OZ 2011/3

66 ORGANIZACIJA ZNANJA 2011, LETN. 16, ZV. 3 dissemination as a collection of dissemination actions. Based on interdependency of the results, dissemination actions are also interdependent. There is a precedence relation among them invoked by precedence of the results. The scenario enables identification of basic relations composing a dissemination action. 1. Relation between project results and target audiences 2. Relation between project results, target audiences and types of information 3. Relation between project partners and project results 4. Relation between project results and results deadlines With the basic relations we can set a template for a dissemination action: who, what, in what detail, to whom, by what means and when. • Who: project partner (persons that disseminate the result). • What: a result shaped as information or knowledge. • In what detail: it is essential that the information or knowledge is shaped to the needs of the target audience (usually expressed by a document type – e. g. news release, presentation, paper). • To whom: the target audience is a group of persons presumably having an interest in the result. • By what means: communication infrastructure that has a capability to communicate the result to the target audience. • When: a time frame suitable for the dissemination action. In the above scheme only the project partner is a known entity. The result is actually an expected result. The target audiences are represented by a category (those who may have an interest in the result). The communication infrastructure can be determined based on knowledge about the communication capacities of the target audience. To this point we have acquired knowledge about basic relations among dissemination entities and set a template for a dissemination action. Dissemination strategy Dissemination is commonly carried out based on a dissemination strategy, which is developed in an early project stage. While carrying out the dissemination, it is important that the dissemination strategy reflects in dissemination actions. Otherwise, dissemination proposals may appear claiming that they are important or even critical to the success of dissemination. If met, such proposals can lead to spending significant dissemination resources for little or no effect. Reconciliation in such a situation can be strenuous and time consuming. To diminish the space for dispute, each intended dissemination action is checked against the dissemination strategy, e. g.: • Is the result to be disseminated (and not a general issue having little or nothing in common with the result)? • Is the target category appropriate (are there reasons to believe that there is an interest in the result)? • Is the document type appropriate (does it enable to pass the intended information or knowledge)? If the checking is successful, the intended dissemination action is in agreement with the dissemination strategy. However, with such an approach there is no limit set to the number of dissemination actions, which can grow excessive in number. To avoid being caught in such a situation, we build a simple and feasible model of the environment, encompassing all the target audiences. Model of the environment Actually, we build the dissemination on an intuitive model of the environment, which is based on our knowledge about the environment. With building the model we may get trapped into situations where our knowledge is insufficient and needs upgrading. With upgrading the knowledge we can gradually build a feasible model. We associate each project result with characteristic attributes (e. g. ethics, information, communication, nanotechnology). Then we represent local environments as target categories (e. g. forums, conferences, journals, organizations, associations, societies, individuals) and associate target categories with the same characteristic attributes as the results (e. g. forum: ethics, journal: communication, conference: nanotechnology). In this way we build a set of target categories determining characteristics of local environments (e. g. ethics forum, communication journal, nanotechnology conference). By (partially) matching characteristic attributes associated with the results with characteristic attributes of the target categories, we identify categories of local environments that may have an interest in project results and also establish connections among them (which local environment may have an interest in which result) (Figure 1). (Such a model can also be made formal and matching can be carried out by a machine.) Maksimiljan Gerkeš: DISSEMINATION OF KNOWLEDGE ...