The PhD on the Information and Knowledge Society Programme recently opened the call for candidates — including 10 full time fellowships —, offering 33 student places in the following fields:
Computer Science and Networking Technologies
Community and Social Action
Law and ICT
eGovernance
eLearning
Information Systems
New Economy
Technology and health
Technology and Education System
Research Programmes
As said, UOC’s research institute, the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, offers 10 grants for full-time PhDs that are carried out physically in its headquarters in Castelldefels’s Mediterranean Technology Park (20 minutes from Barcelona). It carries a stipend and access to travel funds.
Please visit the PhD programme’s website, for detailed information about the...
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Conference by Richard M. Stallman at the First International Conference Free Knowledge, Free Technology - Education for a free information society in Barcelona (Spain), 15 July 2008, on the production and sharing of free educational and training materials about Free Software.
Stephen Downes, Institute for Information Technology’s Internet Logic Research GroupThe Future of Education
The Public in Public Education
Public education, education for everyone, is an important concept not for the “education” part, but for the “public” part, as its impact goes far beyond the acquisition of knowledge, but the shaping of the whole society.
Stephen Downes presents gRSShopper. Besides the most evident uses of the tool as a resource harvester, the main purpose being...
Notes from the 4th Internet, Law and Politics Congress.Session III
Round Table
Content on the internet: regulation or self-regulation?
Chairs: Raquel Xalabarder, Law Professor, UOC
Do we want to give up on the freedom we can have now? Do we want self-regulation or we want more education that leads to more commitment?
http://www.iqua.net, Spanish Internet Quality Agency (IQUA) and CEO Derecho.com
More than self-regulation, what it’s happening is that the liability to apply toughest laws if shifted towards the customer/user or the industry (ISPs and/or carriers).
But this has not been a matter of consensus, nor a widening of the range (from tough to soft) of the regulation spectrum.
Over-regulation puts an extra burden to the industry, making it more difficult for the Information...
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Participation, Engagement, Use, Activism,
net neutrality,
monica ariño,
ofcom,
amadeu abril,
iqua,
martí manent,
miguel pérez,
raquel xalabarder,
self-regulation,
meetings,
Digital Literacy,
Cyberlaw, governance, rights,
e-Government, e-Administration
(notes from the homonimous session at the bdigital Global Congress)
Moderator: Begoña Gros
Three main reports issued in 2007 in Spain about ICTs at Schools. The conclusions are more or less the same: everyone uses ICTs (teachers and students) but not at school.
Ismael Peña-LópezDigital students, analogue institutions, teachers in extinction
Jordi VivancosKnowledge and Learning Technologies, a transforming vision of ICT in Education
The Educational sector (i.e. teachers) is one of the sectors with highest penetration in the use of ICTs. So, teachers are not analogue anymore.
The design of the traditional syllabus did not make possible the introduction of ICTs in the educational programmes, especially the acquisition of digital competencies. This was solved (in Catalonia) in year 2006,...
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Digital Divide,
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antoni zabala,
begoña gros,
grao,
ismael peña-lópez,
jordi vivancos,
manuel de la fuente,
meetings,
Education & e-Learning,
ICT4D,
Digital Literacy,
uoc
In my conference about Digital Citizens vs. Analogue Institutions I spoke — among other things — about the importance of blogging for democracy, human rights and the development of the Information Society. And I stated that, even if we could not draw a direct relationship between all these variables — which we cannot so far —, we could set up a path where all these concepts formed part of the same equation.
Now Víctor R. Ruiz asks me to elaborate this idea.
First things first: with the data available at the moment (in this case from UNPAN — UN e-Government Survey 2008. From e-Government to Connected Governance — and Universal McCann — Wave 3 —) we cannot state that there is a close or strong relationship between blogging and the development of e-Government. In the figure...
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e-Readiness,
Digital Literacy,
e-Government, e-Administration
Next 20, 21 and 22 May 2008 takes place the bdigital Global Congress, one of the major events about the Information Society in Spain.
Our University has been asked to organize the Education track, that will be chair by our Innovation Vicerector Begoña Gros. I have been invited to impart the opening speech for the track, and
give an overview of the relationship between the development of the Society and economic development, and how both questions are closely related to the acquisition of digital competences by the citizens. In this matter, the situation of ICTs at school and their use by teachers and students will be analyzed, proposing some strategies to foster ICTs in the educational framework.
