As long ago as 2001, I was contracted to undertake a study of private- public partnership in Greece. This was not into PPPs as then being implemented by the UK Blair government, but rather at looking at partnerships between private sector organisations, academic and research institutions and the State for research and development and innovation.

My conclusions were fairly stark. Far from helping boost research and development in Greece, EU policies as designed to support R and D in the rich north European economies were distorting R and D in Greece and actually inhibiting innovation.

I was looking again at the report yesterday and much of it seems to be still relevant today, especially for those seeking to understand the Greek economic collapse.

Below I provide the conclusion to the report. The whole report can be downloaded from the link at the bottom of the page.

“That there are problems in developing collaborative research and development in Greece is without question. At a policy level these are summed up by the evaluation report on Structural Funds in Greece for the period 1994-1999:

• Lack of co-ordination between the bodies in charge of public research and those in charge of private research
• Gap between Universities and enterprises
• In  many regions there seems to be a lack of co-ordination of the science and technology policy between departments of industry and departments of education
• In some regions there is overlap and inadequate co-ordination between national and regional measures
• There is little involvement of the regional RTDI actors, private sector in particular, in policy planning.

Morgan draws attention to the issue of  the quality of the institutional setting as one of the main reason for  regional underdevelopment. Certainly there are problems in co-ordinating policy and in bureaucratisation of government in Greece. The development of science parks has been held up for a number of years due to lack of poli9tcvical agreement. The politicising of policy advisors and of the civil serviced militates against continuity in policy and development, and to an ensuing lack of the confidence required for investment. Whilst it would appear to be true that there is a lack of competence and know-how amongst regional administrations, the centralisation of the Greek system does not allow the development of such pools of competence and experience.

Equally it is easy to blame the lack of private sector investment from Greek companies on the failure to develop an entrepreneurial and research culture.

However, this overlooks a number of basic issues. The structure of Greek industry is atypical within the EU and much more akin to that of the southern Mediterranean countries – such as Turkey, Cyprus, Tunisia and Morocco see Table 2).

Table 2 Size-class structure of European enterprises by Country, 1995.

Source: EIM Small Business Research and Consultancy, European Observatory for SMEs, 1996

The small number of large companies are largely inward investments. Research and development for these companies is usually located in their ‘home’ state, rather than in Greece. Neither do they build up networks for research with local small and medium enterprises. The Greek economy is predominantly agriculture and services based and is dominated by micro enterprises. However, the structure of EU funding is designed to support industry and commerce in north Europe with a completely different industrial and economic structure. This would not be so serious a problem if it was not for the almost total reliance on structural funds to support research and development activities. One of the most surprising policy issues is that all the major Greek political parties have allowed the EC to dominate policy so completely.

There has been considerable discussion of the problems of what are somewhat euphuistically referred to as the “Less Favoured Regions”. The outcomes of those discussion are summarised in the Table below.

Source: Landabaso, 1997.

Most of these problems apply in Greece – although it is notable that venture capital appears to be relatively easily obtainable.

The question is how to overcome these problems and whether the present European structural policies are adequate and suited to the needs of the Greek economy.

Morgan (1999) points out how university departments from relatively new universities, for example, which do not have a long tradition of university-industry collaboration, use new funding to strengthen research activities which do not always reflect the needs of the regional firms.

He also says that the regional firms, often small, family-owned and competing among themselves in relatively closed markets, do not have a tradition of co-operation and trust either among themselves or with the regional R&TD infrastructure, particularly universities, In short, the regional innovation system in these regions does not have either the necessary interfaces and co-operation mechanisms for the supply-demand matching to happen, or the appropriate conditions for the exploitation of synergies and co-operation among the scarce regional R&TD actors which could eventually fill gaps and avoid duplications. In this situation, investing more money in the creation of new technology centres, for example, without previously co-ordinating and adapting the work of existing ones, risks further distorting the system.

In this situation reliance on state funding is almost inevitable and should not necessarily be seen as a bad thing. However the critical issue is whether public funding is being used towards a strategy of sustainable and indigenous development and how that funding is planned, administered and evaluated.

