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Unusual request - Meeting around Internet Research 8.0
by Jan Schmidt 23 May '07

23 May '07

Dear all, this might be a somewhat unusual mail/request, but I thought I'd give it a try: I'm a PostDoc researcher from Bamberg (Germany), focussing on social software / Web 2.0 from the perspective of communication sociology. Most of my contributions are in german (having an fairly sized academic community which is closed due to the language can be both a curse and a blessing.. ;-)), but I have also a couple of english ressources which describe my activities compiled on my blog (http://www.bamberg-gewinnt.de/wordpress/english-content/) Some of you might know me as the co-organizer (with Thomas N. Burg from Austria) of the "BlogTalk reloaded" conference in Vienna last fall (of which, by the way, the proceedings have now been published; see the above link). I'm planning to attend the Internet Research 8.0 conference this october (actually my first AOIR-conference; I'm really looking forward to it), and will make my travel arrangements (i.e. booking a flight) within the next weeks. Since Vancouver is quite a distance from Germany, I'm going to spend not only the conference week, but some more time in the area. I was wondering (and that's the point of this mail) if anyone with similar research fields would be interested in meeting in the week before or after the conference. More precisely, I'm planning to travel (by rental car) around the Pacific northwest (British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon, maybe even Northern California) for about two to three weeks around the conference. I'd be more than happy to arrange my trip accordingly to come to your university or organization, either for an informal exchange of ideas, or for a guest lecture, or for any other cool events that might come to your mind. :) Based on my research interests, I could (for example) talk about the state of Web 2.0 & Social Software in Germany / the german speaking countries; about results from my (then finished) current research project on online-based networking (which focussed mainly on Blogs and Social Networking Sites), or on similar topics (suggestions are of course open to modification/specification). This might even lead to interesting research initiatives - I find there is a lack of thorough internationally comparative studies in this field. Feel free to contact me (off-list) for any suggestions or questions - I'm looking forward to seeing where this request will take me... :-) Best, Jan -- Dr. Jan Schmidt Research Centre "New Communication Media" An der Universität 9 / 501 D - 96049 Bamberg +49 (951) 863 2213 +49 (177) 520 5199 jan.schmidt(a)split.uni-bamberg.de http://www.fonk-bamberg.de/ http://www.bamberg-gewinnt.de/wordpress [including english content]

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What are the "model" online courses delived 100% online?
by Michael Baron 23 May '07

23 May '07

Hi all, I am designing an online course right now that is to be tought via an online delivery mode only. I am wondering, what are the pitfalls that i should be avoiding in order to make sure that the course is valid and the assessments are reliable? thax for your help, Michael -- "My Body is my Temple" "Be The Change You Want to See In The World." Gandhi

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the 16th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnographical Science
by pangcuiming 23 May '07

23 May '07

Hi, are there anybody interested in organizing panels for the 16th Internernational Congress of Anthropological and Ethnographical Science? Maybe the topic of virtual ethnography? Here is the link: http://www.icaes2008.org/enindex.htm > Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 13:25:28 +1000> From: mhward(a)usyd.edu.au> To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> Subject: Re: [Air-l] Technology Transforming Education> > I'm not clear who 'we' are (people on this list? Academics?) or why we > would limit this engagement to the US. Shifts in the technologies of > learning are happening worldwide.> > Teaching is always being redesigned - the classrooms my children sat in > in the 70s and 80s bore little resemblance to the classrooms I sat in > the 1950s. The classrooms my grandchildren sit in today are very > different again> > M-H in Australia.> > > > Steve Jones wrote:> > ><nostalgia>That takes me back to my UIUC days, and PLATO...Programmed > >Logic for Automated Teaching Operations.</nostalgia>> >> >(That probably gives away my age as much as admitting I have a > >"record collection.")> >> >These are the kinds of discussions in which I wish we could engage > >many U.S. faculty and administrators. One of the things I'm seeing on > >a lot of campuses the last couple of years is excitement among > >administrators about "blended" learning because it promises to free > >up classroom space, which ties into two important administrative > >matters, namely an interest in increasing enrollment as a means of > >increasing revenue, and an interest in keeping a lid on construction > >costs (or, in some cases, the cost of leased space). I agree that > >those are important matters, but I disagree that they are sufficient > >reasons to "re-design" teaching (though maybe in really dire > >circumstances, along the lines, say, of what happened in New Orleans > >and along the Gulf Coast due to Hurricane Katrina, it would be > >justifiable as a temporary solution to buildings that must be > >rehabbed and are unusable in the meantime).> > > >> > _______________________________________________> The air-l(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/ _________________________________________________________________ 使用下一代的 MSN Messenger。 http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/default.aspx?locale=zh-cn&source=…

