Establishing a "Knowledge Network" of Local and Regional Development Subjects

Abstract

Efficiency of collective action, aimed at social development, in many ways depends on the level of being well-informed and the intensiveness of knowledge sharing between the social agents, which are the professional corporate communities in this domain. Modern information technologies allow influencing the social development by establishing of Internet networks for geographically separated social agents who collaborate on the basis of “horizontal” communications. From this point of view, the Internet can be considered a catalyst of inter-group communication and an instrument for decentralized projection of social development. There has been no sociological research conducted in Ukraine to find out the efficiency level of cooperation between social agents using an Internet network to share information and knowledge concerning local and regional development. But even a general overview of the Ukrainian Internet shows an unsatisfactory state of such cooperation. Indirectly, this is proved by the data regarding the Internet content for 2002, which demonstrates that scientific research and educational organizations represented only 4.4% of the Internet content (Bryzhko, , Tsymbaliuk, Orekhov, & Galchenko, 2002, p. 101). We have all the grounds to state that computer databases existing in Ukraine do not meet the requirements of the local and regional development. Further, they do not contribute sufficiently to the professional growth and development of the professional communities’ ethical standards.