Friday, June 01, 2007
IS2K7
I'm at the Internet and Society 2007 Conference today, and will be liveblogging anything of interest, with edits to this post as things come up. Most of what I'm writing is stuff that stands out as being of interest to me; apologies ahead of time if my notes are disjointed; I'll attempt to organize things more efficiently later.
Registration/pre-conference notes:
1. I'd forgotten just how big Harvard is. Fortunately, finding the Law School was not a problem.
2. Alas, the food court next door does not take credit cards. How is Harvard so far behind Emory and Brandeis?
3. Registration was painless. Just grabbed my badge, my info packet, and my complimentary deck of Berkman Center playing cards. There's copious amounts of free (and mediocre) coffee, as well as assorted tiny pastries.
4. There's also free wireless (of course), a Realplayer stream, a Second Life presence, an irc channel, and other virtual presences. Stuff all conferences should have.
5. The Mac/PC ratio here is about 7:1. Thats the sign of a conference filled with intelligent people. :-)
Introductions
1. Charles Nesson was unable to make it, as he needed emergency surgery. He's supposed to join us virtually at some point later, post-surgery, once he's coherent enough to type with at least one finger. That's heroism. :-)
2. Charles Ogletree, of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, is speaking now. Speaking towards the nature of citizenship and individuals in society. Good speech, going over the history of the conference
3. Nesson pre-prepared audio speech. He assures us that the medical situation is nothing serious (thankfully). Key question: What are the concerns and responsibilities of the university in relation to society, individuals, corporations, and others?
4. Professor Mary Wong (specializing in intellectual law), speaking on yesterday's pre-conference events. 80+ folks met last night discussing the theme of "University as Client."
- University goal #1: Utilitarian, provide training.
- University goal #2: Expose and explore difficult issues, better society
(The latter, of course, is what I think most of us hope for universities for strive for).
- Commericialzation. Licensing in and licensing out (Fetch comes to mind, as does scientific research).
-Intellectual Property, copyright ownership are focus of debates.
-Fair Use. Vagueness is a perpetual problem. Can all stakeholders be made happy?
- Should university act as IP enforcer? There wasn't any consensus on this one, not suprisingly (although I come down firmly on the "no" side).
-Ideal licensing? Can we improve the current situation.
(Of note, Ames Courtroom is nearly full by this point. Good to see this level of attendance.)
Keynote: John Palfrey (exec director of Berkman Center)
1. Born Digital (title of speech).
(Note: I'm assuming that Palfrey's presentation will be available online, and I'll link to it later).
A. Perspective of students. Difference between being born digital vs learning to be digital. Four major attributes of natives:
-Digital identities
Facebook, myspace, Second Life, etc.
-Multi-tasking
students with laptops, etc. Changes how they take classes, interact in real life.
-Digital Media
digital cameras, flickr, youtube, blogs, etc. Google/Wikipedia equals "research" to many.
-Consumers to creators
Feedback loop for processing information. Second Life, RSS, Wikipedia. "Semiotic Democracy."
New Media Literacies -- challenges:
The Participation Gap (classic Digital Divide).
Ethics.
Transparency.
B. Teachers.
Can Digital immigrants be reborn (and should we?) Second Life avatars.
New Networks: Facebook. All students have it before they even come to college. Should Faculty have Facebook accounts? Is your teacher your "Friend" (to use Facebook/LJ terminology)? Should he or she be?
Emergent Tools -- Should wikis and other tools supplant traditional tools like the Socratic Method (and what sort of happy medium can be achieved?).
Digital Identity -- learners and information are born digital. Therefore, "How does University understand its own emerging digital identity?"
Currently, information might start digital, and gets transferred to newsprint or other formats, as opposed to being born on paper as in previous generations.
Public Library of Science.
Open Access. If we bridge the digial divide, how does that affect digital community. OpenNet Initiative. How does that affect University as a whole?
Cathedral to Bazaar. Virtual "ID required" card stopping access to digital learning. Science commons, Scratch, OpenCourseware as alternatives. Harvard (and University as a whole) needs an answer to OpenCourseware.