Sofouli points out the contradictions in the use of European funding and the rigid guidelines which appear to be designed for the industrial systems of north Europe. There are frequent conflicts between the development aims and funding and the rulings on competition. Even where it is agreed that the granting of funding will not break competition rules, the need for official approval causes long bureaucratic delays.

More fundamentally micro enterprises are unable to raise the match funding required by many of the structural funds, whilst the infrastructure and skills for new networks does not always exist.

It could also be argued that the EU funding through development projects is focused towards technological and industrial  development, rather than enhancing the service sector which is far more important in Greece. Patiniotis (2001) is critical of what he sees as the technological determinism inherent in European funding and development policies.

The underlying justification for present policies lies in a direct link between research and development activities within the industrial economy and the innovation which is seen as critical to future economic growth and to unemployment. Yet it can be argued that Greek companies are nothing if not innovative. However, research and development tends to be brought in from abroad utilising the extensive Greek Diaspora. However, the emphasis in the structural programmes on demonstration projects  prevents the use of many funds to support accessing technology from abroad.

It is interesting to note that Greek universities do have very extensive links with other European and international institutions. The relatively high education levels are also an issue as is the very high levels of business start ups and company creation, linked to the availability of finance capital.

One sector which has been acknowledged for innovation in Greece is the Information technology industry. However, what is interesting here is that most companies in this industry throughout Europe are small or micro industries (European IT Observatory, 2001) and that in Greece this sector is almost entirely focused on software services rather than production. However even here new programme for the development of the new economy which aims to provide seed capital for the establishment of small companies in the ICT sector is being impeded because the programme regulations require those very same companies to provide match funding – in other words to provide the capital that they lack in the first place (Sofouli, 2001). Sofouli goes on to say that the need for approval of new research projects by EPAN – the Greek office for competition is holding up innovation.

A further issue is that of geographical location. Greece is often referred to as being a peripheral economy. This raises the question of peripheral to what. Certainly the structure of the economy is peripheral in terms of the north European industrial economy. Equally Greece is geographically peripheral within the European Union. However within its own traditional spheres of influence and trade – in the Mediterranean and as the gateway to the Bosphorus, Greece is anything but peripheral.

More thoughtful research is need to develop policies which can promote research and development and innovation through PPPs in Greece and as to how European policy is formulated and implemented. This is not just a question for Greece – or the other so-called ‘Less Favoured Regions’. With the planned expansion of the EU the Greek economic structures will cease to be isolated and may well represent a model for the new Member States in The European Union.  However, in order to undertake this task a major policy weakness needs to be addressed. This is the issue of evaluation. Our research suggests that present evaluation polices and practice – based on the requirements of the European funding programmes and focused on summative systems evaluation – are inadequate. This is not to denigrate the purpose and intent of the present evaluation regime in ensuring public value for money and contract compliance – nor to question the methods being used. But the data presently being collected and the tools for analysis do not provide policymakers – in Greece and in the EU – with sufficient  information or knowledge to develop the policies so evidently need to support innovation with the Greek economic and social system. Neither do they provide researchers with the basic information needed to undertake more fundamental research into development processes in an economy and society such as Greece. Finally the present evaluation regime is not providing the formative evaluation and feedback so desperately required by project promoters and developers and fails to provide the arena to capitalise on present development and experiences.

In conclusion why does Greece have a flourishing culture of start up enterprises and economic activity despite all the problems outlined above? Nikitas Patiniotis (2001) suggests it lays with the people themselves:

“The Greek people are innovative and take risks – especially in terms of time. Money is always short and is controlled by the government. Most companies are started by one or two people. Greek SMEs use family  resources. The biggest indigenous company in Greece is Intracom which was started 15 years ago by one person. Risk taking in Greece is a survival technique.” “

You can download the full report here.

On Wednesday I had the pleasure of being part of a team of guest bloggers on the TEDxKids event in Brussels. Sadly I was not there in person, but followed the video stream. Here are a few quick reflections on the event.

