May 2005 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Fwd: [Asis-l] Call for Proposals - JASIST Perspectives on Global IInformation Ethics
by Caroline Haythornthwaite 22 May '05

22 May '05

Of interest to IR researchers ... ---------------------------------------- Caroline Haythornthwaite Associate Professor Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820

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Six new papers on opensource.mit.edu + One new thesis
by Karim R. Lakhani 22 May '05

22 May '05

<sorry for any x-posting> Hello Folks I have uploaded the following papers on our website. Many thanks to all the authors for their submissions. Best Karim <freezing in Boston> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paper 1 Authors: Fleming, Lee & David Waguespack Title: Penguins, Camels, and Other Birds of a Feather: Brokerage, Boundary Spanning, and Leadership in Open Innovation Communities http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/flemingwaguespack.pdf Abstract: What types of human and social capital identify the emergence of leaders of open innovation communities? Consistent with the norms of an engineering culture, we find that future leaders must first make strong technical contributions. Beyond technical contributions, they must then integrate their voluntary communities in order to avoid the ever present danger of forking and balkanization. This is enabled by two correlated but distinct social positions: brokerage, and boundary spanning between technological modules. An inherent lack of trust associated with brokerage positions can be overcome through physical interaction or contributions within technological boundaries. Successful leaders are thus the product of strong technical contribution and a structural position that can bind the community together. Paper 2 Author: Iannaci, Federico Title: Coordination Processes in Open Source Software Development: The Linux Case Study http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/iannacci3.pdf Abstract: Although open source projects have been subject to extensive study, their coordination processes are still poorly understood. Drawing on organization theory, this paper sets out to remedy this imbalance by showing that large-scale open source projects exhibit three main coordination mechanisms, namely standardization, loose coupling and partisan mutual adjustment. Implications in terms of electronically-mediated communications and networked interdependencies are discussed in the final sections where a new light is cast on the concept of structuring as a by-product of localized adjustments. Paper 3 Author: Shah, Sonali Title: Open Beyond Software http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/shah4.pdf Abstract: The "community-based" model has generated many of the innovations we use on a daily basis. The social structure created by this model has cultivated many entrepreneurial ventures and even seeded new industries and product categories. In this paper, I discuss three elements of this model and present four exemplars of the model that span fields and centuries. I conclude by reframing our view of the innovation process as driven by the activities of firms and research institutions and discussing implications for firms and policy. Paper 4 (in Spanish) Author: Carlos Emilio Biscay Title: Open Source en el e-learning: ¿Una cuestión de mente? - Análisis del fenómeno del Open source en el e-learning, situación actualy tendencias - http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/biscay.pdf Abstract Primeramente vamos a ver ¿Qué es el Open source? ¿Cuáles son sus objetivos y sus características fundamentales?. En segundo lugar haremos un recorrido histórico de los últimos años, identificando los principales desarrollos del Open source y sus tendencias, especialmente en el área de la educación superior. En tercer lugar mostramos el Proyecto Sakai, donde un grupo de Universidades de Primer nivel están uniendo fuerzas para integrar y para sincronizar su software educativo en una colección de herramientas de Open source