Shaping the context for an integrated knowledge hub for the dairy and grains industry project: managing knowledge in the public sphere – ‘lessons learned’

Abstract

In 2011, the Victorian Department of Primary Industries (DPI) undertook a “proof of concept” project related to the design and development of two integrated knowledge hubs for the dairy and grains industry sectors. The University of Melbourne’s eScholarship Research Centre (ESRC) was engaged to provide advice on how structured online knowledge could contribute to the provision of persistent, authoritative information to farmers and industry service providers.

For more than 25 years, the ESRC and its predecessors have operated as both academic centres and focal points for infrastructure design, testing and deployment. The Centre has been a key collaborator in more than twenty online knowledge resources dating back to the earliest days of the web, all of which remain accessible in some form or another to this day. In delivering this report, ‘Managing Knowledge in the Public Sphere – “Lessons Learned”,’ the authors draw on these experiences to present findings for consideration by DPI.