Nerida Hart from Land & Water Australia is about to give the final presentation for Open Publish 2008, on improving information and knowledge management in the national resource management sector.

Overview:
– Land & Water Australia … and what’s happened within knowledge management there in recent times.
– Land & Water is an R&D corporation, with the Australian Government Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry portfolio.
– Spend about $36 million a year on R&D, with about 70% of this done in collaboration with others.
– The scientists at Land & Water buy, broker and manage research … the scientists there are really project managers.

KM Program
Phase 1:
– from early 2005 to June 2006
– scoping, collaboration and initial delivery
– time spent looking for information? Managers lose about an hour a day searching for corporate information … and not finding it.
– problems with knowledge from phase 1 … fragmentation of information sources, better define and communicate information and research needs, better information seeking and knowledge practices, diversity of circumstances and user preferences with regard to accessing information.

Phase 2:
– from July 2006 to June 2008 … from when Nerida joined
– aim was to test concepts, develop products and services, and commence implementation … released three packages
– (package 1) better practice in knowledge management for regions … a resource kit and training package. See the Regional Knowledge Kit … with the process built in, and all of the resources. Also used the Anecdote methodologies.
– (package 2) the National Resource Management Toolbar … from October 2007 … for searching across many different related databases, decision support tools, professional associations, brokering services, alerting services, and more. See www.nrmtoolbar.net.au.
– (package 3) knowledge brokering for regions … an online form to submit questions, plus systematic reviews of the literature to help everyone keep up with what’s going on. Also with networks of expertise, and decision support brokering service.