para e-learning. A continuación haremos mencionaremos los principales aplicaciones de OS en general. Seguidamente, he de tratar de poner de relieve los aspectos técnicos y psicológicos que están presentes en el Open Source y sus protagonistas y las razones económicas, políticas y culturales que se vinculan o crean un contexto favorable al crecimiento de las soluciones de open source en el mercado y especialmente en mercado del e-learning. Finalmente y como síntesis de estas cuestiones describimos el caso concreto de la Universidad de Wisconsin, que actualmente junto a otras instituciones educativas se ha sumado en el proyecto Sakai. Paper 5 Authors Ioannis Samoladas, Ioannis Stamelos Title Assessing Free/Open Source Software Quality http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/samoladasstamelos.pdf Abstract: According to its proponents, one of the most acclaimed advantages of Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) is its superior quality. However, this suggestion is an open issue, since there is little concrete evidence to justify whether F/OSS quality is indeed better or worse than that of proprietary software products. The general perspective of this article is to discuss the current status of F/OSS quality and to assess its performance in various aspects of quality, based on existing literature. Specifically, this article will provide some answers to various questions raised by the assertion concerning the quality of F/OSS. In this regard issues addressed in this article include the quality framework, through which F/OSS quality should be investigated and the performance of F/OSS in various quality factors within this quality framework. Answers to these issues are given by providing evidence from various research papers, empirical studies and reports based on experience about the quality of F/OSS products. The overall results seem to indicate that F/OSS has achieved an acceptable level of quality, although there is more to be done in order to outperform proprietary software. Paper 6 Author: Imhorst, Christian Title: Anarchy and Source Code - What does the Free Software Movement have to do with Anarchism? http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/imhorst.pdf Abstract: What does the hacker ethic have to do with anarchism? Why does Richard Stallman, an outstanding personality of the free software movement, described himself as an anarchist? We should not imagine the anarchists of the Free Software Movement to be like the cartoon image: A scruffy looking lunatic, with a crazy glint in his eyes and bristling with weapons. Instead of chaos, Stallman postulates a new form of order for the intellectual property in the terms of the hacker ethic - the access to knowledge should be free, decentralized, anti-bureaucratic and anti-authoritarian. Bachelor's Thesis Author: Frost, Jonathon Title: Some Economic & Legal Aspects of Open Source Software http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/frost.pdf Abstract: The emergence of open source software as a viable economic model has risen to the forefront in the debate on the future of the information technology industry. However, at first glance, the open source software development model is strikingly enigmatic and counterintuitive. To help better understand this phenomenon, this paper, through market data and economic theory, proceeds to ask and answer three related questions. First, what is the economic relationship between open source software development communities and proprietary software firms? Second, what are the resulting effects on market innovation and innovation incentives? And third, what legal mechanisms allow for the sustainability of open source software and should they be expanded or reduced? This paper concludes that open source activity appears to be generating four economic effects, whose net effect on innovation in the software market is ambiguous. -- Karim R. Lakhani MIT Sloan | The Boston Consulting Group Mobile: +1 (617) 851-1224 http://spoudaiospaizen.net http://web.mit.edu/lakhani/www | http://opensource.mit.edu

