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Global CyberPolitics

Mapping Sustainability

Mapping Sustainability Book Cover.
Book cover of Mapping Sustainability (Choucri et al., Eds. 2007).

Mapping Sustainability (Choucri et al., Eds. 2007) is an early step in the broader computational strategy for reducing barriers to knowledge pertaining to sustainable development.

This work is foundational for generating a shared understanding of content and provides the fundamentals for engaging in e-networking to enhance both content and value of knowledge.

Focus

The central theme of this book, connecting its different parts, is about ways of transcending critical barriers to the effective uses of knowledge and networking.

Of special relevance is the development of new approaches to the provision and transmission —from local sources to global networks and from global sources to local networks. In many ways, this is a work of theory and methods, as well as policy and performance.

The framing challenge is clear: how best to apply intellectual order to a domain of knowledge that remains ad hoc at this writing? In this work, we organize the domain of sustainable development, formulate a basic ontology, and derive rules for indexing knowledge materials — all organized in internally consistent, structured and verifiable terms.

Objectives

The framing challenge is clear: how best to apply intellectual order to a domain of knowledge that remains ad hoc at this writing? In this work, we organize the domain of sustainable development, formulate a basic ontology, and derive rules for indexing knowledge materials—all in internally consistent, structured and verifiable terms.

Content & Sequence

Mapping Sustainability is organized as follows:

  1. We identify the knowledge objectives that drive the global networking initiative at hand. This task presents the broad terms of reference for the book as a whole as well as the logic for its individual parts.
  2. We highlight characteristic features of knowledge networking as a form e-interaction and communication, and define the key elements. 
  3. We turn to the functions of knowledge development in a computational context. Noting the contributions to information technologies for transitions toward sustainable development. We identify key barriers to use of knowledge for sustainability, and then highlight the solution strategies that we have developed in response to these barriers. Together, these factors define the boundaries of our overall research design. 
  4. We construct a multidimensional ontology of sustainable development as a knowledge domain, consisting of 14 high level topics for use to organize knowledge around an internally consistent, multi-topic and multi-level architecture. 
  5. We introduce the Global System for Sustainable Development (GSSD), a knowledge networking system which serves as the knowledge platform to incorporate the individual solutions to specific e-barriers into an integrated system. 
  6. We then focus on some key user-centered features of the system (front-stage, so to speak) and we note key operational features that reduce the e-barriers to knowledge access in various parts of the world (namely backstage properties).
  7. Finally, we turn briefly to who uses GSSD, how it is used, and why those who use it choose to do so.

References