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projects to date. For example, anyone can learn
how to use Photoshop or Illustrator - they are
tools just like a pencil - however design, creativ-
ity and collaboration is about process more than
skilful practice (though it requires that too). The
Creative Waves VIP project, detailed further in
part two of this paper, was a collaboration between
pharmacy students, lecturers and professionals
as well as the same within design disciplines. It
became clear during the duration of the project
that many of problems relating to six health is-
sues faced by the village of Winam in Kenya
were not through a lack of medical knowledge
or research, but a lack of communication of that
knowledge effectively. Once again, we see that it
is not the specific knowledge of information that
it is important, for that is easy to come by these
days, but how to create new knowledge, make
new connections and how to communicate that
are the fundamental qualities required of the 21st
Century graduate and the rest of us:
worldwide. For nearly a decade, Omnium has
offered a range of fully-online creative communi-
ties, facilitated a series of global and fully-online
collaborative creative projects, as well as designed
and written some ground breaking e-learning
courses and programs. In addition, by designing
and producing the unique Omnium® Software,
specifically for online creative collaboration,
and offering it as either a serviced package or an
open-source option to other institutions around
the world, Omnium has to date linked over
10,000 creative students, educators, professional
practitioners, theorists and writers from over 50
countries worldwide.
Omnium has always maintained two under-
lying aims through all its online creative and e-
learning projects and courses: to design, produce,
test and evaluate:
a revised online creative process through
exploration into the generation of creative
ideas and concepts, collaboratively, digi-
tally, and across distance by individuals in
collaboration via the Internet.
a unique technical platform that enables
If innovation flourishes within and across teams,
then we need to be able to work within them. If the
formalities of hierarchy are being overlaid with
social networks inside organisations, then we need
to negotiate our way through them. (Gillingson
& O'Leary, 2006, p. 40)
the application of such a revised online
creative process within a technical inter-
face that uses 'virtual' space for its class-
rooms and studios.
the omnium Project and online
Collaborative Creativity (oCC)
In summary, Omnium bases its research
investigations upon two significant and rapidly
changing paradigms:
Initially founded as an individual research project
in 1998, The Omnium Project has grown consid-
erably through its ongoing online initiatives and
creative activities to become a well-established
research group based at the College of Fine Arts
(COFA), the University of New South Wales in
Sydney.
Omnium's continuing research focuses on ex-
ploring the notion of online collaborative creativity
(OCC) and how the Internet can be best used to
help geographically distanced individuals interact
and work together creatively from any location
Education: Observing and contributing to the
changing face of education through the
availability and affect of web technologies
and how these are challenging many well
established principles upon which many
education institutions have traditionally
been founded.
Creativity: From predominantly individual
production through to increasingly collab-
orative and collective approaches that have
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