Today at 1pm is the second seminar for my thesis. This seminar gives all the Phd students a chance to discuss my work and give me feedback.
This is usually an interesting session with some good discussions. Lots of notetaking from my part. If you happen to be in the area the session is at the IT University at Göteborg room “Grace Hopper” “Vin Cerf” and the work is online here.
Like bad tasting medicine editing is an aweful process which is only done because of its obvious benefits. Its terrifying the amount of errors that can be spotted at this late stage. Today I even found an incomplete sentence… it simply tapered off like someone losing a chain of thought.
This is the begining up until the research question. Not sure about it though…
This work begins with the thesis that there is a strong relationship between the regulation of technology and the Internet based participatory democracy. In other words, the attempts to regulate technology have an impact upon the citizenâ??s participation in democracy. This work will show what this relationship is and its effect on democratic participation.
Taking its starting points from the recent theoretical developments in regulation, disruptive technology and role of ICT in participatory democracy, this work is the application of three theoretical discussions. These theoretical discussions are used in the empirical exploration of six areas: virus writing and dissemination, civil disobedience in online environments, privacy and the role of spyware, the re-interpretation of property in online environments, software as infrastructure and finally state censorship of online information. The purpose of these studies is to explore the effects of these socio-technical innovations upon the core democratic values of Participation, Communication, Integrity, Property, Access and Autonomy. The overall research question for this thesis is therefore:
What are the effects of technology regulation on the Internet-based participatory democracy?
To connect to an earlier ongoing discussion about the text: The book is now 257 pages long and 99 479 words long. Do you think that word can handle going over 100 000 words or will it simply melt…
The technology to track via mobile phones has been around for a long time. Despite this, most telecoms have been slow to offer this ‘service’ to a general public. Most probably this delay has its background in the need for more sofisticated administrative and technical solutions rather than ethical questionmarks.
The telecoms company Sprint has now begun to offer its Family Locator service
Sprint Family Locator gives you and your family peace of mind in the palm of your hand.
Locate Your Children in real-time, from either a registered “Parent” mobile handset or from the web.
Safety Checks let you know that your children have arrived at home or school on time.
For Only $9.99 a Month have quick, easy, and secure access to the location of up to 4 Sprint-Nextel handsets.
The emphasis is on paranoid parenting (Furedi 2001) i.e. to scare parents and create insecurity so that a need for a solution. This makes accepting the solution offered (in this case the family locator) is the only sensible thing to do. Never mind the fact that spying (even on your own children) is wrong. That those spied upon will devise creative solutions to avoid being spied upon. And that all systems such as these once implemented will be abused through some form of function creep.
Earlier similar posts: Spying on Cars and Privacy, GPS and Children.
Digital Solidaritet och opinionsbildning
Information ses allt mer som en vara att tjäna pengar på och allt mindre som en social rättighet. Upphovsrätten stärks och patent breder ut sig till det immateriella området.
Politiker och företag ser i ökad omfattning information som ett problem som måste kontrolleras, övervakas och beläggas med sekretess. Samtidigt finns idag möjligheter att samla, kopiera och sprida information i en helt ny omfattning. Informationen blir inte mindre värd för att den används. Tvärtom ökar den i värde.
Det är dags att solidaritets- och rättviserörelser tar hänsyn till allt detta i sitt informationsarbete. Vi måste utveckla en mer solidarisk och gemensam informationshantering och opinionsbildning. Förutsättningarna är bättre än någonsin. Med denna konferens vill vi stimulera den gemensamma diskussionen i dessa frågor.
Ur programet:
Delad information, effektiv information â?? Rasmus Fleischer, frilansjournalist och aktiv i PiratbyrÃ¥n, argumenterar för det rationella med att vara solidarisk pÃ¥ informationsomrÃ¥det.Fri information i praktiken: Creative Commons och Open Access â?? Mathias Klang, doktorand vid Göteborgs Universitet och projektledare för Creative Commons i Sverige, hjälper dig att befria informationen.
Kampen om informationen â?? Lars Ilshammar, författare och förestÃ¥ndare för Arbetarrörelsens Arkiv och Bibliotek, ger oss en övergripande bild av den globala kampen mellan Ã?ppnare som vill frigöra informationen och Stängare som vill lÃ¥sa in den.
Mer information finns hos Världsbiblioteket
När: 15/5, kl. 12:30â??17:00
Var: Solidaritetsrörelsens Hus, Tegelviksgatan 40, Stockholm
Arr: Globalportalen och Världsbiblioteket
In the report Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets in Europe (full report here), Commissioned by Directorate-General for Research (January 2006) the following recommendations are made:
A1. Guarantee public access to publicly-funded research results shortly after publication.
A2. Aim at a ‘level-playing field’ in terms of business models in publishing
A3. ‘Extended Quality’ rankings of scientific journals
A4. Guarantee perennial access to scholarly journal digital archives
A5. Foster interoperable tools to improve knowledge, visibility, accessibility and dissemination
B1. Promote pro-competitive pricing strategies
B2. Scrutinize future significant mergers
B3. Promote the development of electronic publications
C1. Setting-up an advisory committee
C2. Further investigation
The market for scientific publications has been under development for a long time. Now the situation we have arrived at is warped. The writers apply for grants (often government grants) to research and write. Sometimes the writers even apply for grants to publish their material. When the material is published the libraries (often funded by public money) then pay to buy back the books or subscribe to the journals.