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Re: [Air-l] laptops and Internet access in class
by jerichob＠juno.com 22 May '07

22 May '07

This is a bit of a tangent, but it pertains to how technology is used in a particular workplace, and what foundations may be necessary to underly its use, and how best to teach those foundations. Matt's comments (below) remind me of a conversation I had recently with my brother, who is an art director at Electronic Arts (i.e. he designs video games). He was talking about training new designers, and how they are good with the technology in some ways, but they do not understand the basics of design. He will show them how he does the lighting for a particular scene and how it works with the elements in the scene, and they will take his lighting set-up and just cut and paste it into everything, without understanding the basic concepts needed to actually design the lighting to fit the particular scene they are working with. My brother is known within the company as a very good teacher, but he said by the time young designers start working, some of their practices seem to be so rigidly established that it's very difficult to train them to do otherwise, and they seem to think that they can just cut and paste elements from elsewhere rather than designing a scene. He attributes it partly to a lack of imagination that is produced during formal education. His theory is that it's because the young artists are not taught how to design, but how to use computers to design (and even that not terribly well). He himself is a self-taught artist who learned with paper and pencil, and actually resisted computers for most of the 1980s. Now he works both ways - directly on the computer and with paper and pencil - but he thinks it is better to learn how to draw and paint on paper before moving to the computer, because then at least you develop an understanding of how to put a scene together. In his experience, the best designers work on paper as well as on the computer and are fluent in multiple media. Of course, it's possible that he is on the tail end of a particular way of working that will disappear as designers trained solely on computers take over, and that his methods of design are becoming obsolete. I don't know enough about the field to say. However, he feels that the "cut-and-paste" approach of the younger designers leads to an unimaginative and derivative look, and he is worried about it. It reminds me of the difference between students who can write papers that present an original argument drawing from the work of others and students who cut and paste sentences without really understanding how to put an argument together. They use the technology to pull together a lot of information, but they don't know how to present it in a way that gets their point across to other people. They haven't learned the basics of design. Jericho Jericho Burg Department of Communication University of California, San Diego http://www.communication.ucsd.edu/people/g_burg.html -- "Matthew Bernius" <mbernius(a)gmail.com> wrote: Blind faith in technology has become a crutch for student to avoid learning fundamentals. While they assume that an answer is "out there," they more often than not, lack both the desire to seek it out or the skills (or even suspicion) to interrogate the information once they find it. I've found that these so called "digital natives" haven't even begun to interrogate the systems (language, practices, heuristics) that they operate in. If anything, they are far worse at switching digital authoring tools than we "immigrants" who were forced to internalize the language and metaphor of the tools we used. This is a common thread that I've heard from numerous employers -- that recent grad have a real hard time switching between tools (sometimes even between different versions of the same software).

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Fwd: Call for papers: Changing Views on Technology, Media and Cultural Approaches
by Tomasz Drabowicz 22 May '07