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Re: [Air-l] Immigration, education, and "big brother" [was: Student of Concern ]
by Miraj Khaled 21 May '05

21 May '05

Many thanks to Ulla Bunz for the links for submitting comments/opinions to US Department of Commerce. This issue is being discussed in Slashdot.org with some interesting comments. [http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/20/1825232&from=rss] The following comment from a fellow graduate student at a US university sums up foreign students' dilemmas to some degree. The last sentence is specially noteworthy: "If you keep driving smart people away like this, you will end up with none of the valuable knowledge you are trying to protect." [From Slashdot] http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=150204&threshold=1&commentsort=… "I am a foreign graduate student in a US university, and I am seriously disturbed by the increasing restrictions on foreigners doing research in the US. First it was the visa problem that caused a vast drop of foreign graduate applications. Then they cut research fundings for fundamental sicence and prevented non-citizens from participating in DARPA funded research. Now we have this ridiculous license joke. US is at the forefront of scientific research because they were able to attract the smartest minds from all over the world, but it has come to a point that even I am seriously considering alternatives after graduating, and I am sure I am not alone in thinking about leaving. If you keep driving smart people away like this, you will end up with none of the valuable knowledge you are trying to protect." --- air-l-aoir.org-request(a)listserv.aoir.org wrote: Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 09:47:00 -0400 From: "Ulla Bunz" <bunz(a)scils.rutgers.edu> Subject: RE: [Air-l] Immigration, education, and "big brother" [was: Student of Concern ] To: <air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2005-05-18/news/feature.html?src=default_rss Forcing students to get "export" permits for participation in certain university courses is just horrible! I've known for a while that there are so called "black listed" college majors. If you are either a student or a professor in any of these majors it is a lot more difficult for you to get a visa for the US. The list is long and you'd be surprised at all the seemingly innocuous majors that the US Department of Homeland Security considers threatening. I think Geography is on it, because you learn about GIS and global positioning systems, and Geology, because you learn about oil, etc. etc. A lot of international students have not been able to get student visas in the last year or so because immigration rules have become a lot stricter, even stricter than right after 9/11. I understand this is done to protect the United States from people who mean it harm. However, being an international person in the US, and being white, female, from a "friendly" Western country, and in a non-black listed major, I can't even imagine how bad it must be for people who are different from me, because even for me, who fits none of the "dangerous" categories (the article lists China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria as affected countries, but not Saudi Arabia), visa procedures have become even more invasive, slower, and sometimes, frankly, offensive. Apart from the fact that US universities make a lot of money off international students, requiring export visas of students just so that they can participate in regular class activities (like looking through a microscope!) is just horrible, horrible, horrible. I would like to encourage all of you to submit comments to the Department of Commerce - especially those who once replied to our AoIR survey they would not want to come to the US for a conference anymore because of the airport fingerprinting. The article doesn't explain how to go about sending comments or where. I searched the Department of Commerce website and found the original notice (from March 28, 2005) here: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2005/05-6057.htm Here is an excerpt on how to submit comments: <Quote> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. E-mail: scook(a)bis.doc.gov. Include ``RIN 0694-AD29'' in the subject line of the message. Fax: (202) 482-3355. Mail or Hand Delivery/Courier: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, Regulatory Policy Division, 14th & Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Room 2705, Washington, DC 20230, ATTN: RIN 0694-AD29. <Endquote> Here is the closing paragraph from the article referred to in the original message. I think it's pretty telling: Quote: While Gupta is already considering a new career path, [Rachel] Claus warns that rules like these have been dangerous in the past. "When the Third Reich was emerging, they said that only Germans of pure Aryan descent could attend German universities. Significant numbers of German scholars departed," she says. "That was detrimental for Germany, but was glorious for the U.S. "We got Einstein." http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2005-05-18/news/feature.html?src=default_rss Ulla ++++++ Miraj Khaled ============ techiemik(a)yahoo.com mindexplorer.blogspot.com Discover Yahoo! Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/stayintouch.html

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Job ad (ii): Senior Lecturer in Interactive Media at Bournemouth Media School, UK
by David Gauntlett 20 May '05

20 May '05

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Senior Lecturer - Interactive Media Bournemouth Media School £27,390 - £36,428 per annum Bournemouth Media School is one of the most highly regarded centres for media and marketing communication education in the UK with an outstanding reputation for the integration of professional practice, research and scholarship. Applicants are sought for a Senior Lectureship in the Media Academic Group to take a leading role in teaching and research or consultancy. For this post a relevant post graduate qualification, preferably a higher degree by research, is desirable. You will have expertise in the area of interactive media production and have the capability to lead curriculum development in interactive media at undergraduate and postgraduate level. You may be required to act as a Subject Leader in which case an allowance would be paid in addition to your basic salary. Further information, together with an online application form is available at: http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/jobs/Med150.html Alternatively, to request the information by post please telephone 01202 964846 (24 hour answerphone) Please quote ref: MED150 Closing date: 23 May 2005 (Sorry, I should have posted this to the list earlier: if you are interested in applying but need an extra couple of days, email Fiona Cownie fcownie(a)bournemouth.ac.uk to say so). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Job ad: Lecturer in Media Theory at Bournemouth Media School, UK
by David Gauntlett 20 May '05

