User:Ignatius ra/sandbox

=Globethics.net=

Globethics.net is a non-governmental organization based in Geneva, with regional programmes in six countries, that provides open access to knowledge resources in ethics, with the goal of enabling persons and institutions from developing and transitioning economies to become more visible and audible in the ‘global discourse on ethics’. Its central platform for all resources and projects is the website www.globethics.net. Additionally, it offers registered participants the opportunity to join or form working groups on its website for purposes of networking or collaborative research, which is then published by Globethics.net and freely distributed online.

Organization
The goals and values of the organisation as a whole were decided and approved by its founding board members in January of 2009. These are then used to design overall 3-year work plans, or ‘strategies’, and which then inform the annual work programme of the organization. Its main projects currently are the GlobeEthicsLib, GlobeTheoLib, and the Global Ethics Forum.

GlobeEthicsLib
GlobeEthicsLib (GEL) is an online digital library that currently hosts more than 1,394,409 full-text documents that any registered user, or ‘participant’, of the Globethics.net website can access. GlobeEthicsLib was designed to be in line with the open access movement, and contains several kinds of documents including electronic versions of hitherto paper-only journals from the ‘global south’, documents submitted by registered users, open access journals, ethics-related content from open repositories, and commercial content.

GlobeTheoLib
The Global Digital Library for Theology and Ecumenism (GlobeTheoLib, GTL) is an online digital library launched in September 2011 by Globethics.net and the World Council of Churches to promote the sharing of expertise in theological research and education. The library seeks to increase the flow of information to “counter some of the imbalances at work in the present state of world Christianity and theological education systems worldwide”, create “a more balanced theological knowledge transfer between churches and institutions of theological education in the North and South, East and West”, and to “provide a common platform for existing digital resources and theological libraries in the world”. The documents in the GlobeTheoLib are collected from commercial providers, open repositories, partner institutions, and submissions from registered users, or ‘partners’. Currently GlobeTheoLib offers access to more than 850,000 documents. It provided the platform for the 2013 Global Ecumenical Theological Institute. However, one of the issues raised in the start-up of GlobeTheoLib was that of the ownership of knowledge production, and specifically the danger of appropriating content and knowledge from the global South in order to package and commercialise it in the global North. Those responsible for GlobeTheoLib have attempted to counter such critique through a Policy Document on the Sharing and Ownership of Theological Knowledge.

Global Ethics Forum
The Global Ethics Forum is an annual conference organised by Globethics.net which began with a conference held at the United Nations Office in Geneva in 2009, and has led to subsequent conferences in 2011, 2012 and 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland, and a conference co-organized Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and the Center for International Business Ethics China in 2014 in Bangalore, India. The topics discussed at each conference centre on business ethics and corporate social responsibility. After each conference, Globethics.net participants engage in online workgroups to discuss topics selected by the participants of the conference.