Firstly this was not really one event, but two events running in parallel. Firstly was the grown ups conference, following the by now familiar TED format of ‘inspirational’ guest speakers making short presentations. And second was the kids event, which followed a workshop format. There were periodic report backs on the progress of the kids workshop and a final round up session presenting their work.

Despite many interesting talks, I can’t help thinking the kids event would have been the one I would have liked to be at!

Be that as it may, the grown ups event was certainly interesting. Taken overall, the theme was about learning by doing, enabled by technology. And this involves giving young people more space to play, to experiment, to make things and to fail (“mistaking your way to success”) : all things the present educational system is not very good at. And of course allowing young people access to play with and shape the tools needed for this. There was a big emphasis on making things – from 3D printing to toothbrush robots. The kids seemed to particularly enjoy playing with soldering irons (to the extent where I am tempted to go out and buy one). And the event confirmed the positive connotations now being attributed to the word “hacking”.

My favourite speaker was Mark Frauenfeder from MAKE magazine – if you have no time for anything else I would recommend watching the video of his presentation when it comes out.  I also liked the discussion around the Sugar software (can’t remember who the speaker was) with an emphasis on kids being able to reprogramme and repurpose applications as part of the learning process.

I must say though, I am not so convinced by the TED format. It works well for video. But I am not sure of the learning and creativity in passively watching an event – be it live or streamed. OK – the Twitter feed was lively. But there is no ability to ask questions or interact with the speakers. there seems little advantage to me in attending a TED event (apart from meeting friends) over watching on YouTube in the comfort of your home.

I am in Innsbruck for four days for a meeting of the EU funded research project, Mature-IP. Over the next few days I will try to report on what theproject is doing.

The Mature project has always interseted me in its approach to Personal Learning Environments. Whilst most projects based on PLEs have looked at learning within schools and univeristies, Mature looks at knowledge maturing processes in work.

And the project has adopted a user based approach working with a number of different user groups, in the UK from the Careers services, in developing and iterating a PLE based on knowledge development services. The project has also developed a series of knowledge indicators, based on these services.

Is it working? It is a little early to tell. But the project acknowledges the importance of different forms of learning leading to knowledge development and sharing in the workplace and also takes account of differences in context. The services developed have been based on the idea of represneting, modellinga nd reseeding knowledge delopment or maturing processes as seen in the diagramme above. Twenty seven services have been developed to date and can be combined in what are being called insubstatiations to take account of such contexts. I realise these may seem somewhat abstract but they have served in bridging between social and educational researchers working on the project and software develers. These services are:

Representation Services:

Content

• Content metric service: Provides a wrapper for encapsulating various content metric implementations
• Classification service: Classifies resources to a given set of categories based on their content. Classification can be improved by the help of user feedback
• Clustering Service: Groups items regarding a special feature

Structure

• Task Similarity Service: Computes the similarity between tasks
• Tag Mortality Analysis Service: analyses tags / concepts and their activity to predict their death
• Concept Relationship Analysis Service: Analyzes concept hierarchy and usage of concept for annotations to derive recommendations for adding broader/narrower relationships
• oSKOS Analysis Service: analyzes a SKOS ontology for potential redundant or missing information

Usage

• Usage Logging Service: collects usage data from the user’s interaction with the MATURE systems
• Process Tracking Service: logs process and task execution

Model Services

User

• User Modeling Service: Detects a user’s knowledge from his or her usage data
• Topical User Modeling Service: Provides an aggregated topical profile of a person

Task

• Process Monitoring Service: Provides the means to query and browse log data provided by the Process Tracking Service in aggregated form
• Process Model Refinement Service: Compares the modelled process with the actual process executions and suggests improvements on the process model based on it

Resource

• Resource Model Service: Describes resources based on usage data
• Document Similarity Service: Derives the textual similarity between two documents
• Resource Quality Profile: Creates a qualitative profile for each resource

