A person who works in the ObservatoriumBPnet Network. He belongs to a registered ObservatoriumBPnet entity. Agents are Work Units.
Agents assume one or many roles defined by the process of work, with some tasks associated. Thus, agents search, analyses or validates projects proposed as study cases
It consists in a document in which they are defined the rules to accept new agents and collaborating entities. It defines the obligations and privileges of members. To belong to ObservatoriumBPnet Network, all new members must agree first this document.
A trans-national project supported by INTERREG IIIB Atlantic Space Program, developed from 2005 to 2007, which main objectives were:
The AtlantisBPnet objectives were developed along five co-related parallel actions.
The AtlantisBPnet partners were:
More information about AtlantisBPnet project
Set of elements which allow to decide if an Information Society project is a Best Practice, according some analysis parameters.
The Method is composed by:
The Method was initially defined by AtlantisBPnet partners, and
it is constantly reviewed and updated with all contributions from all ObservatoriumBPnet members.
To learn more about the Method, please click here
Please, see “AtlantisBPnet partners” paragraph on “About the Observatory” section
Related to ObservatoriumBPnet, it is a project which has successfully passed the AtlantisBPnet Method.
According the process of work, defined by AtlantisBPnet and taken up by ObservatoriumBPnet, two independent analysts evaluate a case of study proposed by an Observer. The evaluation depends of a score system associated to a list of indicators.
Only if both analysts obtain a positive evaluation, the project is qualified as Best Practice.
A set of people which share the same objectives and interests on different areas; citizenship (a citizen association, a NGO, a city, a region, a country); education (schools, universities); business; governments, etc.
This is a notion developed by Etienne Wenger. It builds on the idea that tacit knowledge is largely social and often held by groups of workers rather than by individual entrepreneurs.
This does not mean that it is transparent and ready accessible to any member of society.
Indeed it constitutes social practice or routine patterns of behaviour within which knowledge is embedded. It is within communities and their associated interaction that knowledge is developed and learnt.
Thus Wenger conceives of working teams as communities which elaborate their work as social practices. The cornerstone of any community involves shared meaning. Thus if this commonality of meaning can be promoted and developed it will make knowledge generation more efficient and effective.
The ObservatoriumBPnet Network Unit. An entity collaborates with the Observatory providing agents to search and evaluate Information Society Projects suitable to be Best Practices according ObservatoriumBPnet’s point of view.
Search entities on the data base
The Observatory computing system assigns the analysts and mediator to a project in an automatic way, without Validator and/or the system manager intervenes.
For this, three optional analysts selection criterion has been defined:
In any moment, the system manager, according ObservatoriumBPnet membership, can select one or more options.
Particular people can’t be registered individually on the ObservatoriumBPnet, they must belong to a collaborating entity. So, first you have to know if your institution still joined to the Observatory Network. You can findt it in our entities’ data base
If your institution is still included on the ObservatoriumBPnet data base, please, contact with you Head Office in order to register you as new agent.
In other case, if your institution is not registered, please, contact with you Head Office to register your institution as new collaborating entity.
Every institution must be linked to a Node. When an institution wants to join into the collaboration network, it has to contact with a Node of the Observatory. The Node will request next information:
This information is saved on the entities’ data base, and it will be shown when people search your organization on the Observatory.
Also, the new entity have to subscribe with the Node an agreement document, showing minimum obligations and privileges of the entity with the collaboration network, related to agents contribution and tasks to be developed.
The entity manager will receive an email from the Node, approving information. From this moment, the entity will be able to register new agents and participate in the collaboration network.
According AtlantisBPnet, it consists of every initiative focused over the Promotion and Development of a particular community, based on a technologic platform (in general, an electronic platform), which guarantees that community’s access to Information and Communication, through many services and/or contents, stimulating new ways of working based on networking.
All scientific advances and technological innovations are bound up with tacit knowledge. They rely on accumulated skills and practices or habits, implanted in individuals and institutions.
Innovation tends to involve linking intuition with tacit skills, rather than involving logical deduction or rational deliberation. Innovation also demands flexibility, and this flexibility must involve flattening hierarchical systems.
A new concept brought for deliberation to a democratic committee will not work. It is sometimes argued that the best scenario for scrutiny of innovation is the market, partly since the market does not oblige everyone to agree on everything before a decision can be made.
While a project is opened, that is while it is being analysed, only
the agents involved in the analysis of the project are able to access to it. For each project, any role access to specific areas (observer, analyst, mediation) in order to develop their tasks.
The access rules are defined by a permission system.
When a project is still closed (that is, its analysis has finished) the project is opened to all collaborating agents.
There has been a tendency for economic theory to assume that the individual operates as a rational being, and that the individual always knows now what is in her best interest.
There is a profound difference between information and knowledge.
Information is data to which some meaning has been attributed, whereas knowledge is the product of information use. Whereas we can exchange information, we cannot exchange knowledge.
This means that knowledge is tacit in nature – we have it but we don’t know that we have it and we are not able to express our having it. That is, knowledge is not accessible. Tacit knowledge means knowing how rather than knowing that.
This leads to Polyani’s dictum that ‘…we can know more than we can tell’. Furthermore, where information is limited in the sense that it is fixed and given, neither skills nor knowledge are limited, largely because of how new knowledge constantly emerges from ‘learning by doing’. This has implications for the notion of ‘scarcity’ in Economics. Knowledge depends on preconceptions and prior cognitive frameworks which cannot be established simply through reason or fact.