Hard Questions. Questions asked pre-conference can be found here. A few big ones:
(University/Corporations. Google, MPAA, RIAA, Reed Elsevier, Second Life, Blackboard, etc. )What relationship should exist between University and corporations? Should university deliver pre-litigation letters (hell no!).
What is the best way to invest in libraries in a digital age? This includes physical spaces as well as subscription services. Is it proper to invest in access to digital subscriptions, when they could go away?
(Aside: The guy next to me is staring at LOL Cats images)
How do we fund and sustain a generation of digital knowledge (related to the previous two questions)?
YALSA. Literacy and social networks: How does the new generation of library scientists learn? Wikipedia, of course.
What is the impact of an outdated copyright system? The current system is simply not capable of handling today's technology and the University. See Fair Use, CCC, RIAA, etc. Should University take a leadership role to change the system?
Notable figures and knowledge:
Larry Lessig (Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace). "Pathetic dot" -- knowledge. Law isn't the only code, as markets, norms, architecture are all significant.
David Weinberger (Everything is Miscellaneous) -- previous categories (Dewey decimal system) are meaningless.
Access to knowledge -- Yale conferences.
Wrap-up: Berkman center at 10. Thinking of what it means to be a research center. Pushing to be University-wide (instead of current place at Law School)
YouNiversity (oy). Youtube, Time person of the year, Web 2.0, etc.
Post-keynote discussion: Impact of Open Courseware. what happens when MIT isn't the only one out there? One person notes that the Sheepshin (diploma) is what people are really paying for, not the knowledge, which can (and ideally should) be shared.
One comment from 2002: "Yes, opening courses will dillute Harvard's brand, and yes, we should do it anyway." recognition that sharing knowledge is a responsibility of University. Google Book search system (Harvard, Emory, etc). Greater concern: Potential dilution of actual University education (teaching seminars, mentoring grad students) as a result of efforts expended on open coursework.
One faculty member (Harry Lewis, former Dean) notes that no dilution in reputation has been spotted.
is2k7
I'm at the Internet and Society 2007 Conference today, and will be liveblogging anything of interest, with edits to this post as things come up. Most of what I'm writing is stuff that stands out as being of interest to me; apologies ahead of time if my notes are disjointed; I'll attempt to organize things more efficiently later.
Registration/pre-conference notes:
1. I'd forgotten just how big Harvard is. Fortunately, finding the Law School was not a problem.
2. Alas, the food court next door does not take credit cards. How is Harvard so far behind Emory and Brandeis?
3. Registration was painless. Just grabbed my badge, my info packet, and my complimentary deck of Berkman Center playing cards. There's copious amounts of free (and mediocre) coffee, as well as assorted tiny pastries.
4. There's also free wireless (of course), a Realplayer stream, a Second Life presence, an irc channel, and other virtual presences. Stuff all conferences should have.
5. The Mac/PC ratio here is about 7:1. Thats the sign of a conference filled with intelligent people. :-)
Introductions
1. Charles Nesson was unable to make it, as he needed emergency surgery. He's supposed to join us virtually at some point later, post-surgery, once he's coherent enough to type with at least one finger. That's heroism. :-)
2. Charles Ogletree, of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, is speaking now. Speaking towards the nature of citizenship and individuals in society. Good speech, going over the history of the conference
3. Nesson pre-prepared audio speech. He assures us that the medical situation is nothing serious (thankfully). Key question: What are the concerns and responsibilities of the university in relation to society, individuals, corporations, and others?
4. Professor Mary Wong (specializing in intellectual law), speaking on yesterday's pre-conference events. 80+ folks met last night discussing the theme of "University as Client."
- University goal #1: Utilitarian, provide training.
- University goal #2: Expose and explore difficult issues, better society
(The latter, of course, is what I think most of us hope for universities for strive for).
- Commericialzation. Licensing in and licensing out (Fetch comes to mind, as does scientific research).
-Intellectual Property, copyright ownership are focus of debates.
-Fair Use. Vagueness is a perpetual problem. Can all stakeholders be made happy?