22 May '07

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Changing Views on Technology, Media and Cultural Approaches. A research seminar 08. - 09.11. 2007, University of Joensuu Call for papers We are inviting researchers involved and interested in cultural and social studies of technology and media to participate research seminar 'Changing Views on Technology, Media and Cultural Approaches'. The seminar presents recent developments, views and ideas of cultural and social studies of technology, its methodologies, practices and future prospects. The aim of the event is to develop and strength the field of cultural and social studies of technology and media in Finland. The seminar offers an opportunity to listen to and be commented by top researchers and lecturers of the field: professor Steve Woolgar and senior research fellow Sally Wyatt. They both will give a keynote lecture and will also lead a research workshop and comment the papers of the workshop participants. If you wish to present a paper at the workshop, send an abstract (max. 250 words) in English to Noora Talsi (noora.talsi(a)joensuu.fi) by the 17th of August, 2007. The notification of acceptance will be send at the end of August. The dead line for the accepted papers will be the 30th of September. The lectures and workshops are open to all interested and are free of charge. Everyone cover their travelling expenses by themselves. Welcome! Johanna Uotinen program director, Master's programme of media culture ETIM -research project: Jukka Oksa Sari Tuuva-Hongisto Noora Talsi The event is organized together by the Master's programme of media culture (funded by ESF) and the research project Encounters With Technological Imperative 'ETIM' (funded by Academy of Finland). Further information of the seminar: Noora Talsi (noora.talsi(a)joensuu.fi, tel. 013 - 251 4082) Johanna Uotinen (johanna.uotinen(a)joensuu.fi, tel. 013 - 251 4137) Sari Tuuva-Hongisto (sari.tuuva-hongisto(a)joensuu.fi, tel. 013 - 251 2453) See also information about Steve Woolgar and Sally Wyatt: http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/faculty/Woolgar+Steve/ http://www.virtualknowledgestudio.nl/staff/sally-wyatt/index.php The invitation is free for forwarding. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tomasz Drabowicz Department of General Sociology Faculty of Economics and Sociology University of Lodz Address: Rewolucji 1905r. 41, 90-214 Lodz (Łódź), Poland room A113 phone no. (+48 42) 635 54 50 cell phone no. (+48) 696 864 884 fax (+48 42) 635-53-09 E-mail: tomasz.drabowicz(a)gmail.com

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Re: [Air-l] laptops and Internet access in class
by Matthew Bernius 22 May '07

22 May '07

On 5/21/07, Matthew Bernius <mbernius(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > Next year I will be banning cell phone, ipods, etc. in my undergraduate > classes. [snipped] > > And, at least for a school like RIT, that prides itself on preparing > it's students for the workplace, > > basic technology etiquette needs to be stressed. The sad fact is that a > lot of the technology > behavior I've seen isn't appropriate for the workplace. > > I'm wondering whether Matt might expand on ideas introduced in this > posting. In particular, suggestions that techology usage in classrooms > doesn't translate into workplace settings. Choosing not to use the > technology, as the instructor, is a contradictory practice as workplace > educators are highly dependent on a variety of information and communication > technologies in promotion of learning among employees in a variety of work > settings. > > All of the class I teach have a lecture and a lab component. As for myself, while I didn't grow up with the internet, I have been a computer user since age 5. After school I spent eight years working in the new media industry. My experience is that entering freshmen don't have the maturity or the skills to effectively use the technology to support learning. And I don't believe that those skills can initially be developed on new technology. As already discussed, too many students use these weapons of mass distraction to punch out of an interaction at the smallest hint of boredom (or difficulty). Attention is a skill/discipline that needs to be developed, including learning to pay attention to things that you don't want to pay attention to. I can speak from personal experience, that people who punch out/don't pay attention in professional meetings are VERY much noticed (and it's held against them... I've learned that the hard way). In terms of multitaskers, yes, my students can handle multiple tasks at once. And quite frankly, they don't handle any of them particularly well. So another goal is to help them develop a "here and now" focus. Blind faith in technology has become a crutch for student to avoid learning fundamentals. While they assume that an answer is "out there," they more often than not, lack both the desire to seek it out or the skills (or even suspicion) to interrogate the information once they find it. I've found that these so called "digital natives" haven't even begun to interrogate the systems (language, practices, heuristics) that they operate in. If anything, they are far worse at switching digital authoring tools than we "immigrants" who were forced to internalize the language and metaphor of the tools we used. This is a common thread that I've heard from numerous employers -- that recent grad have a real hard time switching between tools (sometimes even between different versions of the same software). I admit that any and all of these issues could be addressed through "creative technology teaching." I've worked on trying a number of them. All have been unsatisfactory. Frankly, I don't have time for that anymore. I'm pulling the crutches out from under them and taking them out of the comfort zone that technology has built for them. I'm stripping things down and forcing communication (and reading). Computers will be used in the lab without a doubt. But lecture/discussion exercises will take place in "thought space" rather than letting students retreat into digital space. As students progress, I have no problems with allowing laptops back into the class room and using them as tools (like I said, I plan to use my laptop to take notes in my graduate classes). But there is a maturity issue here. And there is also a personal responsibility issue. To pull it all back to the initial question, there is far more to a technology job than using technology. I have no doubt these students can "use" technology (though not as well as they think they can). The majority of my students don't have the fundamental skill basis to use technology well. While it may be true that there are different learning modalities, the fact is part of my responsibility is to prepare these kids to work for people who are often even less comfortable or understanding of this behavior than I am. - Matt