An open collaborate environment, where people and/or institutions share own information and generate knowledge through interactions among all members.
There has been a tendency for the division of labour to be based on differentiated skills. Indeed the principles of ‘scientific management’ developed by Taylor – also referred to as Fordism – have tended to try and split activities into those which can be undertaken by individual workers, separated from the rest of her colleagues. In this way management rather than labour controlled and dictated each step of the labour process.
However, if knowledge becomes the centre of the production universe, and if knowledge is generated within communities of practice, then it becomes necessary to change working relationships in order to maximise the generation of knowledge.
This means paying particular attention to workflows and team working and devising ways in which the new technology can promote new ways of working based on these principles. Again this demands a flattening of hierarchies and the willingness to consider multi-skilling, at least to the point of understanding the work associated with different skills.
The ObservatoriumBPnet Administration Unit. All entities take part on the Observatory must belong to a Node. The Node assures the sustainability of the Observatory.
Observatory of Information Society Best Practices.
It is an instrument to obtain, analyse and share information about projects focused over the promotion of Information Society in many areas (Education, Government, Business, Health, Citizenship and Telecommunication Infrastructure) in different regions around the world in a systematic way, through a common Method for identifying and analysing Best Practices, constantly updated with all contributions from all members of the Observatory.
More information about ObservatoriumBPnet
In recent years a systems-based approach to innovation policy has been popular. Technical change and innovation occurs within local, regional, national etc. systems which are dynamic and complex, and involve many different actors and institutions.
In exploiting the potential of such systems, and to raise the quantity and efficiency of innovative activities, there must be a focus on the highly interdependent links between the many ‘innovation actors’- universities, research centres and industrial firms, investors, technology transfer professionals, national and regional policy-makers, trade associations, chambers of commerce etc.
At the heart of these ideas is the notion of organisational innovation which recognises the need for organisations to adapt their structures to meet the needs, both of the new technologies and also the new ways of working. It flows over into new organisational forms of management aimed at increasing productivity, competitiveness and profit making.
In this respect they accommodate the need for flexibility and flat operational structures. They also involve tightening the structure of the system by creating partnerships.
Evidently this involves moving away from thinking in terms of an economy based on public and private sectors and the associated development of public-private partnerships, the outsourcing of activities from the public to the private sector etc.
Among the best known of these kinds of partnerships is the Triple Helix involving the public sector, the private sector and the University. Read more about Triple Helix Partnerships
Reflexive learning involves obliging the learner to question ‘why are things done the way are?’, and to consider alternative ways of doing things. This relates to learning by doing which involves asking such questions while being involved in work related contexts.
An Information Society project able becoming a Best Practice according ObservatoriumBPnet. The case of study will be analysed according the AtlantisBPnet Method, through a process work .
Among the best known of these kinds of partnerships is the Triple Helix involving the public sector, the private sector and the University.
The fundamental principle of such conceptions is the networking of people sharing information and generating knowledge across boundary lines. They sometimes retain sectoral boundaries or they may cross them in striving to speed up the development of new products.
The public sector may provide a favourable setting for innovation, i.e. legislation, subsidies, grants, etc. It may additionally lead innovation in the region laying overall long-term development plans; identifying, together with other partners, new regional development niches, depending on the regions economic, social and industrial standing.
They become the sight for incubator development and are integrated with science parks and similar development projects. In a sense it strives to transform a public body into a commercial entity.
The private sector contributes with is dynamism, its knowledge of the market and its capital to start innovative ideas. Additionally, this sector easily adapts its structures and working means to the changing needs of the market to increase productivity and competitiveness.
Finally, the University is transformed into the ‘Entrepreneurial University’ within which there is integration between the advancement and capitalisation of knowledge, with university technology transfer capability becoming part of the regional development strategy.
The structure of ObservatoriumBPnet work environment, that is, how are the Observatory’s members connected in order to detect, analyse and validate Best Practices Projects.
The network is based on Internet, and connects all agents from all public/private entities belonging to ObservatoriumBPnet.
This network serves to support the process work proposed by AtlantisBPnet in an automatic way, without supervision of any person.
The network serves also to connect all agents from all public/private entities belonging to ObservatoriumBPnet, to share their partial thinks and different points of view in order to improve the AtlantisBPnet Methodology.
The network has three management levels:
The collaboration network is managed by a central server, placed in the Navarre Node.
To read more about the virtual collaborative Network, please go to About the Observatory
To obtain a complete list of current Nodes and collaborating entities, please see “Collaboration Network” paragraph on “The Method” section
As well, you can search a specific entity on our data base.
Please, go to “The Method” section.
Both collaborating entities and Nodes assume different privileges and obligations. All rules are gathered in the agreement document.
Every agent must belong to a collaborating entity. This entity assigns one or more tasks to agent.
When an agent is registered, the Observatory assigns it automatically a code, and sends a warning message to the entity. When the collaborating entity confirms the data agent, this can access to private area and start to work.
The AtlantisBPnet Method bases its quality in many features:
Read more about the process of work
The Private Area is divided in three parts:
Please, see “The Work Process” paragraph on “The Method” section.
The work process has defined for roles: observer, analyst, mediator and validator.