Reseeding Services

Reseeding of Knowledge about contents

• Quality Based Resource Recommendation: Provides a set of ranked resources based on the qualitative status of the resource and quality requirements of the user
• Context Aware Notification Service: Provides information about activities related to artefacts
• Reseeding of Knowledge about SemanticsTag Recommendation Service: Provides tag recommendations to achieve a consistent personal and organisational tag vocabulary
• Keyword Recommendation Service: Provides a list of synonyms and hyponyms for tags
• Ontology Gardening Recommendation Service: provides recommendation for improving a SKOS ontology based on the ontology itself and information on its application

Reseeding of Knowledge about Processes

• Case-based Resource Recommendation Service: suggests resources based on resource-use in historical process executions.
• Historical Case Service: searches for historical cases based on a given input

Reseeding of Knowledge about People

• Expertise Analytics Service: Provides an aggregated overview and comparison of available and requested expertise based on tag assignments and search query analysis within a certain timeframe
• People Ranking Service: Provides a ranked list of people that are relevant for a given topic
• Expert Ranking Service: Based on past tag assignments (user-document-tag triple marked with a timestamp), this service recommends knowledgeable colleagues working on a specific topic
• People Awareness Service: Based on a user/person’s profile, this service recommends other persons with a similar profile

The second verse of the great Pete Seeger song ‘Little Boxes‘, written by Malvina Reynolds goes:

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And of course it is true. More than that, it is the policy on which most of our careers guidance practice is based. Find what skills industry and commerce needs, goes the policy, set up training places to meet those needs, put people into those boxes and we will turn out a neat match between skills and the needs of the economy.The strategy is called ‘skills matching’ and forms the basis for the European New Skills, New Jobs policy as well as that of many national governments.

Universities traditionally stood aloof from such a policy which they saw only as applicable to those in vocational education and training. Univeristy was about the development fo minds and about research.

But with the increasing commodification of universities, they too are embracing such a strategy, in the name of value for money and employability. Students are reluctant to part with large sums of money unless they can see a job progression route for their expenditure on a degree course; governments regard vocational relevance as the key criteria in providing fiances for higher education.

The only problem is that the ‘Little Boxes’ approach doesn’t work. Firstly employers often don’t know what skills they want. take the fiasco at the end of the last century when the European Industry Group for Information and Communication Technologies was predicting huge skills gaps in computing and computer programming. These gaps never materialized despite little growth in the supply to computer programmers. Secondly we simply do not have sufficiently well developed central planning infrastructures to plan for skills and employment in such a way.

This is not to deny the needs for close community links between employers and education providers, at least on a local level. However this should not be to the detriment of other community interests in education and community well being. And rather than focus on skills matching, it would be far better to focus attention on creativity and innovation. If we look at regional innovation centres in Europe such as the manufacturing clusters in Emilia Romana or the media cluster in Cardiff it could be argued that such growth happened due to innovation around the skills and creativity of the workforce, rather than because of matching of skills to existing industry (indeed in Cardiff’s case the economy was traditionally based on heavy industry and manufacturing).

In any case is it possible to ‘predict’ the skills needed int he economy in a period of fast technological change? The Institut Technik und Bildung at Bremen University, with whom I have worked for many years used to talk of the ‘shaping’ principle. They saw education as playing a key role in shaping work organisation and skills development as enabling social innovation in production and economic development. The word ‘shaping’ is a translation of the German ‘Gestaltung’, also commonly translated as ‘design’. And once more this would suggest we can design our futures, that technology and production are not mechanistically determined but rather can be shaped or changed.

But for such an approach we need people who can think out of the box, who can consider the social implications of technology development. And that will not happen through a skills matching policy!

I have had several requests for this paper, co-written in 1990 with Jenny Hughes, and realised it was not available on the internet. So I have published it to Scribd.

The paper looks at comparative research in Vocational education and Training and the possible uses of cultural theory as a research methodology. This extract explains some of the thinking behind such an approach.