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Re: [Air-l] Academic traditions
by Caroline Haythornthwaite 22 May '07

22 May '07

Suzana, thank you for the clarification. I find academic transformations are both amazingly fast and staggeringly slow depending on the field. My perceptions... In teaching, the fast part is the rapid changes pushed by new technologies and expectations of use by (some) incoming students. The laptop in classes discussion is an example of a push from such students as far as media goes, but new technologies include far more than just media. We're also pulled to be up to date with the skills we provide students as they go out to employers. My perceptions of the latter is that the academic tradition of widening people's view of the world still very much holds. For those of us who are involved in online education, the changes are dramatic and swift, with what one might call a 'revolution' in teaching and learning practices accompanying e-learning. For many of us this drives significant changes in our overall teaching practice (there's lots of references on this, including some of my own :) ). Some of the other recent AoIR discussion has touched on this topic and there's lots in the online learning/asynchronous learning/e-learning/collaborative learning/computer-supported collaborative learning literature on new ways to approach teachiing. Unfortunately, I am always tremendously surprised to hear vehement anti-online teaching stances I encounter regularly. Some have no clue about what it really means to teach and/ or learn online, and the change in learning practices the combination of new media and online teaching bring. My perception is that the real 'revolution' in online learning is the new way of teaching and learning, not so much that it is done through new technology. But teaching is only part of the academic game ... I mean tradition. Tenure holds a lock on what we do, and the tenure evaluation system is very slow to change. I have colleagues even now (not at my university) who say an online publication in an online refereed journal will not 'count' to tenure for them. The online/offline nature of this will, I believe, change, but the reputation system associated with publication venues will not. Everyday we make a judgement of where to send papers for publication. In shifting traditions -- where online gets more exposure, but offline/reputation gets you tenure -- the decision is not straightforward. You asked originally "What is it in shifting traditions that affects you as an academic in your daily work?" For me, the changes are bringing online education approaches to teaching in general, and making balancing decisions about where and how I disseminate my work and ideas. /Caroline ---- Original message ---- >Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 10:56:45 +1000 >From: Suzana Sukovic <suzana.sukovic(a)uts.edu.au> >Subject: Re: [Air-l] Academic traditions >To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org > >Caroline, my doctoral study into the roles of e-texts in the humanities >investigated some of these issues. I finished data-gathering and >analysis, but this aspect of findings hasn't been published yet. I am >still very curious about issues of academic tradition and change. My >question for the list is a matter of interest and curiosity, not formal >data-gathering. I hope that the list participants could provide a variety >of answers and insights because Internet researchers may have different >experiences from people who study religion and conduct part of their >studies online, for example. > >I am coming to Urbana-Champaign to present some of my findings at Digital >Humanities 07. Hopefully, we'll have a chance to continue this conversation. >Cheers, >Suzana > >At 11:34 PM 21/05/2007, Caroline Haythornthwaite wrote: >>An interesting question. Can you give us some context -- more that general >>curiosity -- for the questions. Do you have a particular incident that >>generates >>you question, or a research project? Is this information for a research >>study or >>for academic practice? > > >Suzana Sukovic >PhD Candidate >_________________________________________ >Information & Knowledge Management >Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences >University of Technology, Sydney > >PO Box 123 >Broadway NSW 2007, Australia >www.hss.uts.edu.au/research/research_students/suzana_sukovic.html >_______________________________________________ >The air-l(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/ ---------------------------------------- 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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laptops and Internet access in classrooms
by 'Gail Taylor 22 May '07

22 May '07

I'm sharing a link to a web site maintained by the Sloan Consortium that explores topics related to blended learning in education and work settings. Information is available on the site that explores the blended learning approach to teaching, which has been the focus of this conversation. http://www.blendedteaching.org Regulating the use of technologies among students in a technology dependent society is an ethical issue. How many of you are working for departments and/or colleges and universities that have developed guidelines and policies to govern decision-making processes related to restricting or banning use of various technologies in classrooms on campus? I'm finding this is happening more ofen in K-12 education and work settings than higher education. /Gail --------------------------------------- Gail D. Taylor, M.Ed. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant Library & Information Science Research Assistant "Technology enables man to gain control over everything except technology." -- Unknown