20 May '05

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Lecturer in Media Theory Bournemouth Media School (1 Year Fixed Term Post) £23,643 - £29,479 per annum Bournemouth Media School is one of the most highly regarded centres for media and marketing communication education in the UK with an outstanding reputation for the integration of professional practice, research and scholarship. Applicants are sought for a Lectureship in the Media Academic Group to take a leading role in teaching and research or consultancy. For this post a relevant post graduate qualification, preferably a higher degree by research, is desirable. You will have experience in teaching Media Theory, with an emphasis on social and/or political aspects of television and new media. Your track record of research publications, or at least clear potential in this area, would be an advantage. Further information, together with an online application form is available at: http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/jobs/MED149.html Alternatively, to request the information by post please telephone 01202 964846 (24 hour answerphone) Please quote ref: MED149 Closing date: 23 May 2005 (Sorry, I should have posted this to the list earlier: if you are interested in applying but need an extra couple of days, email Fiona Cownie fcownie(a)bournemouth.ac.uk to say so). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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first .eu domain is live
by Wainer Lusoli 20 May '05

20 May '05

You may have missed the first .eu domain ever going live! http://www.eurid.eu/about Need to update our Internet timelines... The geography of allocation seems to me taken straight from 1984 though * Central Regional Office and Head quarters: Brussels, Belgium (supporting registrars in Belgium, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany & Austria with German, French, Dutch languages) * Northern Regional office: Stockholm, Sweden (supporting registrars in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania UK and Ireland with English, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian languages) * Southern Regional Office: Pisa, Italy (Supporting Registrars in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Malta, Cyprus and Slovenia with Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Maltese and Slovenian languages) * Eastern Regional Office: Prague, Czech Republic (Supporting registrars in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland with Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Polish languages) Cheers Wainer ----------------------- Wainer Lusoli http://www.lusoli.info w.lusoli(a)salford.ac.uk -----------------------

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FW: aiieee, they're in my hair!
by Ellis Godard 20 May '05

20 May '05

Smallest flying web server ever. Hmm.... -eg -----Original Message----- flying swarms of flocking robot clusters? what could go wrong with that? http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/17/0157247

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[Fwd: CFP: Community (6/15/05; e-journal issue)]
by jespert 19 May '05