The focus of much comparative research has been the comparison of different paradigms in VET. Set against a common background of globalisation of the economy, the rise of multi-nationals and shared technologies, these paradigms show a marked convergence across Europe and there is a seductive similarity between, for example, work organisation paradigms, curriculum paradigms and research paradigms. This has increased the tendency to undertake ‘point to point’ comparisons across member states, often based on task or functional analysis. And yet the outcomes of such research, whilst providing descriptive data which empirically reinforces the notion of converging trends is often at odds with what VET researchers ‘know’ to be true and which the general populus assumes as ‘common sense’; that is, that there are major cultural differences leading to apparently inexplicable divergences of practice. The challenge for VET research is to construct more robust tools for analysis which can accommodate and reconcile both the convergences and divergences.

Much of the existing comparative research takes as its starting point a single VET paradigm and deconstructs that paradigm into its elements. Thus, ‘VET’ would be the highest level of a tree diagram and the paradigmatic sets under observation would be branches below it.  These  may be labelled, for example, `employment patterns’,  `new production methods’, `trainer training’, `cultural issues’, `curriculum’ and so on.  The elements or items within the paradigms would form the next level of branching. For example under `new production methods’ there might be elements labelled `Just-in Time’ or `island production’ or `co-makership’.  Under  employment patterns there may be `self employed’, `employed by SME’, `unemployed’ and so on. Each of these elements can also be subdivided into properties or descriptors (which are actually paradigms in themselves).  For example `unemployed’ could be expressed as ‘average length of unemployment’ or `number of unemployed males over 25’ or `average qualification level of unemployed women’ or whatever.   The  number and type of paradigmatic sets are similar across member states as are the items within each paradigm, hence the apparent  convergence. Much quantitative comparative research maps and compares element against like element looking for differences in properties across member states. Occasionally it compares paradigm with paradigm but work at this higher level of aggregation level is more often seen in collaborative research.

What is rarely taken into account is the syntax which exists between the paradigms, a syntax which is determined by the culture which generated it and is as culturally specific as the rules of grammar are language specific. The syntagmatic relationship (or syntagm) which defines the way in which one paradigm articulates with another is, for the most part, ignored but it is here that the divergences across member states are located.

What VET needs is a grammar capable of analysis at a systemic rather than structural level. It needs a grammar robust enough and sufficiently rigorous to challenge and provide a real alternative to both functional and structural analysis but sophisticated enough to examine the cultural realisation and cultural meaning of sectoral and regional differences, national identities, gender, class and language.

Thus the model should not take  `VET’ as a starting point for the tree diagram and then simply disaggregate it – with `the cultural dimension’ being a paradigm or even an element within several paradigms and the assumption that it lends itself to comparison as readily as unemployment figures.  Rather we should put ‘culture’ at the top of the tree diagram with VET being one (disaggregated) manifestation of that culture

Functionalist analyses break down VET into a series of components that, not only .fails to recognise their significance within societies and cultures, but renders comparisons less, rather than more, meaningful.  Stucturalist and post structuralist schools continue to pursue structures of likeness and contrast, differences played against similarities. It follows that if all the factors which determine VET culture are themselves different then the component parts of those features are bound to be different.

Given the role of culture on Vet and of VET itself within its cultural context, then it may be of value to access that corpus of knowledge and theory in the field of cultural studies. The next section of this paper will look at some different ideas drawn from cultural theory and examine their applicability for comparative VET studies.

New Culture Paper

I love this video by Howard Rheingold. Not only for the content which is fascinating. But also becuase of the use of video. I am very disappointed in the big push for recording lectures. Lectures have their place in teaching and learning, but the format does not lend itself well to video. This is a ‘made for video’ project by Howard – more work but much more effective. And it doesn’t need a high-tech studio set up.

Howard says: “I’ve become convinced that understanding how networks work is an essential 21st century literacy. This is the first in a series of short videos about how the structure and dynamics of networks influences political freedom, economic wealth creation, and participation in the creation of culture. The first video introduces the importance of understanding networks and explains how the underlying technical architecture of the Internet specifically supports the freedom of network users to innovate.”

I am looking forward to the next videos in the series.