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GigaNet 07: Call for Papers
by Ralf Bendrath 22 May '07

22 May '07

-------- Original Message -------- Please distribute as appropriate Call for Proposals Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) Second Annual Symposium Hotel Windsor Barra, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 11 November 2007 The Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) is a recently-formed scholarly community that promotes the development of Internet governance as a recognized, interdisciplinary field of study and facilitates informed dialogue on policy issues and related matters between scholars and governments, international organizations, the private sector, and civil society. (See www.igloo.org/giganet for more information.) Each year, GigaNet organizes a research symposium. The first was held October 2006 in Athens, Greece, a day prior to the inaugural meeting of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The second GigaNet symposium also will be held on site prior to the 2nd IGF meeting, on November 11, 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Attendance at the symposium will be open to all and free of charge. Registration with the UN as an IGF participant may be necessary to gain entry to the building. This is a call for proposals from scholars interested in presenting an original research paper on one of the panels to be held at the conference. The panel themes are described below. The Program Committee will select several speakers for each panel, drawing on the following materials to be provided by applicants: 1) a one page maximum description of the proposed paper that includes the main research questions, its methods, and its relevance and value-added to the thematic area; and 2) a one page summary curriculum vitae listing in particular the applicant's current institutional affiliation(s), advanced degrees, scholarly publications relevant to Internet governance, and web sites, if available. If the proposed paper has already been drafted, applicants are welcome to include the paper in their submission in addition to the one-page summary. These materials should be emailed directly to the chairperson of the 2007 Program Committee, Dr. Milton Mueller, at info [at] internetgovernance.org by no later than August 1, 2007, midnight GMT. The Program Committee will notify applicants of its decisions via email by August 24. A full paper upon which the presentation will be based must be delivered to the same address by October 1, midnight GMT in order for the author(s) to be included in the relevant panel. The selected speakers will give ten-minute presentations, after which there will be open discussion with audience members. While GigaNet asserts no copyright to authors' work, it is expected that the version of the paper presented will be made available for posting on the GigaNet website. ---------- Preliminary Theme Descriptions 1. The Changing Institutionalization of Internet Governance The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) raised the profile and changed the global policy discourse of Internet governance. The creation of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was the most visible result, but other major signs should be noted, such as the willingness of more governments to participate in ICANN, the increased diversity of players entering Internet governance processes as stakeholders, and wider discussion of as yet inchoate changes to Internet governance mechanisms and decision making. We invite paper submissions that explore the dynamics of the changing institutionalization process. Papers can examine institutionalization theoretically, by placing it in the context of theories of international relations, international regimes, and global governance; or empirically, through critical assessment of its outcomes so far. Submissions addressing the mechanisms of a given collaborative, deliberative process, and particularly how the different players behave, are especially welcome. We seek papers analyzing collaborative policy-making in Internet governance institutions; the mobilization of new actors, their roles and the power relationships between them; the role of the private sector in governance; the transformation (if any) of the role of governments and their means of intervention in relation to existing intergovernmental processes; and the interactions between Internet governance-related institutions such as IGF, IETF, the Regional Address Registries, ICANN, ITU, WIPO, or WTO. Case studies based on critical examination of the IGF, the multistakeholder partnership process and changes, if any, in ICANN dynamics after WSIS would bring particular highlights to the panel discussion. 2. Toward a Development Agenda for Internet Governance In recent years, developing countries, civil society organizations, and concerned academics have sought to promote broad "development agendas" for reform of the international regimes and organizations dealing with such issues as trade, debt, and intellectual property. But in the field of Internet governance, no parallel initiative has taken shape. Developing countries and other stakeholders did call for what they said were pro-development institutional reforms during the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process, but their suggestions were not systematically explored as elements of a coherent development agenda. Moreover, there was no broad consensus among the proponent s as to what kinds of reforms would actually promote development, as opposed to satisfying more specifically political demands. In the post-WSIS environment, discussions of development have tended to focus on capacity building rather than on institutional reforms. Accordingly, we invite research papers that analyze the positive and negative linkages between existing global Internet