Organizational domains

Organizational Domains: Elements of open, common, interoperable architecture This outline is a work in progress towards the establishment of a modular design and implementation of a virtually free, rich, open source, database-driven multi-purpose networked information, communication and knowledge platform for any non-profit, community-based or indigenous organization. Education for Sustainable Development & a Culture of Peace A prototype implementation is under way for a ten year initiative of the NGO Committee on Education of CONGO - the Conference Of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. Networks of inter-related web-sites are being developed in support of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World (2001-2010) and related overlapping Decades. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues The design is also being offered to the NGO Committee on the World's Indigenous People as a draft collaborative framework in support of broad-based participation in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues [1] - established in July 2000 by the Economic and Social Council with a mandate to "discuss indigenous issues within the mandate of the Council relating to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights" [2]. Th framework incorporates a vision of an ongoing global indigenous forum to enable local, regional and global dialogue among aand between indigenous communities that would make use of increasingly affordable convergent media-rich digital technologies to support a diversity of modalities of dialogue and consultation on issues expressed in the Draft United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples [3] and that arise during the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (2005-2014). Common functions and processes The design is predicated on the observation of the existence of a common set of functions and processes of non-profit and community-based organizations - membership, meetings, newsletters, documents/reports, committees and sub-committees, projects, campaigns, events, forums, fund-raising, education, outreach, etc. - and the development of common protocols by which information is gathered and organized. Modular / fractal The modular design of the architecture means that each committee, project, campaign, etc. can have its own section of the site based on variations of a common template that has the same features as the site as a whole - e.g. each committee has space for membership. meetings, projects, events, etc. The imagery of variegated fractals may be applicable, in which common patterns are replicated in nested and connected ways. Interactive / participatory The domains are designed to be interactive and participatory, with a choice of options for registered participants to contribute: in a community blog, in wiki spaces, or through the use of easy-to-use forms - e.g. for posting information on upcoming events, news items, information of interest, web resources, books, etc. Common data protocols A key element of the design is the adoption of a common set of protocols for forms, form fields and scripts to provide for the most effective integration of information, and to enable ready sharing and exchange of information - e.g. integration of calendar-related information - within and between organizations - for example - and where applicable, to provide the ability to tap into common external bodies of knowledge. Protocols & the Internet It is protocols that define the Internet and enable the remarkable degree of interoperability and free exchange of information already supported by the Internet. The adoption of common data exchange protocols would represent a significant next phase in the Internet - Web 3.0? Among other things, this would be of significant value in the compilation of a rich public domain with common bodies of knowledge and public information - whether demographic, economic, geographic, hydrological, botanical, etc. Registration form For a registration page, for example, common protocols will be used for the names, format and sizes of the various contact information elements - with both country-specific and international protocols. Common names of states or provinces and cities, with applicable GIS information would be accessible for download and integrated as selectable form options and into an organization's database. Books & ISBN numbers Books provide a good example of drawing on existing information, and a form for sharing book recommendations would have a field for the book's ISBN number. Providing the ISBN number would activate a script for automatic retrieval of the bibliographic information and could also generate a link to the publisher's web site or to online book sellers. Global agreements References to United Nations documents, global agreements, conventions and treaties will be linked into a common hyperlinked body of such documents already under development at www.un-documents.net Botanical information Similarly, a plant identification form for a community garden web site - for which La Perla Garden in New York's Upper West Side will be serving as a prototype - will be linked into a botanical database that can either generate or create access to a web page - or set of web pages - with a wealth of information about the plant and its properties, uses, geographical distribution, place in the Linnaean system of classification and its relationship with other plants and species - e.g. milk weed and the Monarch butterfly - etc. Web Application Toolkit Domain toolkit: The beginnings of an outline of software installations that can support this platform.