[GKD] CFP: Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication

[Maja van der Velden]

The biennial conference series on Cultural Attitudes towards Technology
and Communication aims to provide an international forum for the
presentation and discussion of cutting-edge research on how diverse
cultural attitudes shape the implementation and use of information and
communication technologies. The conference series brings together
scholars from around the globe who provide diverse perspectives, both in
terms of the specific culture(s) they highlight in their presentations
and discussions, and in terms of the discipline(s) through which they
approach the conference theme.

URL http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/ 

2004 Conference Theme:
Off the shelf or from the ground up? 
ICTs and cultural marginalization, homogenization or hybridization

Understanding the role of culture in how far minority and/or indigenous
cultural groups may succeed - or fail - in taking up ICTs designed for a
majority culture is obviously crucial to the moral and political
imperative of designing ICTs in ways that will not simply reinforce such
groups' marginalization. What is the role of culture in the development
of ICTs "from the ground up" - beginning with the local culture and
conditions - rather than assuming dominant "off the shelf" technologies
are appropriate? Are the empowering potentials of ICTs successfully
exploited among minority and indigenous groups, and/or do they rather
engender cultural marginalization, cultural homogenization or cultural
hybridization?

Original full papers (especially those which connect theoretical
frameworks with specific examples of cultural values, practices, etc.)
and short papers (e.g. describing current research projects and
preliminary results) are invited. Topics of particular interested
include but are not limited to:

*  Culture: theory and praxis
*  Culture and economy
*  Alternative models for ICT diffusion
*  The role of governments and activists in culture, technology and
   communication
*  ICTs and cultural hybridity
*  ICTs and intercultural communication 
*  Culture, communication and e-learning 




***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization***
To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type:
subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd
Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at:

[GKD] ANN: Connectivity in Low-Resource Environments

[Global Knowledge Dev. Moderator]

Dear GKD Members,

GKD members have often discussed the difficulty and importance of
providing connectivity to areas that have little or no power or
telecommunications infrastructure. We are therefore pleased to announce
that GKD will host a focused discussion on the theme of "Connectivity in
Low-Resource Environments," (10/27/03 - 11/21/03), sponsored by the
DOT-COM Alliance and Interaction.

The aim of the discussion is to identify practical approaches to
bringing connectivity to poor, rural and other under-served communities.
A White Paper citing the cases, projects, experience, success stories,
and recommendations presented by GKD members will be widely circulated
throughout the development community.

We hope that List members will share information on:

* Policies, strategies, tools, and partnerships to extend connectivity
to under-served communities
* Case studies, projects, achievements, challenges and lessons learned
* Success stories of efforts that have overcome challenges and
effectively expanded access in low-resource environments

The Agenda will focus on:
* Learning about activities that are bringing connectivity to
under-served communities (Oct. 27 - Oct. 31)
* Examining how much bandwidth is necessary to have an impact, and why
(Nov. 3 - Nov. 7)
* Identifying models that can and should be brought to scale 
(Nov. 10 - Nov. 14)
* Exploring what's on the horizon...and where we want to go over the
next 3 years (Nov. 17 - Nov. 21)

The discussion builds on a session of the DOT-COM/InterAction ICT
Speaker Series (September 24, 2003). More information on the session,
and presentations by the speakers, can be found at the DOT-COM Alliance
website cited below.


Although the focus of the discussion during these four weeks will be on
the Connectivity theme, the Moderators will also post messages of a more
general nature (i.e. announcements, newsletters, cases) that are
time-sensitive. To distinguish the Connectivity-theme messages, their
subject line will be labeled [GKD-DOTCOM], whereas the subject of the
general GKD messages will continue to be labeled [GKD], as usual.