governance mechanisms and development; the possible need for new mechanisms; and the potential foundations of a holistic development agenda. The panel will not explore the Internet's role in development per se, or more general ICT4D themes; the focus will be on the mechanisms of Internet governance as defined by the WSIS. We welcome submission of theoretically informed, empirically rich papers addressing the following and related questions: a) General Dynamics: The design and politics of development agendas. What are the potential risks and rewards of assessing individual Internet governance mechanisms in the context of a ho listic development agenda? What applicable lessons, if any, can be learned from experiences with development agendas in other international arenas, e.g. trade, the environment, debt, and intellectual property? What political and institutional challenges wo uld have to be overcome in order to establish a development agenda for Internet governance? b) Case Studies of Problems and Reforms. Do current Internet governance mechanisms pose any substantive and procedural impediments to development? What reforms or even new mechanisms might be needed to promote development? 3. Critical Policy Issues in Internet Governance The prior two sections deal with broad, cross-cutting themes in Internet governance. The Program Committee also encourages submission of research papers on how public policy or governance arrangements are being defined for specific, narrower Internet policy issues. Examples of such policy issues would include network neutrality, digital identity, privacy/security, content regulation, intellectua l property rights/DRM, or others. Each of these issue-domains involves its own distinctive set of policy conflicts, stakeholders, technologies and institutional arrangements, and thus can profitably be examined independently. Papers about specific issues should, however, be written from a global perspective and/or utilize cross-national comparative research methods, and should be founded on a clear understanding of how the issue constitutes a form of Internet governance. Although submissions in any of the enumerated issue-areas are welcome, the Committee would be particularly interested in forming a panel devoted to research on either network neutrality or digital identity. Papers on net neutrality might address, among other things, its relevance as a global norm for Internet governance; how technological, legal and business trends support or undermine neutrality in the delivery of Internet services; or the relationship between competing broadband networks and nondiscriminatory access to Internet content. Similarly, papers on digital identity might address the current status of standardization in digital identifiers and authentication, how privacy concerns are or are not addressed by proposals; interaction of international regimes with digital identity issues, international initiatives on data retention and data interception, or other related aspects of Internet governance and privacy. To summarize: * Symposium date and place: November 11, 2007, Hotel Windsor Barra, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil * Deadline for submissions: August 1, 2007 * Submit to: GigaNet Program Committee, using the email address info (at) internetgovernance.org * Notification of status: August 24, 2007 * Papers due: October 1, 2007 GigaNet Program Committee: - Seiiti Arata Jr., University of Sao Paulo, Brazil - Ralf Bendrath, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany - William Drake, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland - Michael Gurstein, Executive Director of the Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training, Vancouver BC, Canada - Nanette Levinson, American University School of International Service, Washington DC, USA - Meryem Marzouki, LIP6/PolyTIC-CNRS Laboratory, Paris, France - Milton Mueller, Syracuse University School of Info rmation Studies, Syracuse NY, USA - Sergio Ramos, ETSI Telecomunicación-UPM, Madrid, Spain -- ------------------------------------------------------------ Dipl. Pol. Ralf Bendrath University of Bremen Collaborative Research Center "Transformations of the State" Linzer Str. 9a, D-28359 Bremen, Germany Tel. +49 (421) 218 8735 Fax +49 (421) 218 8721 Web official http://www.sfb597.uni-bremen.de/homepages/bendrath Web personal http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath Blog http://bendrath.blogspot.com

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Web Science belated one-up-personship
by m.thelwall＠blueyonder.co.uk 22 May '07

22 May '07

[Just belatedly realised this] Anyone who was at the AoIR Workshop on Web Science Research Methods in 2004 http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/AoIRASIST/ can claim to have discussed "Web Science" a full year ahead of Web founder TBL's attempt to play catch-up with the Web Science Research Initiative http://www.webscience.org/ ;-) So the AoIR got there first with the name as well as the idea for organised interdisciplinary Web research! But seriously, I think that the Web science initiative has the objective of harnessing interdisciplinary research for computer science goals - more specifically for building/engineering the Web as an effective information system (quoting from the article below: "the science of decentralised information systems"), whereas we are more interested in studying its use. So maybe there isn't really much of an overlap in the *core goals* of the AoIR and the WSRI after all, although anything TBL does is interesting. Berners-Lee, T., Hall, W., Hendler, J. A., O'Hara, K., Shadbolt, N., & Weitzner, D. J. (2006). A framework for Web science. Foundations and Trends in Web Science, 1(1), 1-130. http://www.nowpublishers.com/product.aspx?product=WEB&doi=1800000001

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