Beyond Rethinking International Co-operation between EUROPE & Latin America PILOT PéROJECT @LIS " SHILL SHORTAGE" Premise for implementing the MoU of the Intenational NETWORK - To all potential partners of the Project @LIS on e.Learning in a cultural diversity on the issue “SKILL SHORTAGE” for developing contemporary KNOWLEDGE DRIVEN ECONOMY. Dear colleagues and friends, starting with the debate that will be necessary for developing a Shared Memorandum of Understanding of the network of partners I would like to underline the following key challenge that will be the fundamental aim of the "SKILL SHORTAGE" @LIS PILOT PROJECT . As a matter of facts a key challenge of contemporary transition between industrial society towards knowledge driven economy is the “e.workforce” skill development . To develop educational strategies in internet to focus this general need of the developmental networked economy , is becoming a world wide need to grow up a model and units of "networking e.learning" (Net-Learning) on the general issue “SKILL SHORTAGE” for developing contemporary KNOWLEDGE DRIVEN ECONOMY . Starting from different economic and cultural point of view, among Europe and Latin America Countries , that will constitute the richness for the complex solution of this developmental problem, we consider a great contribution to overcome some conditions of the contemporary increasing of depressed economy around the entire , to develop a “Networking e.learning pilot project” on the issue “SKILL SHORTAGE” to enhance the quality of intellectual “e.workforce” of the Information Society. The initial proposal of the LRE-EGO-CreaNET of the University of Florence will be focused on the strategic alignment of “e.workforce” to the economic development of "Networked Knowledge Society", by means an common effort to create new career opportunities in the context of permanent education methodologies and strategies of Net-Learning for “e. workers” at all skill levels . To develop skilled “e.workforce”, as well as a catalyst to economic sustainable co-operative development , we suggest to initiate debate the following short list of issues that can be necessary to start to elaborate the MoU and after the pilot project @LIS in a shared of knowledge development 1) Scenery of Society Driven Economy 2) Open Net.learning for the virtual community international organisation 3) Net-Learning models of lifelong learning of e.workforce 4) Educational design and interactive use of net.learning platform 5) Knowledge Management for Enterprise &Human Resource development 6) e.Working planning in an international context of net.learning 7) e.Quality Methodology and indicators of collaborative assessment 8) Working&Business Plan of the Pilot Project I suggest also to see a before proposed by LRE/EGO-CreaNET MODEL of VIRTUAL ORGANIZATION for BUSINESS LABOUR VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY for e.SOCIETY in : http://www.see.it/blues/ Because of the dimensions great dimension of @LIS proposal on e.learning in a different cultural dimension need in principle to understand certain net-learning in a not localised international context of sharing knowledge. Therefore starting from the previous issues , in order to explain net-learning in the cyberspace, LRE-EGO-CreaNET think that it will be necessary to redefine what the learning approach is and what kinds of infrastructure should we build. In fact the net-learning activities in the cyberspace took place as a mode of learning by networking and navigating in a non-linear fashion, which is different from the old version of "e.learning long-distance activities" finalised to transfer pre-defined disciplinary contents. Net-learning is an interactive creative endeavour developed in a not- linear fashion. Therefore for a pilot program @LIS of Net Learning, that would like to respect and improve different cultures background it will be mandatory to reconstruct the obsolete "e-learning" technology practices. Essentially in the net -learning theory we must provide a framework for understanding how the learners develop a research & development on SKILL SHORTAGE selecting , editing and organising on the WWW the digitalized information into new creative shared knowledge. Therefore we need, during the description of Pilot Project WORKING PLAN, to develop an "net-learning theory" , going to result to develop a new models , methods and strategies of net- learning by navigating in the cyberspace; as a matter of facts it is too easy to understand that Net-learning in the cyberspace is quite different to the traditional long distance transfer of contents and we need to study a new approach for NETWORKING e.LEANING , following the change from the Technology Driven Economy to the Knowledge Driven Economy. For developing a good pilot project probably we need to reply to some questions as well as the following : How can we define what, better solution for Net-learning, can be promoted in the digital context of the proper country for developing SKILL BUILDING opportunities ? How can we set out net-learning strategic approaches to lifelong education in a different cultural international dimension ? How does the net-learning very complex enterprise contribute to the ways in which learners approach to learning to overcome SKILL SHORTAGE of intellectual "e.workforce" contributing to a co-operative sustainable KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY all over the world ? The above asking questions can be given a result for the premise of MoU off digital net-learning pilot project @LIS on SKILL SHORTAGE open to a very large space- extension and different dimensions of many cultural contexts of experiencing into a net-learning international situations. If you like to start to this open debate to the above or other issues and questions that you kindly would propose to the Forum debate , you can utilise the forum http://www.edulab.it/egocrea/ Using the password PMEGOCREA using the languages: English or Spanish or French or Italian or other... that we tray to translate. Finally I would like to ask to all colleagues and friends in the list of this mail that would like to be effective partner to the “networking e.learning” SKILL SHORTAGE @LIS Pilot project to send to me a brief letter of intent by traditional surface Post to my address written in the head paper of your participating institution, enclosing a brief profile of your institution. In this letter of intent that you need to send to me approximately before the 30/JUNE-2002 , you will to specify that you would like to participate as well as an interactive partner to the “networking e.learning” SKILL SHORTAGE @LIS Pilot project” proposed by the LRE-EGO-CreaNET of the University of Florence Italy and you will add a brief comment about your role in the pilot project development, with the indication of the name e.mail and phone of the Co-ordinator of the Pilot-Project in your Institution . Thank you very much for your kind co-operation . My best regards Paolo Manzelli FLORENCE JUNE/05/2002 -- Director of LRE // EGO-CreaNET PAOLO MANZELLI <LRE@unifi.it> http://www.chim1.unifi.it/group/education/index.html Education Research Laboratory / EGO-CreaNET Via Maragliano 77 -50144 - Firenze - Italia Tel//Fax.:+39/055/332549 ; handy GSM ;+39//335/6760004

