[open-development] OKFest session proposal: Perspectives on open knowledge: an open panel

Wed Mar 12 18:14:34 UTC 2014

Hi Gisele, Tim, Tom, everyone,

Tim – I really like the way you have framed your session. Count me in ☺

Happy to write up a proposal but would like to get a sense of whether people would be interested in the issues I was proposing. I would be really keen to get others on board to collaborate on this.

The session I was proposing would I think have to start by surfacing and examining some of the issues associated with inclusion beyond simply looking at access. This is where I think it has overlaps with the session Ben Taylor is proposing – making inclusion a reality really means confronting issues of power and politics.

I think the issue at the heart of what I am getting at is the relationships between different groups of people – you can get diverse people in a room and provide access to a conversation but if their voice doesn’t have equal value then we don’t have inclusion. If you apply this analogy to the creation of open data and knowledge you see the same power dynamics.
Cheers,
Duncan

From: giselesc at usp.br [mailto:giselesc at usp.br]
Sent: 12 March 2014 13:32
To: Tim Davies
Cc: Everton Zanella Alvarenga; open-development at lists.okfn.org; Michelle Brook; Duncan Edwards
Subject: Re: [open-development] OKFest session proposal: Perspectives on open knowledge: an open panel

Hi everybody,

Tom and Tim, thanks for inviting me. I really apreciate the two topics raised.

Not sure if I can help in both discussions, but I would like to add one more perspective:
- how gender and others important characteristics affect the dialogue between civic hackers/open data activists
and social leaderships/grassroot movements ?

We have been studying the adoption of a web tool for local budget public oversight (Caring for My Neighbourhood)
in marginalized districts of Sao Paulo and we observed many challenges. To transform data into information and then
into knowledge and then into action is crucial the relationship between these two groups. We saw
that the access to internet/mobile, level of education, motivations, gender and others groups´ characteristics
are very contrastant.

Maybe my msg is a little bit off-topic (going beyond the gender discussion) and maybe you have debated
such issues at lot. I thank if you can send me links for the previous discussions or documents.

all the best,

Gisele
Profa. Dra. Gisele S. Craveiro

Universidade de São Paulo
Av. Arlindo Bétio, 1000
+55 11 3091-8134/8829

________________________________
De: "Tim Davies" <tim at practicalparticipation.co.uk<mailto:tim at practicalparticipation.co.uk>>
Para: "Duncan Edwards" <D.Edwards at ids.ac.uk<mailto:D.Edwards at ids.ac.uk>>
Cc: "Everton Zanella Alvarenga" <tom at okfn.org.br<mailto:tom at okfn.org.br>>, open-development at lists.okfn.org<mailto:open-development at lists.okfn.org>, "Gisele da Silva Craveiro" <giselesc at usp.br<mailto:giselesc at usp.br>>, "Michelle Brook" <michelle.brook at okfn.org<mailto:michelle.brook at okfn.org>>
Enviadas: Quarta-feira, 12 de Março de 2014 10:00:33
Assunto: Re: [open-development] OKFest session proposal: Perspectives on open knowledge: an open panel
Hello Duncan, Tom (+ hi Gisele), & cc in Michelle Brook who I've also spoken with about OKFest sessions on diversity.

I think there might indeed be two sessions here, one more theoretical, and one more practical.

The session I was proposing was more at the theoretical end of the spectrum: asking what does the concept of open knowledge mean in different contexts. There is often a reductive tendency in some core Open Knowledge advocacy to refer to the open definition, or to some simple set of defining characteristics of knowledge as an artefact. Yet, as we discussed in the OKFest 2012 Open Development stream, there are many different visions of open knowledge, and different interests that draw people into an open knowledge space. I would love it if this session was able to pull out understandings of open knowledge both from different national and gender perspectives, as well as from different thematic strands of the open knowledge community: science, development, hardware etc.

The more practical session (though, of course, no less theoretical), might perhaps start from Duncan's questions, and go into an exploration of what practical steps are needed in the Open Knowledge community to put greater diversity into practice, as well as pursuing an honest exploration of the challenges that can create.