19 May '05

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: CFP: Community (6/15/05; e-journal issue) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 19:42:43 +0100 From: Joanna Zylinska <j.zylinska(a)virgin.net> To: cfp(a)english.upenn.edu Electronic journal Culture Machine invites submissions for its special 2006 COMMUNITY issue. Culture Machine is an international, open access, peer-reviewed electronic journal whose aim is to promote original, exploratory work in the areas of cultural studies and critical theory. It seeks to generate possibilities for new areas of interdisciplinary inquiry. In recent years, the notion of the community has emerged as an important as well as contested field of cultural and theoretical exploration. In his influential study Imagined Communities (1983), social anthropologist Benedict Anderson discusses the concept of the community as it is related to the idea of the nation. As an imagined cultural and political artifact, the nation provides a collectivity with a sense of continuity and cohesiveness, while concealing the foundational violence that underlies such collective myth. While Andersons articulation of the community is still largely circumscribed by the political concept of the nation state, philosophical inquiries into the notion of the community by Jean-Luc Nancy (The Inoperative Community, 1983), Maurice Blanchot (The Unavowable Community, 1983) and Giorgio Agamben (The Coming Community, 1993), seek to open it up toward a broader politico-ethical context. Nancys call for the deconstruction of the immanent community has been particularly influential: community as the dominant Western political formation, founded upon a totalizing, exclusionary myth of national unity, must be tirelessly unworked in order to accommodate more inclusive and fluid forms of dwelling together in the world, of being-in-common. In this issue, we propose to engage in multiple explorations of the community as a socio-historical, politico-ethical and cultural construct. * With the demise of the traditional community as related to the nation-state, what alternative formations or new collectivities, bound together by a very different nexus of belonging, have emerged in its stead? * How viable is the metaphor of the global community (the global village)? * Can the community be predicated on the ethical, perhaps cosmopolitan vision of sharing and unimpeded border-crossing, or is it, on the contrary, yet another homogenizing, totalizing fantasy that only benefits the empire of the capital? * How does it relate to such increasingly unstable concepts as citizenship or multiculturalism? * What is the function of the community in the rapidly shifting geopolitical context, of which the European community is a particularly fecund contemporary example, as is a plethora of its postcolonial, post-Western articulations (in the Middle East and Africa, for instance)? * Is there community after communism? * To what extent does Hardt and Negri's multitude (Empire, 2004; Multitude, 2004) represent a new form of community (one made up of a multiplicity of singularities)? * Among the newly emergent formations, the notion of the virtual community is of particular interest. We would like to investigate the virtual communities that have mushroomed in numerous guises: as both cultural avant-garde and cultural decadence; as the mainstay of political conservatism (white supremacy networks) and the forum for politically progressive forces (international peace coalitions). * Finally, are we perhaps moving towards the unworking of the community to a degree when it ceases to be a workable concept altogether? In reflecting on the notion of community, this special issue of Culture Machine also aspires to become a meeting place for the community of minds; indeed, a site of community in its most basic sense of communication and circulation of meaning. Please send an abstract of 500-750 words to Dr. Dorota Glowacka, at . 1. The deadline for submitting abstracts is June 15, 2005. All contributors will be notified soon after the deadline whether their abstract has been selected. 2. The deadline for completed papers is October 20, 2005. All papers will be peer-reviewed. -- Dr Joanna Zylinska Department of Media and Communications Goldsmiths College, University of London New Cross, London SE14 6NW, UK -- Jesper Tække - MA. Ph.D.-Student - IT University of Copenhagen - Dept. of Digital Aesthetics & Communication - Rued Langgaards Vej 7 - DK-2300 Copenhagen S - Phone +45 7218 5000 - Direct +45 7218 5037 - Fax +45 7218 5001 - http://home16.inet.tele.dk/jesper_t/ - e-mail: jespert(a)itu.dk

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export licenses for unAmericans
by Barry Wellman 19 May '05

19 May '05

My guess is that any move to require unAmericans to get export licenses to use sensitive equipment within the US will die -- more because it would devaste many industries than because it affects students. Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________

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search engine spamming literature?
by Greg Elmer 19 May '05

19 May '05

Dear Internet Researchers, Does anyone know of good academic studies of search engine spamming? Particulary those that discuss tag stuffing and "link farming", for the purposes of moving up Google's page rank. I'm also interested in the info-politics that insue (Tony Blair is one step ahead of Al Franken for example in google's ranking fo the keyword "Liar", plenty of other examples out there too.) Off list please to gelmer(a)ryerson.ca. GE Greg Elmer, PhD Bell Globemedia Research Chair Rogers Communications Centre/School of Radio-TV Arts Ryerson University 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario Canada M5B 2K3 416-979-5282 _______________________________________________ Co-Editor, Space and Culture: An International Journal of Social Spaces http://www.carleton.ca/space/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Jakob Linaa Jensen <jakob(a)linaa.net> Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 5:06 pm Subject: Re: [Air-l] Web death ? > Hi Denise and Ren > > I believe the paper was presented by Lisbeth Klastrup from the IT > University in Copenhagen. It sounds as her topic as she was written > a lot > on Everquest and presented a paper called "Damn, I died today" on > Everquest communities and behaviours. > > Her website is at www.klastrup.dk where you can find her adress. > > Hope it helps > > Jakob > > Jakob Linaa Jensen > Ph.d., M.A. in Political Science > Department of Media Studies > University of Aarhus, Denmark > E-mail: jakob(a)linaa.net > web: www.linaa.net www.netdemocracy.dk > > _______________________________________________ > The Air-l-aoir.org(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ >

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