I here advance the material I prepared for that session as a request for comments. Feel free...
iCities is a Conference about Blogs, e-Government and Digital Participation.Here come my notes for session IX
Debate: The Handbook of the blog in the enterprise.Chairs: César Ramos
Genís Roca
We should focus on what is an enterprise and not on blogs. Do we agree on what do we understand by “enterprise”? An enterprise is:
the acknowledged and legal way to have a personal adventure.
A temporal union of people around an interest
An interest group
An institution: a big telecom is like a ministry, and a ministry like an enterprise.
There are many enterprises: working for your own or employed, with or without employees, with or without workmates, with or without leadership, with or without partners, etc.
Blogging in the enterprise is easy when you’re alone (e.g....
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icities,
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alorza,
cesar ramos,
enterprise,
genis roca,
blogs,
Participation, Engagement, Use, Activism,
meetings,
Digital Literacy,
e-Government, e-Administration
iCities is a Conference about Blogs, e-Government and Digital Participation.Here come my notes for session I (part II).
Opening Session (part II)
Chairs Carmen Sánchez-Carazo
Intelligent CitiesJosé Gumersindo García
ICTs will improve the image that public administrations have before the citizenry: proximity, transparency, etc.
e-Administration and Modernization go hand in hand and they are co-requisites for the development of both.
The Public Sector does have to bet on digital literacy training for their public servants. But not only their employees, but also firms. With this digital literacy many projects can take place: instant messaging for better communication, datasharing through wireless networks, e-commerce, etc.
Free software is very important for the Public Sector, and again,...
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Connectivity,
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david cierco,
jose sindo garcia,
plan avanza,
icities,
Digital Divide,
Participation, Engagement, Use, Activism,
meetings,
e-Readiness,
Digital Literacy,
e-Government, e-Administration
These are the materials I’m using at the iCities: Primeras Jornadas sobre Blogs, e-Government y Participación Digital [First Conference on Blogs, e-Government and Digital Participation], for the opening speech, in which I take part on Friday 9th May 2008.
Slides:
Bibliography
Castells, M. (2000). “Materials for an exploratory theory of the network society”. In British Journal of Sociology, Jan-Mar 2000, 51(1), 5-24. London: Routledge.
Castells, M. (2004). “Informationalism, Networks, And The Network Society: A Theoretical Blueprint”. In Castells, M. (Ed.), The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
Dutta, S., López-Claros, A. & Mia, I. (Eds.) (2006). Global Information Technology Report 2005-2006: Leveraging ICT for...
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E-Government,
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Engagement,
Use,
icities,
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e-Readiness,
Digital Literacy,
e-Government, e-Administration
e-STAS is a Symposium about the Technologies for the Social Action, with an international and multi-stakeholder nature, where all the agents implicated in the development and implementation of the ICT (NGO’s, Local authorities, Universities, Companies and Media) are appointed in an aim to promote, foster and adapt the use of the ICT for the social action.
Here come my notes for session V.
Subjects
Free software
Accessibility and usability
Linguistic diversity
Educational programmes
New content programmes
Debate
(random ideas, slightly sorted/grouped)
Muhammad Yunus proposes a new kind of enterprise where the focus is on stakeholders and not on shareholders, where no profit is seek, but only social benefit.
Low cost computers/devices are converging with mainstream infrastructures....
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knowledge management,
Participation, Engagement, Use, Activism,
meetings,
Open Access,
Education & e-Learning,
ICT4D,
Digital Literacy,
Cyberlaw, governance, rights
e-STAS is a Symposium about the Technologies for the Social Action, with an international and multi-stakeholder nature, where all the agents implicated in the development and implementation of the ICT (NGO’s, Local authorities, Universities, Companies and Media) are appointed in an aim to promote, foster and adapt the use of the ICT for the social action.
Here come my notes for session III. (notes at random, grouped by speaker, but not necessarily in chronological order)
Left to right: Raoul Weiler, Jérôme Combaz, María del Mar Negreiro, Berta Maure Rubio
Raoul Weiler, Club of Rome
It will be possible for everyone to access the Internet trough/thanks to low cost devices.
