Why disseminate information?

this is just for linking our subject with education (everyone has the right to receive a free education - free education must be based on free/open source software, tools etc - open source software means making available code/help/support information for anyone. On the other hand, if information about projects/OSes etc is fully available people are encouraged to learn of it, use-report-develop etc)

Why disseminate information?

Before assessing the various approaches used to disseminate information, it is worth revisiting the reasons for disseminating information in a given community. In this way, the overall vision and purpose can be validated and criteria established to measure success at various stages of implementation, or improvement of, services and systems used to support dissemination.

The following sub-sections consider the reasons for disseminating information from the suppliers' viewpoint. Section A) looks at the general reasons, while B) looks at issues specific to the TAP.

A) General reasons for dissemination
There are usually good reasons why organisations decide to disseminate information. These reasons are not necessarily independent of one another but can nonetheless be categorised to emphasise the motivation of an organisation when initiating dissemination The reasons are usually to increase the value of one or more of the following attributes of the enterprise shareholders.

a)Judgement

Information is often disseminated in the hope that individuals and entities in an organisation will improve their knowledge base and subsequently make better judgements in future situations. For example, a researcher is faced with carrying out one of two types of experiment but knows that many of the first type have already been shown (with a strong significance factor) to be more expensive than the second. Provided all other things are equal (success rate, easy of use, state of mind etc.) the researcher should be more inclined to choose the second type of experiment and save his company or community additional expense and time.

b)Awareness

Information is often disseminated in order to educate, explain or promote a concept, process or principle. For example, technical specifications explaining system capabilities, instructions about alternatives to avoid congested transport routes and guidelines for the completion of work in order to ensure consistent appearance of project deliverables are all ways in which information is disseminated to generally encourage recipients to comply with a procedure in the belief of organisational (or enterprise) improvements.

c)Response

Sometimes information is disseminated solely in the hope it will cause some feedback that might require further information to be generated or be used to validate something. Examples include advertising, questionnaires, market surveys, frequently asked question lists, testimonials etc.

d)Collaboration

Information is often disseminated in order for a group of individuals to share knowledge and routes of communication. Examples include workflow systems to support the flow of information between system entities in order to achieve a common purpose, mailing lists where like-minded individuals can listen to and discuss common issues, libraries where people can access information, and control systems where probes might detect and transmit warnings about certain events.

B) Reasons for dissemination in the TAP
The following are considered to be the main objectives of disseminating information in the TAP.

a)Promote results

TAP has to ensure a wide dissemination of its projects' results of activities.

b)Optimise exploitation

TAP has to ensure that entrepreneurs have an opportunity to exploit project results by converting results into innovations.

c)Promote technology transfer

TAP has to ensure that applicable technology can be transferred to a wide audience. For example, all the small to medium sized enterprises in Europe.

d)Improve links with national initiatives

TAP is a European activity and as such provides a federated service for national counterparts. This can help improve links between European and national activities.

e)Ensure continuing development of expertise

By continuing to disseminate information, TAP acts as a catalyst to promote further growth in expertise among the European RTD community.

f)Support continuing supply of new information

As the results of different projects are continually coming through the TAP, new information is arriving that can be used as guidance on best practice. It also offers a source of news about commercial innovations and partnerships between European companies.

C) Observations

The motives for dissemination identified in 2.1 and the requirements in 2.2 identified some reasons and methods used to carry out dissemination. Looking at a range of dissemination activities in this way has led to consideration of why dissemination is important. It has also indicated, implicitly, the consequences of not carrying it out effectively.

//i will insert a table here

Table 1. Examples of the relationship between motives and methods in information dissemination

Another consideration is that the motives and methods for the use and access of information often need to change over time, and even more so with rapidly changing user expectations and technology. This includes both the ways in which information is managed and disseminated by owners and distributors, and accessed and consumed by users.

It is clear that the way in which information is supplied can influence both the way users do things as well as impact what they do. Demands from users can also likely affect the suppliers of information in a similar manner.

Bibliography:

http://piper.ntua.gr/reports/infodis/doc0007.htm

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License