"Jenny Stromer-Galley" <jstromer@asc.upenn.edu> wrote:

"Glaser considers this technique [of posing as curious and naive visitors to a white supremacist chat room] ethical because participants were contacted in a public forum, weren't coerced, addressed common topics of conversation in their chat rooms, and were not personally identified by the researchers. Surreptitious interviewing might also yield new insights into such denizens of the Internet as child pornographers and illegal weapons traders, Glaser says."

<snip>

I know AoIR has worked on ethics guidelines. What do you think about Glaser's practices?

i don't think the final version of AIR's guidelines are out? there is something that strikes me as interesting about Glaser's stand and my own yearnings to feel Glaser's is an ethical practice: embedded in it is the warrant that i *need* to employ this method to get at information that's otherwise inaccessible to me if i reveal my researcher status. if i choose groups such as rape survivors or parents grieving the loss of their children, it changes the valence of things--it no longer seems as ethical to lurk and chat covertly with these folks as it did with white supremacists. so, that tells me i think it's less ethical to deceive some groups of people over others? the logic breaks down for me as a researcher and i realize that my urges to go "undercover" have more to do with not wanting (or feeling i have the resources) to build rapport with some people as much as other people. ...but, that's the rub of ethics isn't it? ethics challenge us to think about our systems of 'right and wrong' and do the 'right thing' when the 'wrong thing' would actually (seem to) be more productive. in Glaser's case, i think expediency is a driving force of the methods used and the ethical concerns followed rather than led the process...but, i also think this is how ethics tend to develop and unwind in most research. ...there are so many good examples of past ethnographers who have finessed their way into circles of street gangs, Japanese internment camp members, drug dealers, etc. without having to circumvent ethical practices/traditions of disclosure. the questions for me have become how and when do we feel we need (or should be allowed) to walk the edge of ethics? what is it about our connections with communities via online media that sends us searching for exceptions to or rewritings of ethical rules we would not question if researching offline?

And why doesn't John Bargh know about AoIR's ethics guidelines :-) . . . .

that is a great question! i hope our guidelines get out there and start making it to discussions at the AAA, ASA,4S, and other places we all do doubletime. thanks for throwing out this question, Jenny! ._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. Mary L. Gray <mlgray@ucsd.edu> Department of Communication University of California, San Diego vox: 502/451.5003 mail: PO Box 4004, Louisville, KY 40204 http://weber.ucsd.edu/~mgray .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Jenny Stromer-Galley" <jstromer@asc.upenn.edu> wrote:

...

"Glaser considers this technique [of posing as curious and naive visitors to a white supremacist chat room] ethical because participants were contacted in a public forum, weren't coerced, addressed common topics of conversation in their chat rooms, and were not personally identified by the researchers.

...

I know AoIR has worked on ethics guidelines. What do you think about Glaser's practices?

Mary Gray responded:

if i choose groups such as rape survivors or parents grieving the loss of their children, it changes the valence of things...

...but, that's the rub of ethics isn't it? ethics challenge us to think about our systems of 'right and wrong' and do the 'right thing'...

I have argued before that hate groups and other 'anti-social' online groups problematize the ethics questions, particularly inasmuch as one believes that subjects have a right to know that they are being research subjects. I resolve this dilemma by thinking not in terms of standardized protocols for what constitues ethical research practice, but in terms of whether research serves "the greater good." It is very difficult to explain how deceiving rape survivors and greiving parents is important to bettering the human condition. Is the knowledge gain really going to outweigh potential damage done to those studied? On the other hand, it's much easier to argue that deceiving people whose aim is to cause suffering for others (as is the case with hate groups or pedophiles) can be justified if that deception results in knowledge that could lessen that suffering. Personally, I am grateful that there are people out there, most of whom are not academics, who are infiltrating hate groups under false pretenses and often at risk to their own life in order to educate the rest of us about what they are up to (plug for the southern poverty law center goes here). That is how I see the ethical issues here. Whether a university review board would back me up on this is another issue. The scholars I've known who did this kind of work figured they were doing it on their own and didn't expect the university to stand by them with legal support if they needed it. ________________________________________________________ Nancy Baym http://www.ku.edu/home/nbaym Communication Studies, University of Kansas 102 Bailey, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS 66045, USA Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org