But education will make the difference, not devices.
Jérôme Combaz, Charte pour l’Inclusion...
The World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report 2007-2008 is out. In my opinion, it does not bring any surprises, but reinforces some trends that we’ve been seeing lately:
The increasing strength and importance of wireless technologies to get connected to the Network
A gradual shift of the research focus from quantitative/economic impact analysis towards more qualitative/social impact analysis
Hence, the realization that ICTs are much more than (information) productivity tools, and they have a role in socialization (through communication), mediated by digital literacy
Part of the Global Information Technology Report gets its data from the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey, which, conducted annually, captures the perceptions of the leading...
Daniela de Carvalho Matielo presents a PhD seminar at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, UOC.
Challenging the digital divide: the role of telecenters in e-inclusion practices.
First, Daniela brings a short introduction to the concept of the Digital Divide as lack of access to ICTs.
Digital Inclusion is then the effort to guarantee everyone has access to the Information Society.
The problem is that there is not only one digital divide, but many: geographical, etc.
These efforts have, hence, many designs, from fiscal incentives to direct provision of Internet access from physical places: telecenters, places people can go to use telecommunication services. The main difference with a cyber cafe is profit — in the latter case — or bridging the digital divide — in the fomer case...
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Telecenter,
Research,
Telecentre,
actor network theory,
ethnography,
Digital Divide,
Participation, Engagement, Use, Activism,
ICT4D,
Digital Literacy
In a recent event where I was invited to debate about the need whether to foster the Information Society, I was shocked about some positions from both some of the speakers on the round table I participated in and the audience.
The starting point was: is there a need to foster the Information Society, or the Web 2.0 is a sufficient empowerer so there’s no reason to set up centralized strategies and policies?
One of the first arguments to come to debate can be summed up by “if people find no interest on the Internet, they will not use it, even if the infrastructures are ready and affordability is good enough”.Which I absolutely share: people like Lenhart (2000), Compaine (2001) or Parks Associates (2007) have already given evidence about this fact — this is, of course,...
February 2008 issue of the Open Source Business Resource has published a “for the practitioner” version of my work “The personal research portal: web 2.0 driven individual commitment with open access for development”.
I slightly adapted the contents to make them more appealing to a non-scholarly audience, but the core idea remains the same.
BTW, I added a cite by the Beautiful South. It’s cryptic, but it is fully relevant — at least to me — when you think of knowledge, knowledge sharing, knowledge binding … and knowledge pimping these days.
I want to sincerely thank Dru Lavigne for betting on it.
More info:
Peña-López, I. (2008). “The personal research portal”. In Open Source Business Resource, February 2008, 23-27. Ottawa: Talent First Network....
Use of ICTs in development cooperation models
More efficacy, based on knowledge-intensive projects
Usefulness must drive the implementation of ICTs, not hype
ICTs for a better nonprofit performance and for better project results
Learn from ICT adoption in developing countries and apply them in developed ones
ICTs challenge the traditional design of the nonprofit sector
Capacity building a must for nonprofits to benefit from ICTs
Usability, accessibility, content, sustainability
e-Governance to enhance citizen engagement
Networked cooperation
A necessary response to the Network Society
Shift from hierarchy to horizontal interaction
Human networks boosted by technological networks
Knowledge sharing
Project-centered cooperation, enabling inclusion
Multistakeholder partnerships...
Lady Virginia Mugarra VelardeEducation for HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases prevention
The role of ICTs to educate about sexually transmitted diseases prevention, especially to educate educators.
An important aspect of such education is to ease the communication between the physicists and their patients.
Goals
Train educators about these diseases… and how to educate about them
Sensitize youngsters about prevention
Mobilize policy makers
The main successes are, above all, the speed and spread of information and training, with a strong focus on prevention, which is where information can actually make a difference.
Tools: a platform with three axes (1) content (2) spaces for debate (3) online assistance
María Jesús MedinaCybervolunteering at Iníci@te Programme
[note: in...
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Online Volunteering,
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ICT Infrastructures,
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development,
Telecenter,
Telecentre,
Nonprofits,
Digital Divide,
meetings,
Open Access,
Education & e-Learning,
ICT4D,
Digital Literacy
Ismael Peña-López (moderator), Shafika Isaacs, Vikas Nath, Paula UimonenNetworking Cooperation — towards the networked Cooperation
Ismael Peña-López: Introduction
see my position paper here
Paula Uimonen: Is development cooperation prepared?