Most of the debate over the future of Higher Education in the UK has focused on funding and within that of funding for teaching. And regarding research, the major concern has been obviously cutbacks in research funding. Of course that is a valid concern.

There has been less attention to the nature of research funding. The government’s main thrust would appear to be to encourage private sector funding of research. Of course there are trust funds concerned with the longer term benefits of research and of developing a public knowledge base. But much private sector funding is looking for short term return on funding. Nothing wrong with that. But in terms of developing knowledge it will inevitably skew the subjects of research. Secondly private sector companies will often be unwilling to share or make public the results fo such funded research. In the long term it all amounts to another step in the privatisation of education.

There are also concerns over the nature of public sector research funding. Talking in the Times Higher Education Supplement about the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), Professor Delpy says:

… the RAE, which still determines the distribution of about £1.5 billion in annual quality-related research funding, had “driven a fantastically efficient and very competitive research base that has not helped people collaborate, because institutions have been measured against what they as individual institutions have done”.

He added: “You didn’t get extra brownie points because one-third of your research was collaborative.”

This in turn meant that universities’ promotion criteria typically did not reward collaborative efforts such as “enabling a whole area of research to gain large-scale funding from the European Union” by “corralling and marshalling” individual researchers to put together joint bids, Professor Delpy said.

In other words, the nature of funding and the policy drive for competition between universities and even between departments, is inhibiting the development of collaborative research. Yet it is just such collaboration which can lead to new knowledge development and to the development of careers for emerging researchers.

Once more this illustrates the importance of the emerging debate over the purpose of education and the role of research within society.

I have been doing some thinking recently on the use of technology for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Or rather the lack of it. Some six or seven years ago we did a project on this finding that although there was much use of technology for informal learning, there was very little awareness, take up or implementation of elearning systems in SMEs (the book of the project is available on our publications page).
Since then there has been considerable public expenditure in Europe encouraging the enhanced use of technology for learning. Small and Medium Enterprises are seen as a key sector for creating employment and for innovation. Training and Continuing Professional Development are critical to innovation and the growth of SMEs. SMEs do not provide sufficient training because they cannot spare the time for staff to attend external training programmes and because internal training is too expensive. Therefore use elearning – so goes the logic. But the logic is clearly flawed. SMEs have not rushed to embrace the possibilities of elearning, despite pubic subventions. So what are the barriers and constraints. The following list is based on a series of meetings and consultation albeit in the somewhat specialist field of careers guidance, which, in England, is organised through private careers companies under contracts with local and national government. Indeed, one of the problems, I think, is that we have tended to treat SMEs as a homogeneous entity, whilst, in reality, the possibilities and approach in different sectors varies greatly and there is also big differences between an SME of 250 workers (the EU says an SME is any organisation employing less than 300 staff) and small enterprises with say 8 or ten staff.

1. Lack of resources. Lack of formal based learning courses or resources. Most training programmes and Continuing Professional Development opportunities are face to face. This may reflect culture, lack of awareness of potential of e-learning and lack of technically proficient specialists to develop e-learning resources, plus of course the cost of producing high quality learning materials.
2. Poor infrastructure. Many careers companies have a poor network infrastructure and are using out of date computers with even more out of date web browsers etc. Furthermore many of companies have set up heavy firewalls preventing access to social networking sites.
3. Lack of competence or confidence in use of computers by some careers advisers. May be some reluctance by staff to become involved in elearning.
4. Lack of awareness by senior managers and staff development officers of potential of elearning. Lack of local champions for change
5. Despite all these problems and barriers, most careers advisers use computers as part of their everyday job. There are requirements to use networked systems for record keeping. In addition many use the computers for informal learning and especially for browsing for resources, also using the computer in direct work with clients. However such activity is not viewed by managers as ‘learning’ neither is it accredited.
6. Lack of time. It is difficult to persuade managers to provide time for informal (or formal) online learning, especially given present financial climate. Many do appear to use computer for work purposes at home and in their own time.
7. Cost. Many online resources are expensive and at present careers services are under heavy financial pressure. Is also worth noting that practices of companies in paying for online access by say mobile phone varies greatly. Staff may be unwilling to use mobile devices if are expected to pay themselves.
8. Confidentiality. Much of the work is confidential. This may mitigate against the use of open social software networks.
9. Organisational structures. Careers companies have to bid for contracts and may be unwilling to share learning opportunities or resources with other companies who may be perceived as competitors.
10. Lack of functionality to share informal learning. Are only limited networks and community applications for sharing learning. there are some signs this may be changing but most learning is hared and disseminated face to face or by email.
11. Much of the work of careers advisers take place outside the office. Access to resources including internet may be limited.

