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Dgroupswww.dgroups.org was created by a coalition of influential development organizations in 2001 to facilitate and foster the use of online communities, networks and working groups. In many ways, it would be possible to argue that Dgroups are Web 2.0 – collaborative web – avant la lettre. Dgroups has been an extremely successful initiative: one assumes that it has facilitated a vast amount of interaction and learning in the development field. The number of communities and members has grown enormously since its creation in 2001, reaching 2207 networks with 83,804 members on 7 May 2007. But, in many ways, Dgroups is like a black box. Who are the key members? What are the networks doing? Who is starting the networks? What is South-North balance? Although many users, moderators and architects may have partial answers to these questions, the evidence remains largely anecdotal.During the period October 2006 - June 2007, a research project has been undertaken to look at the development impact of Dgroups. Date collection has comprised. An analysis of Dgroup documents;Interviews with representatives of partner organizations; Web statistics; Two online surveys: one of administrators; and one of individual Dgroups; and Case studies of selected Dgroups. The presentation will present the main results of this research project, examining how knowledge networks (=Dgroups) facilitate the spread of information and knowledge among the actors (individual and institutional) working in the thematic areas of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including the agriculture, rural development and natural resource management sectors; how knowledge networks facilitate learning processes (individual learning, social learning, organizational learning) in the diverse institutions working in areas related to the MDGs; and how knowledge networks are able to breakdown the multitude of ‘divides’ in development.
Dawnload Presentation
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