Adam Fiser
PhD Candidate
FIS

KMDI Fellow: 2006-2007

PhD Thesis: Political, social, and organizational aspects of knowledge media design in the context of remote indigenous communities

Supervisor: Dr. Andrew Clement (FIS, KMDI)

Profile
[KMDiary 2007 Volume 8 Issue #1]

KMDI Graduate Fellow Adam Fiser is a Ph.D. candidate in the Faculty of Information Studies (1). Adam's research program explores political, social, and organizational aspects of knowledge media design in the context of remote indigenous communities. In 2004 he entered into a series of collaborative research projects with members of K-Net (2), a community network of 60 First Nations and related points of presence in northwestern Ontario. Through these projects he has studied a cross-section of K-Net’s ICT infrastructure, from cases of carriage and human resource development, to experiments in content/services design. Adam has also stepped back from collaborative research to study the policy programs and partnerships that enabled K-Net’s version of ICT infrastructure to emerge, and he has learned about some of the strengths and vulnerabilities of this community network model by engaging K-Net’s management, staff, and various stakeholders. Adam’s involvement with K-Net has also given him opportunities to meet with stakeholders from community networks across Canada and internationally to learn about the similarities and differences of their designs.           

Adam’s dissertation research draws from his collaborative work and independent research to analyze how K-Net took shape under the federal policy programs of the former Liberal government’s Connecting Canadians (CC) Agenda, and compare this with its current situation in a less certain policy and partnership environment. K-Net is a foremost example of what was accomplished under the CC Agenda (1995 to 2004). Since 1995 it has been included in almost every major CC Agenda program across federal departments such as Industry Canada, Health Canada, and Human Resources and Social Development Canada. Under the CC Agenda this organization was shaped to meet the constraints of experimental programs and an absence of base funding. Adam’s dissertation research seeks to understand how K-Net’s management and key stakeholder alliances are re-organizing K-Net during its critical transition beyond the CC Agenda.  What opportunities are there for K-Net’s sustainability in an uncertain policy and partnership environment?   

Adam has been involved in KMD-related work, in addition to his dissertation research. In July 2006 he joined the Community Wireless Research Project (3) as a graduate student researcher responsible for CWIRP’s aboriginal case study (K-Net: Lac Seul), in which his responsibilities include data collection, liaising with community and government partners, and presenting data to stakeholders. In Spring 2006, he was a research consultant for Princess Margaret Hospital’s Patient Education Prescriptions project (PEPTalk) (4) and worked as a project manager and co-designer of a health informatics application for remote aboriginal communities in Northwestern Ontario. Since September 2004, Adam has also been a graduate student researcher for the Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking where he is responsible for CRACIN’s K-Net aboriginal case study (Keewaytinook Okimakanak).  

Adam has been an elected graduate student representative on the Knowledge Media Design Institute Steering Committee since 2005.

(1) http://www.fis.utoronto.ca
(2) http://www.knet.ca
(3) http://www.cwirp.ca/index.php
(4) http://www.peptalk.ca
(5) http://www.cracin.ca