This book studies how the knowledge society has created new conditions of marginalities while empowering people through new age connectivity.

The growing importance of knowledge, research, innovation and evolving perspectives on expertise with the usage of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) are changing the sociology of knowledge in the globalized world. Universities are the major institutions involved in the production and dissemination of knowledge. This book looks at ICT for education initiatives taken up towards building a Knowledge Society as emphasized in national education policy regimes for encouraging knowledge generation, knowledge acquisition, knowledge diffusion and the exploitation of knowledge. The research examines the present practice of ICT adoption in an existing framework of University of Hyderabad (UOH) and Tezpur University (TZU) through intensive case study. The research attempts to analyze issues of knowledge, governance and access using ICT; the application of communication technologies in Higher Education Sector that helps in fulfilling the goal of a Knowledge Society; the communication process and strategies in the networking of higher education into a Knowledge Society; existing ‘digital divide’ and the implications. The Stakeholder’s perspective further highlights the advantages and the challenges faced in the actual implementation of ICT4E. Based on the study, the research offers recommendations for management, human resources, processes and institutional culture in ICT4E implementation.

"In today's networked societies, a key factor of the social and economic success is the capability to exchange, transfer, and share knowledge. This book provides research on the topic providing a foundation of an emerging and multidisciplinary field"--Provided by publisher.

This book discusses learning and teaching with modern technology in the new knowledge society. It focuses specifically on new literacy and technology in classroom environments. Based on a social-constructivist approach, this book covers a wide range of new technology use examples, such as participatory media, video recording systems and 3D computer graphics. A case study on a constructivist approach to teaching and learning, especially CSCL (computer supported collaborative learning), is discussed from a practical perspective for educators. It also includes specific in-class practices with detailed accounts of curricula featuring readily accessible yet new technology available for classroom use, such as Google Sketchup 3D computer models.

The original essays collected here under the general title of The Knowledge Society were first commissioned for a conference held in the late fall of 1984 at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, West Germany. The conference in Darmstadt saw a larger number of contribu tions presented than could be accommodated in this edition of the Sociol ogy of the Sciences Yearbook. However, all contributions were important and affected those published in this collection. We are therefore grateful to all participants of the Darmstadt conference for their presentations and for their intense, useful as well as thoughtful discussion of all papers. Those chosen for publication in the Yearbook and those undoubtedly to be published elsewhere have all benefitted considerably from our discussions in Darmstadt which also included a number of the members of the edito rial board of the Yearbook. In addition, we are pleased that the authors were able to read and comment further on each other's papers prior to publication. As is the case in every endeavor of this kind, we have incurred many debts and are only able to acknowledge these at this point publicly while expressing our sincere thanks and appreciation for all the intellectual sup port and the considerable labor invested by a number of persons in the realization of the collection.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the IFIP TC 3 International Conference, KCKS 2010, held as a part of the 21th World Computer Congress, WCC 2010, in Brisbane, Australia, in September 2010. The 43 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The range of issues cover many aspects of ICT in relation to competencies in the knowledge society; they present theory, research, applications and practical experiences on topics including but not limited to developing creativity, digital solidarity, e-management in education, informatics and programming knowledge technologies, lifelong learning, policy development, teacher(s) in a knowledge society, e-inclusion, AGORA: the IFIP initiative on lifelong learning, collective intelligence, digital literacy, educating ict professionals, formal and informal learning, innovations of assessment, networking and collaboration, problem solving teacher learning & creativity as well as teaching & learning 2.0.

This book, in conjunction with the volume CCIS 49, constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second World Summit, WSKS 2009, held in Chania, Crete, Greece, in September 2008. The 62 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 256 submissions. The papers are deal with information technologies - knowledge management systems - e-business and business, organizational and inter-organizational information systems for the Knowledge Society, knowledge, learning, education, learning technologies and e-learning for the Knowledge Society, social and humanistic computing for the Knowledge Society – emerging technologies for the society and the humanity, culture and cultural heritage - technology for culture management - management of tourism and entertainment - tourism networks in the Knowledge Society, e-government and e-democracy in the Knowledge Society, innovation, sustainable development and strategic management for the Knowledge Society, service science, management, engineering, and technology, intellectual and human capital development in the Knowledge Society, advanced applications for environmental protection and green economy management, future prospects for the Knowledge Society: from foresight studies to projects and public policies, technologies and business models for the creative industries.

ÔThis book by Westlund and Kobayashi emphasises the fact that the gap between urban and rural areas is no longer relevant today: all places and regions are under a strong influence from cities. The authors show in a straightforward way that the continuum between more and less urbanized places requires new types of regulations, based on innovation and local skills, and that rural policies cannot be based on agriculture only but primarily require the mobilization of local social capital links.Õ Ð AndrŽ Torre, INRA Ð Agroparistech, Paris, France ÔÒRuralÓ communities are not all resource dependent and very low-density places. Not all have people leaving in droves and no newcomers. This bookÕs theoretical arguments and case studies (from five countries) help one understand better the diversity of ÒruralÓ. We find population gainers, population losers; newcomers and long-term ÒstayersÓ together in sizable towns; Aboriginal communities where out-migration is limited. The diversity is a key dimension in the analyses of public and private action to build and maintain social capital.Õ Ð Roger E. Bolton, Williams College, US ÔThis amazingly surprising book takes the popular topic of social capital and provocatively examines the contemporary rural development issue. New social capital driven thinking and insights are applied globally from a conceptual frame and locally with examples. The way forward for both urban and rural development is achieved when the variables that define social capital are simultaneously balanced around focused development objectives. Examples show how a multidimensional view of social capital enables meaningful rural development.Õ Ð Roger R. Stough, George Mason University, US Social capital is often considered a key factor for local development. This book analyzes the role of social capital for rural areasÕ survival and development in the current age of metropolitan growth Ð an era in which urban is the norm and where rural areas must adapt to this new situation and build innovative urban-rural relations. The traditional division between ÔruralÕ and ÔurbanÕ is no longer valid in the knowledge society. Instead of being a homogeneous unit based on primary sector production, the countryside in the developed world increasingly consists of areas with very different development paths. With examples from Europe, Asia and America, the book discusses building and renewal of rural social capital from both bottom-up and top-down perspectives, and from the standpoint of business, and both the public and private sectors. Being the first book to treat social capital and rural development in the age of megacities and the knowledge economy, it will be of great benefit to academics interested in social capital research and rural development.

In current debates about the 'knowledge society' and the organization of 'research', the spotlight is most often on the universities. This interdisciplinary and transhistorical volume focuses on the less often-recognized work of independent researchers creating and participating in knowledge outside the academy, from seventeenth-century north-country astronomers to Victorian naturalists to today's think tanks, community historians and new forms of researching and publishing through the internet. These intriguing cases raise challenging issues about the location, definition, and validation of 'research', about active participation in knowledge-generation, and about the perhaps changing boundaries of university today.