The Actor Atlas consists of different actor maps, actor descriptions and contains pages that are of interest to them during their work.
In the contemporary society anyone interacts with a very large number of other actors.
As any these actors, or a group, considers to change something to the daily routine, then the potential impact could be considerable. In the contemporary society many actors are stakeholders in several change initiatives at any point in time.
According to good programme management practice, programme managers must identify the stakeholders in their programmes, and they must set up proper communication plans.
If each initiative is doing such fact gathering and communications programming on its own, then much double work will be done, or the work may have a poor quality because of a lack of budget for doing the mapping properly.
Hence, sharing stakeholder descriptions as knowledge commons has a strong potential for reducing costs in collaborative initiatives, and for improving the engagement of stakeholders.
The actor atlas includes actor maps and actor descriptions.
An actor map describes the mutual relationships between a number of related actors.
An actor description includes actor functions, actor structures, it lists the (kinds of) contracts to which the actor can be a party, and it provides access to other facts. The interactions agreed in contracts are specified in the interaction dictionary.
Actor functions, structures and facts matter to the activities and participation (as covered in the interaction dictionary) and initiatives (ideas to projects). In assessing project ideas one can rely upon the suite of systematized knowledge commons.
Each map and each description captures the information in a way that facilitates its reuse by stakeholders across various initiatives. Per-page discussion supports posing questions or giving answers and arguments pro or contra any of the page's content.
Per level, there is a different actor description pattern.
Actor maps do also identify relevant contractual agreements to which actors are parties.
Functioning, Disability and Health of an Actor
For an illustration of how the actor functions and actor structures chapters of the actor atlas could be set up, see the "body functions" and "body structures" divisions of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). These classifications matters to the person as pico-level actor.
Actors as Environmental Factors
Macro and meso-level actor maps would give attention to the contents of the ICF chapter 5 Services, Systems and Policies (e5) of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF).
Pico and micro-level actor maps would give attention to the contents of the ICF chapters 3 Support and Relationships (e3) and 4 Attitudes (e4) and parts of 5 Services, Systems and Policies (e5) of the ICF.
Note that the chapters 1 Products and Technology (e1) and 2 Natural Environment and Human-made Changes to Environment (e2) are (to be) covered in the Entity Dictionary.
Systematized Knowledge Commons
A link to the Actor Atlas prototype: http://www.actor-atlas.info/