Tools for Sharing Environmental Information


In “The Wisdom of Crowds”, James Surowiecki asserts that large groups of people are smarter than an elite few in terms of solving problems, fostering innovation and coming to wise decisions. One may argue that the current approach to the regional delivery of NRM overlooks tools and processes for harnessing the collective wisdom of the general public as part of NRM planning and program delivery, in particular NRM volunteers who were instrumental in the decade of ‘landcare’. Further, there seems to be a significant insufficiency of processes, infrastructure and technologies in existence for capturing and sharing data, information and knowledge across a variety of NRM stakeholders, including state agencies, regional boards and landholders. Rapid developments in computer-based technologies for freely sharing information and organising and managing content over the internet such as Google Reader, Google Docs, Sahultime, N-RMIS and Interactive Landscape Values Mapping provide an opportunity to address these gaps. This workshop will be a ‘show and tell’ of locally known computer-based technologies for engaging local stakeholders. Workshop participants will be able to share their ideas, with the goals of learning from each other and discussing opportunities for future tool development and promotion. It is also an opportunity for custodians of government data and knowledge to discuss how to facilitate the sharing of these data.

To download flyer click here

Presentations

Jim Rowe (SRA Information Technologies) "New Ways of Managing Data from Environmental Monitoring Programs"

Michelle Freeman (LitFuse) "Podcasting Stories"

Iain Malcolm (DEH) "Data Access and Delivery Systems"

Websites demonstrated

Some ideas that emerged:

  • Workshop on what the current climate change issues mean for industry, both opportunities as well as threats
  • Collaboration between government and industry to deliver solutions
  • There is going to be investment in integrating datasets and creating search engines for biological datasets
  • DTED will help organise a workshop on the opportunities for the corporate sector in building systems and tools for integrating and presenting government data
  • Discussions are ongoing to coordinate data delivery and presentation across government agencies and develop standard protocols
  • Could there be one website where all of the SA government agency databases are on one site - like Victorian Resources Online.
  • How do we engage the research players in our discussion? Especially NCRIS.
Podcasts

Access the podcasts now. The best way to access the podcasts is by subscribing to Living Laboratories podcasts through i-Tunes.

From the Advanced menu, select “Subscribe to Podcast” Type in http://feeds.feedburner.com/livinglaboratories

Press OK The Living Laboratories menu should appear in your podcast library
Click the triangle which will show you the list of podcasts available for download.
Press the GET button.
When the podcast has downloaded, select the podcast and press the “play” button.

To download i-Tunes for free – go to http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Back to top