No. The structure is too bureaucratic.
But the network logic is horizontal, cross-sectorial, transversal, non-hierarchical.
But it seems that the international arena is working for a more networked development cooperation sector.
Shafika Isaacs: Are organizations prepared to network?
It depends: they’re all in an evolutionary process.
There’re more and more organizations working in the field of ICT4D.
And a rising awareness on the issue.
Big leadership behind ICT4D fostering.
Common agenda that enabled collaboration and networking,...
Third of my three seminars imparted at the he Rich-Media Webcasting Technologies for Science Dissemination Workshop, organized by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Science Dissemination Unit.
Main aspects
Seminar fundamentally based on my article The personal research portal: web 2.0 driven individual commitment with open access for development, also presented at the Web2forDev Conference, and split in two parts:
Part I: conceptual presentation of the Personal Research Portal
Part II: practical workshop based on the building and managing of my own research portal, ICTlogy.net
Live recording of the session
Part I: view, download ( 127.01 Mb)
Part II: view, download ( 126.97 Mb)
See, also, the rest of the workshop presentations
Slides
Click here to download,...
Second of my three seminars imparted at the he Rich-Media Webcasting Technologies for Science Dissemination Workshop, organized by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Science Dissemination Unit.
Main aspects
Seminar fundamentally based on my notes on the Web2forDev Conference and split in two parts:
Part I: showcase of different Web 2.0 — and related ICT4D — projects in developing countries
Part II: open debate with the attendants based on random thoughts extracted from the said notes
Live recording of the session
Part I (begins at aprox past the 2/3 of total running time): view, download ( 165.78 Mb)
Part II: view, download ( ??? Mb)
See, also, the rest of the workshop presentations
Slides
Click here to download, or watch them on Slideshare:...
First of my three seminars imparted at the he Rich-Media Webcasting Technologies for Science Dissemination Workshop, organized by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Science Dissemination Unit.
Main aspects
Introduction to the Web 2.0, stressing the fact that the web is the platform, that putting up content to the web has been made quite easy — caveat: provided you have access to a computer and good bandwidth —, the power of RSS, the challenge of filtering and content quality.
Conferences are one dimensional: content delivered at one time and one place
Conferences should shift from information exchange to knowledge exchange
Before conferences: data and information sharing through websites, blogs, social networks
During conferences: knowledge sharing through...
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web 2.0,
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meetings,
Open Access,
ICT4D,
Digital Literacy
Next December 3, 4 and 5 I’ll be in Trieste at the Rich-Media Webcasting Technologies for Science Dissemination Workshop, organized by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Science Dissemination Unit.
The whole set of names is quite eerie — for a social scientist like me — but once read you realize this is a very interesting workshop on scientific diffusion in developing countries, being ICT4D a deepest commitment of the organizers.
As you can see in the programme, I’ll be teaching two seminars and a workshop, namely:
Conferences 2.0: Scientists and Web 2.0, where I’ll speak about the change of paradigm in scholarly communication, mainly inspired by my Conferences 2.0 article in July
Web 2.0 and the Digital Divide, where I will try to...
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Open Access,
ICT4D,
Digital Literacy
The problem of writing in several places and doing it in different languages is that, after all, it is quite difficult to establish or draw a consistent thread of your own thinking. If you, indeed, do need this verbalized/explicitly-written summary of your ideas for other purposes, tracking it down is, more than interesting, a must. Here comes, hence, some things I’ve said somewhere else in the past days, just slightly elaborated:
The myth of the digital natives (source)
When talking about the digital natives, it is common to listen to people talk from radical, opposed approaches: the digital native is an axiom vs. the digital native is an absurd nonsense. Just few try and stay in a middle point.
I believe — I really mean it — that it makes no sense talking about digital natives...
Last Friday 23rd I had the luck to attend the third day (out of three) of the IV Encuentro de e-Inclusión: e-inclusión para la construcción de la ciudadanía, a national meeting of telecentre instructors about e-Inclusion that focused on participation and the Web 2.0, and was organized by the Fundación Esplai.
