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InterDev's objective is to develop and bring alive an information service
that attempts to meet the needs of development practitioners and thus
support them in their activities. For this, a specific type of needs must
be taken into account.
These stakeholders'
request is not so much formulated in terms of research on this or that
subject but rather in terms of responses to problems encountered in
the field in the framework of their day-to-day activities: "How
can one define a project locally?", "Who has already done
so and how can one contact them?", "What were the results
and main difficulties encountered?", "Who can provide technical
support?".
We are getting closer to the need to have a panel of summary and validated
information able to give perspective on the various parameters that
enter into the picture when solving problems in a given context and
that allows stakeholders to increase their options and better master
them.
Optimising and circulating
the experiences, know-how and practices of development stakeholders is thus
a priority.
In addition to how to manage raw information, this calls on how knowledge
is circulated: who has the information, how can the accumulated knowledge
be transmitted, under what conditions can someone's experience be used by
others in different contexts?
In implementing a service that attempts to face up to these challenges,
we were confronted with a number of methodological questions on knowledge
production modes, practitioners' methods of communicating this knowledge,
and the quality of the information circulated.
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