In August 2005, Canada’s primary granting council for the social sciences and humanities, SSHRC, announced its intent to transform itself from a “granting council” to a “knowledge council” with a view to engaging Canadians “in building knowledge through research and in using that knowledge to create a just, free, prosperous and culturally vibrant world” (SSHRC, 2005, p. 9). Fundamental to the council’s shift in perspective is the understanding that developments in information and communications technologies have lead to a new knowledge economy in which it is important that research results are disseminated beyond the academy to the public at large: “we need to do a much better job of getting humanities and social sciences knowledge out into the world where it can make a difference, where it can inspire ideas and debate, where it can galvanize individuals, communities, businesses and governments into action” (SSHRC, 2005, p. 23). This statement echoes the position of Willinsky, who notes that electronic “publishing systems that provide greater public access are likely to help us to better understand and extend Dewey’s democratic theory of education, while enhancing the prospects of creating a more deliberative democratic state; and that they are in a good position to expand education’s role within democracy, as well as increase the impact that education research has on practice, and provide an alternative source of information to the media’s coverage of such issues as education” (Willinsky, 2002, p. 6).

While the democratizing effect of new publication technologies is clearly beneficial, many have expressed concerns about “information overload.” Ted Koppel’s discussion of the challenges facing archivists offered in the context of the 1990 television documentary, Memory & Imagination: New Pathways to the Library of Congress, constitutes an older (and gendered) iteration of this issue.

In light of the above and the week’s readings, what do you perceive to be the primary challenges facing present-day learners and educators? More fundamentally, what does it mean to be an “educated” participant in the new knowledge economy? There are two posts for this week you may wish to consider: this one and one on intentional fallacy below.