These barriers could be categorised as social, pedagogical, organsiational and technological. In reality the different categories probably reinforce each other and overlap. But each area needs to be addressed if progress is to be made.

I would be interested in other opinions as to barriers in developing elearning in SMEs – in this or other sectors

This is the first of three or four posts on Open Knowledge and Open and Linked Data.

For some time I have been looking at the movement for Open Knowledge, mainly from the viewpoint of teaching and learning. Open Knowledge pushes back at the attempts to privatise knowledge through ever more draconian intellectual property laws. And of course such laws are being introduced precisely because of the capability of the internet from opening up knowledge resources and sharing knowledge and knowledge artefacts. Recently I have been looking at the potential of open and linked data, an idea whose time has come in terms of the ability of machines to collect data and process data, to allow interrogation of that data and to visualise the results.

But this is not just about teaching and learning. Access to data could be central to democracy. Last weeks call from the Jubilee Debt Campaign for an audit of the Greek debts is a case in point. The Jubilee Debt Campaign web site says:

Today, more than 200 prominent Greek and international figures launch a call to audit Greece’s debts. Economists, activists, academics and parliamentarians from across the world are demanding the establishment of a Public Commission to examine the debts that lie at the root of Greece’s crisis. The Commission would look at the legality and legitimacy of those debts, with a view to negotiating better terms and holding to account those responsible for unjust debts.

There is little doubt that any initial examination of those debts will find a tangle of wheeling and dealing, of strange financial instruments and money movements. How better to discover what has been going on than to make this data publicly available. So not just a public audit by reputed financial specialists but an audit by the crowd. If the Greek people are supposed to pay for this crisis why should they not have the full details of what is owed, to who and for what.

And come to think of it, it is not just Greece which needs such an audit. The Ireland economy is in tatters, and in the UK we are constantly told that austerity measures and cutbacks are necessary because of the size of the UK’s sovereign debt. If my taxes are going to pay these debts I want to know who they are to and how those debts occurred. The UK government seems keen on publishing data it wants us to see (like the pay of civil servants), other data it is less keen to see in the public domain.

As the UK Government attempts to pay for ever more diverse campaigns emerge against attempts to cutback public services.

One of the most interesting has been against cuts in libraries. The campaign has gone viral through Facebook and Twitter and gained the support of prominent artists and public figures. Of course part of the reason for the strength of the campaign may be nostalgia, another may be that the move to close libraries has upset many of the middle classes who voted for the ConDem coalition government in England.

The Government’s arguments seem to be threefold. One we cannot afford libraries. Two, why should they be a public service and why can’t they be run by the private sector or by volunteers. And three that they are out of date in the internet age.

The first two are predictable responses from aright wing government committed to reducing public services. But the latter is interesting as is the response. To some extent I guess this is based on nostalgia or on a feeling that a paper based book represents something different and more than a digital artefact. Partly it is based on a social inclusion agenda. But partly it is focused on the idea of libraries as a physical and social space, analogous to the role of pub. Even when information can be found through a simple Google search, even when we can chat directly with our friends over VOIP connections, even when our friends are measured in terms of connections om Facebook, we still value public spaces. And the library is a public pace lined to knowledge. Of course it is not the only one – we have schools and universities. But these have various restrictions and exclusivity based on age, income or qualification. In the UK libraries have represented one of the few public and social spaces linked to knowledge which have been open to all.

And as such people are instinctively opposed to their closure or privatisation.