I had committed to impart the opening speech about the general concepts that the Web 2.0 metaphor usually talks about. You can see my simple presentation here:
| View | Upload your own
And also download it both in Spanish (the original) and translated to English:
¿Qué dicen que es la Web Social? (688 Kb)
What do they say the Social Web is? (686 Kb)
But, as it is usual in this kind of events, the best was yet to come. The audience — around one hundred telecentre...
Today I imparted a seminar belonging to the Executive Master in e-Governance organized by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and partnered by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.
General information
Details of the presentation (including slides to download)
Slides on Slideshare
Recommended Bibliography
I just want to thank the attendants to the course for being such an interesting audience and for making me think because of their witty questions.
Syllabus
Information and Communication Technologies for Development: ICT4D
Food or computers?
Efficacy, efficiency
Leapfrogging Development
Second Bests
Endogenous development
The concept of access and the measurement of the Knowledge Society
The Telecommunications Model: limitations
The Broadcasting Model: limitations
Access...
Elisabetta Cigognini asks me whether I could draw a list of 10 adjectives — concepts, capacities, competences — that qualify the skills of an expert knower 2.0 or learner 2.0.
Difficult, because I get consciously or unconsciously “intoxicated” by John Palfrey’s list of characteristics of a digital native. I believe that a digital native and a knower/learner 2.0 are overlapping concepts (especially if you take digital native as a “syndrome”, as I do, and not as a generational fingerprint, which makes poor sense in a digitally divided world) but are not exactly the same thing.
You can browse Elisabetta Cigognini’s publications and speeches pages for a good bunch of readings about what a knower/learner 2.0 stands for. Regarding myself, and summing up,...
When preparing my speech about The Web 2.0 and the role of the University for the UOC UNESCO Chair in Elearning Fourth International Seminar: Web 2.0 and Education, I gathered a good bunch of references to prepare what I wanted to say. You can find all the references I used — and some more, added after — after this words. But as this is an evolving selection, the up-to-date version of this list can always be consulted here: A Reader on Web 2.0 and Education. Feel free to write back to me with proposals for inclusion in the list and/or corrections for found errors.
The collection is far more than just “Education” or “University” or “Web 2.0″ but pretends to give a framework comprehensive enough to approach the Education 2.0 phenomenon. I personally...
infoDev has published the report of a survey about the state of ICTs implementation in the education sector in Africa.
Some highlights:
Growing commitment to ICT in education on the part of government leaders across the continent. Leadership, leadership, leadership.
Public-private partnerships are important mechanisms enabling the implementation of ICT in national education systems in Africa. Mark Davies also spoke about this at the Web2forDev Conference when he presented Tradenet, and it’s getting a subject on which everyone comes over again and again.
The need for digital content development relevant to local curricula is becoming more
urgent as ICT use becomes more widespread. Surprisingly, there’s few mentions to initiatives such as Creative Commons and no mentions at all...
Akeh Lucas Kunen & Zigo Morfaw Damien
E-Health Africa: Overcoming the Barriers to its Implementation. A case study of Sub Sahara Africa
Intend to identify the barriers to e-Health implementation in sub-saharan Africa and see how can these barriers be overcome.
Political barriers
Economic barriers
Socio-cultural factors
Technical barriers
Solutions to Political barriers
Leadership
Leadership
Leadership
Solutions to Economic barriers
Infrastructure development
Poverty alleviation
Assistance from donor organizations
Solutions to Socio-Cultural barriers
Education
Digital divide
Use of ICTs in public institutions
My Comments
During the debate, issues arise about citizenship awareness (on e-Health) and overriding (corrupt) governments, which reminds me of some good hints Francisco...
Back in March 10th, 2006, I was asked to impart a workshop about Web 2.0 and diffusion of research. The workshop was improved, improved, repeated and even published with a strong focus on teaching.
The subject quite caught on me and I’ve been working since to (a) strengthen the theoretical framework and (b) give it the “for development” bias that I’m so fond of. There’s quite a bunch or articles that I’ve been publishing here exploring ideas, doubts, thoughts about the issue — just on my previous article, for instance.
Finally, it has taken the appropriate shape and been published in the Knowledge Management for Development Journal, in an issue under the topic of Stewarding technologies for collaboration, community building and knowledge sharing in...