Saturday, June 21, 2008

Indigenous knowledge management event

"I'll be courting some disasterWith the Melbourne wrecking crew" - The Indigo Girls (God bless them)

I have just returned from a master class in indigenous knowledge management held in Melbourne.

This is an area I am really interested in partly because I want to learn more about the history of my new home and partly because I think that the desert knowledge, in particular, is going to become really useful as things heat up here and elsewhere. (You can learn more about desert knowledge from the program of the 2008 DESERT INNOVATION FESTIVAL.)

There are many other issues involved in the area of indigenous knowledge management. For example

  • how western corporations can learn from owners of indigenous knowledge without exploiting them
  • how IT professionals can interact ethically and professionally with owners of indigenous knowledge.

Our track record in both cases is not good. Looking to the future, I hope to integrate indigenous knowledge management into the BIM and L&IM programs I direct at the University of South Australia.

In terms of e-learning, indigenous knowledge is hard to represent for a good many cultural reasons, not least of which is the permission to use knowledge that developers do not own. Also, within some cultures, representing people with multimedia can mean that the material cannot be used when these people die. I think that all of us will come to rely on a good deal of indigenous knowledge for our future survival. There are many challenges ahead. We need to start thinking about the ethical and educational issues before the sun sets.

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