- Should university act as IP enforcer? There wasn't any consensus on this one, not suprisingly (although I come down firmly on the "no" side).
-Ideal licensing? Can we improve the current situation.
(Of note, Ames Courtroom is nearly full by this point. Good to see this level of attendance.)
Keynote: John Palfrey (exec director of Berkman Center)
1. Born Digital (title of speech).
(Note: I'm assuming that Palfrey's presentation will be available online, and I'll link to it later).
A. Perspective of students. Difference between being born digital vs learning to be digital. Four major attributes of natives:
-Digital identities
Facebook, myspace, Second Life, etc.
-Multi-tasking
students with laptops, etc. Changes how they take classes, interact in real life.
-Digital Media
digital cameras, flickr, youtube, blogs, etc. Google/Wikipedia equals "research" to many.
-Consumers to creators
Feedback loop for processing information. Second Life, RSS, Wikipedia. "Semiotic Democracy."
New Media Literacies -- challenges:
The Participation Gap (classic Digital Divide).
Ethics.
Transparency.
B. Teachers.
Can Digital immigrants be reborn (and should we?) Second Life avatars.
New Networks: Facebook. All students have it before they even come to college. Should Faculty have Facebook accounts? Is your teacher your "Friend" (to use Facebook/LJ terminology)? Should he or she be?
Emergent Tools -- Should wikis and other tools supplant traditional tools like the Socratic Method (and what sort of happy medium can be achieved?).
Digital Identity -- learners and information are born digital. Therefore, "How does University understand its own emerging digital identity?"
Currently, information might start digital, and gets transferred to newsprint or other formats, as opposed to being born on paper as in previous generations.
Public Library of Science.
Open Access. If we bridge the digial divide, how does that affect digital community. OpenNet Initiative. How does that affect University as a whole?
Cathedral to Bazaar. Virtual "ID required" card stopping access to digital learning. Science commons, Scratch, OpenCourseware as alternatives. Harvard (and University as a whole) needs an answer to OpenCourseware.
Hard Questions. Questions asked pre-conference can be found here. A few big ones:
(University/Corporations. Google, MPAA, RIAA, Reed Elsevier, Second Life, Blackboard, etc. )What relationship should exist between University and corporations? Should university deliver pre-litigation letters (hell no!).
What is the best way to invest in libraries in a digital age? This includes physical spaces as well as subscription services. Is it proper to invest in access to digital subscriptions, when they could go away?
(Aside: The guy next to me is staring at LOL Cats images)
How do we fund and sustain a generation of digital knowledge (related to the previous two questions)?
YALSA. Literacy and social networks: How does the new generation of library scientists learn? Wikipedia, of course.
What is the impact of an outdated copyright system? The current system is simply not capable of handling today's technology and the University. See Fair Use, CCC, RIAA, etc. Should University take a leadership role to change the system?
Notable figures and knowledge:
Larry Lessig (Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace). "Pathetic dot" -- knowledge. Law isn't the only code, as markets, norms, architecture are all significant.
David Weinberger (Everything is Miscellaneous) -- previous categories (Dewey decimal system) are meaningless.
Access to knowledge -- Yale conferences.
Wrap-up: Berkman center at 10. Thinking of what it means to be a research center. Pushing to be University-wide (instead of current place at Law School)
YouNiversity (oy). Youtube, Time person of the year, Web 2.0, etc.
Post-keynote discussion: Impact of Open Courseware. what happens when MIT isn't the only one out there? One person notes that the Sheepshin (diploma) is what people are really paying for, not the knowledge, which can (and ideally should) be shared.
One comment from 2002: "Yes, opening courses will dillute Harvard's brand, and yes, we should do it anyway." recognition that sharing knowledge is a responsibility of University. Google Book search system (Harvard, Emory, etc). Greater concern: Potential dilution of actual University education (teaching seminars, mentoring grad students) as a result of efforts expended on open coursework.
One faculty member (Harry Lewis, former Dean) notes that no dilution in reputation has been spotted.
is2k7Labels: IS2k7
# posted by Adam Smith @ 5:49 AM 