There was a diversity track at OKFest2012, so I'm guessing there will also be people involved in that working up session ideas - but Duncan, if you were up for developing a proposal idea on this second one (sorry for missing your 'Diversity, inclusiveness, and voice' line in the move across hackpads, I though it was unclaimed, so had left it off) - that would be great.

All the best

Tim

On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 7:37 AM, Duncan Edwards <D.Edwards at ids.ac.uk<mailto:D.Edwards at ids.ac.uk>> wrote:
Hi Tom,

I suggested a session looking at diversity, inclusiveness, and voice on the hack-pad which has now disappeared. I suspect it has morphed into the session Tim is proposing.

My original thought was to look at diversity in terms of inclusion/exclusion and looking at what real inclusion might mean in an Open Data/knowledge world.

I was thinking perhaps to bring some focus to a session we could frame it around inclusion, voice, and representation in the creation of data, information, and knowledge.

•         What do mean by inclusion? What different aspects of inclusion should we be considering? Gender? Class? Urban/rural? Ethnicity? Geography? Language?

•         How is different knowledge and the way it is voiced valued? Just because someone has “access” to a process of knowledge creation doesn’t mean their contributions are considered to have equal value.

I thought an interesting case study could be http://www.zerogeography.net/2014/01/uneven-geographies-of-user-generated.html which highlights some of these dimensions in relation to the creation of knowledge on Wikipedia – specifically looking at Wikipedia content related to the Middle East and North Africa region.

Tim – how would this focus work with what you were thinking? Looking at your proposal what I’m suggesting feels like it is in a slightly different area?

Tom – Does this fit with what you’re thinking?

Cheers,
Duncan

From: open-development [mailto:open-development-bounces at lists.okfn.org<mailto:open-development-bounces at lists.okfn.org>] On Behalf Of Everton Zanella Alvarenga
Sent: 12 March 2014 04:47
To: open-development at lists.okfn.org<mailto:open-development at lists.okfn.org>
Cc: Gisele da Silva Craveiro
Subject: Re: [open-development] OKFest session proposal: Perspectives on open knowledge: an open panel

Hi Tim,
this sounds interesting. Are you happy to include gender gap we have in the open world? I'm just asking this, since the subject is fresh on my head for we are discussing who from OKF Brazil networking will be part of the advisory board of OKF Central, and it was noted the big bias we have here <http://okfn.org/about/advisory-board/> with its majority composed of guys - for sure when I mention the gap in open world I mean a broaden problem instead of a particular advisory board.

I'm also ccing here professor Gisele Craveiro, president of the Open Knowledge Brazil, who might be interested to join this presentation.
Tom

2014-03-11 20:52 GMT-03:00 Tim Davies <tim at practicalparticipation.co.uk<mailto:tim at practicalparticipation.co.uk>>:
Hello all

We had a great call this morning talking about possible session proposals for OKFest 2014. Under current actions in the Hackpad at https://hackpad.com/OpenDev-at-OKFest14-SDobXcJkwPC you can find a list of all the possible sessions that were talked about*.

One I promised to work up a proposal for was titled 'Open Knowledge & Diversity' - with the idea that we repeat the 'open panel' idea used in Helsinki[1] (sort of like a Fishbowl debate on stage) to discuss what open knowledge means from different contexts - and surface some of the tensions and opportunities that come up when we think about the important aspects of open knowledge from the perspective of different countries, level of development, or issues.

The draft proposal is at: https://hackpad.com/Open-Knowledge-Diversity-An-open-panel-7tNuWvLQVTX

I would love feedback (including on the title - currently changed to 'Perspectives on Open Knowledge') and anyone who wants to be named as a co-organiser, or who might be willing to be a starting panelist for this if it was accepted.

Thanks in advance

All the best

Tim

[1]: http://www.timdavies.org.uk/2012/10/02/reflections-on-an-open-panel/
* There might be a flurry of OKFest e-mails over the next few days. If you have any questions about this - don't hesitate to ask and speak-up. If you are new to the open-development list then your voice is particularly important!

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w: http://www.timdavies.org.uk | m: 07834 856 303 | twitter: timdavies

Co-director of Practical Participation: http://www.practicalparticipation.co.uk
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Practical Participation Ltd is a registered company in England and Wales - #5381958.

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