Very often the system implies that public funding pays for access to the same knowledge several times over. This is a subvention of the scientific publishing industry.
In addition to this the university text book industry has grown into a virutal monopoly where the major players control almost entire markets depending upon subject area. Mergers between the companies have created massive media companies that control the publication of university text books. This is reflected in the price of the litterature.
Yesterday I saw this poster.
Its an advert for an energy substitute. The basic premise is that many people have a banana in their training bags but the banana is not good enough to help the body get the amounts of carbohydrates and proteins it needs after a workout. Therefore bananas are for monkeys.
While I could argue about the eating habits of monkeys (not that many bananas) that is not what I want to do. The point of this post is to talk about advertising.
The inspiration for this poster has been taken from grafitti – this can be seen by the imitation of stencils and the mock access paint running down the poster. The ad-company has obviously been inspired by street artists, such as Banksy. This is one of Banksy’s works below.
My question is wouldnt it be nice if the commercial use of art in advertising was openly recognised and acknowledged?
Advertisers tend to rely on the outside world for their inspiration but see no need to admit the fact that they are borrowing from a wider culture. I realise that this is asking a lot but shouldnt advertisers acknowledge these sources?
Recently there has been a growing discussion online about students use of laptops during lectures. This discussion began when a law professor banned the use of laptops during her lectures. The directive seems innocent enough:
Beginning on Tuesday, March 14, the use of laptop computers and other similar devices will not be allowed during Civil Procedure class session. Please be sure to bring with you…paper and pen or pencil for taking notes.
The University made it clear that it was the professors decision (my earlier post here). In the resulting furore one student even threatened to leave (“If we continue without laptops, I’m out of here. I’m gone” USA Today). This seems a bit melodramatic for one course but it is interesting to see how the university will continue to react.
These discussions are particularly interesting as the faculty where I am based has provided laptops and wifi for all the students and there are constant discussions on the students ability to handle this technology particularly in relation to the lecture scenario but even in relation to the need to read offscreen material.
Of course this problem is not unique.
In post Collision Detection writes:
I’d argue that it [Laptops & Wifi] also provides some healthy competition for the professors; too many of them read off brittle, yellowing, decades-old lecture notes and never engage their classes. They’re losing the Darwinian battle for attention for good reasons, and it’s time to cull the herd.
and in a post entitled “The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All The Laptops” Plastic writes that “Several schools are considering giving their professors the authority to switch off wireless access.”
This is a tough one. I agree that there is a real need for university lecturers to improve their material and presentation skills – some are really terrible. But there must be a way of improving the lectures without providing more diversions? There is no way a lecturer can compete with online material. But will the cost of improving the lecturer’s skills be the students failure to complete their eductation?
My students have a choice to listen or learn in some other way. But if they use their time with their laptops rather than listening to lectures or actually reading the material is it my fault that they fail their exams? The camel has been taken to the water-hole but but refuses to drink. At the same time I still believe that I have a responsibility to teach – which involves students learning.
Our department has formally changed faculty from the Business School to the IT-university. The IT-university students all have laptops with wireless access which makes teaching an interesting experience. Recently a law professor at the University of Memphis banned laptops in class since he argued that the students are not paying attention to the lecture but are more concerned with their notes. Among the problems with connected laptops are that the students are not even concerned with their notes but are more focused on browsing, messaging and mailing.
This is not the point of this post. The point is the classroom of the future needs to be designed with a lot more thought as to the users need for electricity.
The unelegant current solution
In an chapter entitled “Exploring Creative Commons: A Skeptical View of a Worthy Pursuit” Niva Elkin-Koren writes:
It may well be that there is nothing wrong with copyright per se, but only with the way these rights were exploited by copyright owners in recent years. Changing social practices may have a powerful signalling effect, the importance of which could not be overstated. Yet, establishing a workable and sustainable alternative to the current copyright regime would require enforceable legal measures that would restrain the power of copyright owners to govern their works. To achieve this goal it would not be sufficient to facilitate self-restraint and encourage copyright owners to treat their copyright as guardians, protecting it from any attempt to restrict access and reuse. In the long run, creating an alternative to copyright would require a copyright reform.
The chapter is part of the book The Future of the Public Domain, (P. Bernt Hugenholtz & Lucie Guibault, eds.)
Kluwer Law International, forthcoming 2006. It is also available at SSRN.
Open J-Gate portal (www.openj-gate.com), was launched by Prof. Jean-Claude Guedon yesterday.
Open J-Gate is an electronic gateway to global journal literature in open access domain. It is also a database of journal literature, indexed from 3000+ open access journals, with links to full text at Publisher sites. Open J-Gate Features and Benefits:
- Open J-Gate indexes articles from 3000+ academic, research and industry journals. More than 1500 of them are peer-reviewed scholarly journals.
- Links to one million+ open access articles
- This number is growing with 300000+ new articles added every year. Full-text links are regularly validated.