***WORLD WIDE WEB SITES FOR THE DISCUSSION***

The DOT-COM Alliance website provides information about this discussion,
the DOT-COM/Interaction Speaker Series, and other projects using ICT to
support development:
http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/speakerseries.htm 

For more information about this discussion series, please visit:
http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/discussiongroup.htm 

The DOT-COM Archive of this discussion (as of October 27th) is available
at:
http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html

More information about the InterAction ICT Initiative can be obtained
at:
http://www.interaction.org/ict 

The GKD database provides an easy way to search messages of this and
other GKD discussions:
http://www.GKDknowledge.org


For further information about the discussion, please contact:

Margie Joyce
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Julie Fossler
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 

Janice Brodman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]





***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization***
To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type:
subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd
Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at:

[GKD] Article on Public Library of Science

[Seth Johnson]

(Link from Free Online Scholarship Blog)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1056608,00.html


Scientists take on the publishers in an experiment to make research free
to all

New academics' journal launched in challenge to multinationals 

By David Adam, science correspondent
Monday October 6, 2003


In the highly lucrative world of cutting-edge scientific research, it is
nothing short of a revolution. A group of leading scientists are to
mount an unprecedented challenge to the publishers that lock away the
valuable findings of research in expensive, subscription-only electronic
databases by launching their own journal to give away results for free.

The control of information on everything from new cancer treatments to
space exploration is at stake, while caught in the crossfire are the
world's publicly funded scientists, some of whom will soon face a choice
between their career and their conscience.

On one side of the conflict stand the major multinational publishing
houses like Elsevier Science that package scientific findings into
hundreds of specialist journals and sell them for thousands of pounds a
year. On the other is a new publishing group called the Public Library
of Science (PLoS) that will distribute its journals free of charge and
is backed by top scientists, including the British Nobel prize winners
Paul Nurse and Sir John Sulston.

"The publishers are making a lot of money out of our research and it's
not fair that lots of good, basic science isn't available to everyone,"
said Julie Ahringer, a biologist at Cambridge University. "Knowledge
should be free."

Dr Ahringer is on the editorial board of PLoS Biology, the group's first
journal that is due to be launched on October 13. With articles about
the genetic origins of elephants and molecular signalling in the fruit
fly, it is unlikely to displace Cosmopolitan and FHM from the
newsstands. But those behind the new venture have their sights on an
equally ambitious target: convincing existing publishers to change their
ways and join them in making more information freely available.

"Our goal is to have this publishing model extend well beyond us. We
don't want to have 1% or 5% of the literature being open access, we want
all the literature to be open access," said Vivian Siegel, executive
editor of the PLoS.

The new biology journal will be available on the internet, but 25,000
print copies of the first monthly edition will also be produced. A
second journal for medical research is planned for next year and more
could follow.

While PLoS Biology is not the first open access scientific journal, it
is the most high-profile and best supported so far, and, crucially, it
is financed by a grant of several million dollars from an American
charitable foundation. It is probably also the first science journal to
advertise on US peak-time television.

"The goal of this journal is to become the first destination for
research in the life sciences and to compete head-on with the existing
high-profile journals," Dr Siegel said. "It's about doing something you
believe in rather than doing things the way everybody else does them and
I think that's the hallmark of the best scientists."

While other publishers publicly say they are not threatened by the move,
they are watching the situation with mounting concern. At least one
already has its own open-access version primed and ready to launch if
necessary.

"We're all scientists and we like experiments, well here's an
experiment. And if it works then we'll all take the lessons from it,"
said Dr Alan Leshner, executive publisher of the American journal
Science.

In a statement, Elsevier Science said: "Elsevier welcomes further
experimentation and are open to competition, but do not believe that the
existing subscription-based business model should be abandoned prior to
proving that another model works."

Some competitors have predicted that the new journal group will be
unable to keep its head above water once its initial funding runs out.
While most journals charge hefty subscription fees, the PLoS intends to
pay its way by charging the scientists whose work is published; it hopes
that the funding agencies and charities paying for the research in the
first place will pick up the $1,500 bill. "Our motivation is to serve
the community in the best way possible and to do it by just making ends
meet rather than generating huge profits," Dr Siegel said.

The new journals follow a failed attempt by the PLoS group to use more
direct action to force scientific publishers to make information freely
available. More than 30,000 scientists signed its pledge to boycott
journals that refused to fully release scientific results, but backed
down when the publishers called their bluff.

This is partly because such journals offer scientists more than just
information. Researchers need to publish their findings to secure
funding and job offers, and an appearance in the highly regarded pages
of Science or the London-b