access to peer-reviewed, scholarly and research information to all, was approved by the 36th session of the General Conference has several time-bound outputs

Policy development

Surveys, research and stock-taking

OA Toolkit

OA Training curriculum

OA Self-Directed learning content

OA Impact analysis tool

OA Convention

GOAP

OA Community

NOASIR

OA Chairs

OA Trend report

OUTPUTS

OUTPUTS

New Delhi ::: 6 August 2007

Open Access - What we plan to do 2014-2017?

• Advocacy • Create tools for OA policy development • Support to UNESCO’s move to set an example as an OA organization

• Bridging • Continue consultations with Regional groups • Cooperation to be strengthen with SciELO, Redalyc, Latindex, EU, OECD,

Nordic Council of Ministers

• Capacity Building • Populate SDL for researchers and Librarians in various parts of the

world. Create a pool to trainers and “back-stoppers”

• Dissemination • Good cases on Open Access

New Delhi ::: 6 August 2007

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What is the UNESCO OER Programme? 1. Paris OER Declaration 2. OER Platform 3. OER Policy Guidelines 4. OER Community on the WSIS Platform 5. OER Research Chairs: Canada, Netherlands,

New Zealand, Brazil

6. Publications 7. Partnerships: Commonwealth of Learning (COL)

8. 2012 World OER Conference, Paris, June 2012 9. Large projects – Hewlett OER Project (2013 – 2014)

CONTACT: Mr Abel CAINE (a.caine@unesco.org)

UNESCO strategy

In conclusion

• UNESCO will continue to provide its assistance to foster inclusive and open knowledge socieities as per the dynamic priority placed by the member states

• Advocacy, bridging, capacity building and dissemination will remain as the central line of its program development

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More information: b.nuepane@unesco.org