By Ismael Peña-López (@ictlogist), 07 November 2006
Main categories: ICT4D, Open Access
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The Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP) realizes how fast a published book gets out-of-date, especially in the fast-moving field of information and communications technology for development (ICT4D). APDIP has therefore donated 15 of its e-Primers to Wikibooks for free use and update (see list below).
In my opinion, this is good news twofold:
- On one hand, the reason APDIP says its leading the opening of the books — easy and fast content updating — is a heavy weight one, specially in the field of ICTs for Development (and Information Society in general) where things change at the speed of bytes.
- On the other hand, it does not make any more sense to copyright material issued by public institutions, and I would consider any organization under the umbrella of the United Nations system to be a public institution. While things made out of atoms are fair to be charged because of the concurring “materializing” costs, digital supports should be made freely available. In this issue, I expect the (c) on the APDIP materials to drop (also on their site) and be changed by a (cc) or a GNU FLD or whatever. And I’d also expect to see some other “products” (such as ITU’s databases), clearly of a wide public interest, to be entering the open access paradigm too.
These ICT4D Books belong to two previously issued collections, namely, the APDIP ICT4D e-Primers and the IOSN FOSS Primers, and can be found in the following places:
The titles, so far, are:
- The Information Age
- Legal and Regulatory Issues in the Information Economy
- Nets, Webs and the Information Infrastructure
- Information and Communication Technologies for Poverty Alleviation
- Internet Governance
- e-Government
- e-Commerce and e-Business
- ICT in Education
- Genes, Technology and Policy
- Free/Open Source Software: A General Introduction
- Free/Open Source Software: Education
- Free/Open Source Software: Government Policy
- Free/Open Source Software: Licensing
- Free/Open Source Software: Localization
- Free/Open Source Software: Open Standards
[via The Development Gateway]
By Ismael Peña-López (@ictlogist), 30 October 2006
Main categories: ICT4D
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Karl Brown has just created a custom search using Google Co-op for the field of ICT and Development.
He conviced somehow ;) the following people to contribute / be part of the team developing the custom search:
I must admit that it is an honor to be listed besides people like these :)
Karl Brown created also a site to host the custom search and, who knows, what might become of its evolution:
To give it a try:
By Ismael Peña-López (@ictlogist), 23 October 2006
Main categories: ICT4D
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By its presentation, you might think that Charles Kenny new book, Overselling the Web: Development and the Internet might be seen the product of a cyberskeptics. I’d rather call it the product of cyberbalance.
Just reading the preface and first chapter, the personal references (Juan Navas-Sabater, Richard Heeks or Michael Best, among others) and a cautious point of view the like of “yes, but…” clearly show that it is calm criticism — not destruction — what seems to lead the book.
Just as always, promise to review in deep if… if I can ;)
By Ismael Peña-López (@ictlogist), 23 October 2006
Main categories: Connectivity, Hardware, ICT4D
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Most of us still remember — and will for a long time — the book Wireless Networking in the Developing World, created 100% in a decentralised way by people scattered all over the world, free to download or printable through Lulu.
Rob Flickenger and Marco Zennaro did it again, this time joining efforts with Enrique Canessa and Martin Belcher in the editorial coordination, as long as many other contributors. The book is called How To Accelerate Your Internet: A practical guide to Bandwidth Management and Optimization using Open Source Software. I here copy the official release note:
The BMO Book Sprint Team is pleased to announce the release of the new free book, “How To Accelerate Your Internet: A practical guide to Bandwidth Management and Optimization using Open Source Software”. The book was released in October 2006 under a Creative Commons license, and was written in an effort to help network architects understand and troubleshoot problems with managing Internet bandwidth, which often result in unnecessarily high operational costs in the developing world.
Network connections are very expensive in most parts of the world, and it is often costly and difficult to add additional network capacity. Therefore, effective management and optimization of bandwidth is crucial. Research and education benefit significantly from Internet resources, yet the majority of institutions take little or no action to manage their bandwidth usage. This waste results in high operating costs, slow network connections, and frustrated network users.
The goal of the book is to provide practical information on how to gain the largest possible benefit from your connection to the Internet. By prioritizing certain kinds of network activity, reducing the impact of spam and viruses, providing local content caching, and performing extensive monitoring and analysis of network usage, Internet consumption can be brought to manageable levels. This makes it possible to provide equitable access for all users, even when the available bandwidth is quite small.
But technical solutions only solve part of the problem. In order to prioritize network traffic, an organization needs to have a clear idea of the intended purpose of the network connection, as well as insight into how the connection is being used. The book addresses this complex topic by covering the three major components of effective bandwidth management: Effective policy, extensive monitoring & analysis, and solid network implementation. In addition, troubleshooting techniques, advanced performance tuning tips and tricks, and real-world case studies are also provided.
The Book Sprint began with online correspondence via email, which led to an initial face-to-face meeting of bandwidth management experts from around the world in May 2006. Intense online collaboration followed over the next few months, which then culminated in the production of the 300 page printed book, as well as a PDF and HTML version. The book was sponsored by the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (http://inasp.info), and was produced in association with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (http://www.ictp.it), Aidworld (http://www.aidworld.org), and Hacker Friendly LLC (http://hackerfriendly.com). By releasing this work under a Creative Commons license, the Book Sprint Team hopes to disseminate it as widely as possible, bringing this information into the hands of people who need it most.
The book can be downloaded for free, or a printed copy may be purchased at the book’s website: http://bwmo.net
Related to this, Marco Zennaro also points me to a conference given by Les Cottrell (SLAC) in Trieste back in October 9, 2006. Entitled Bandwidth Challenges and Internet World Records it deals with actual broadband challenges and what can Internet2 bring. It is tough stuff for non-techies, and files are quite heavy, but at least a quick view to the slides should be done (full presentation is 54’30” long).
By Ismael Peña-López (@ictlogist), 07 October 2006
Main categories: Cyberlaw, governance, rights, Education & e-Learning, Hardware, ICT4D, Meetings, Open Access, Participation, Engagement, Use, Activism
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Taking as a baseline Open Knowledge, Free Society, the 3rd edition of the Online congress of the Observatory for Cybersociety will take place from November 20th to December 3rd, 2006.
Five working groups have been created:
- Topic A: Policy and social change
- Topic B: Identity and Social groups
- Topic C: Communication and culture
- Topic D: Education and learning
- Topic E: Critic and Innovation
each one still accepting papers for submission (deadline: October 30th).
The whole congress is a gem but, if you focus on ICT4D issues, Topic A. Policy and social change is your place.
If I had to pick one or two tracks — choose or die — I’d take these two:
Feel like registering?
By Ismael Peña-López (@ictlogist), 05 October 2006
Main categories: e-Readiness, ICT4D
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Stéphan Gagnon, Patrick C.K. Hung, Katia Passerini and Miguel Vargas Martin, have edited a special issue of the International Journal for Infonomics on e-Readiness, entitled Measuring e-business for Development.
The table of contents looks appealing enough even for those interested in ICT indicators, or e-readiness, out of the e-business focus:
Measuring e-business for Development
Gagnon S., Hung P.C.K., Passerini K. and Vargas-Martin M.
Measuring the Diffusion of e-Business in the Information Society
Salmeron J.L., Banuls V.A.
Assessing e-Business Capabilities and Effectiveness: A Set of Key e-Business Metrics
Chatterjee D., Segars A.
E-governance in India: A Strategic Framework
Mahapatra R., Perumal S.
Synthetic indicators for measuring e-business: A target approach
Vilaseca J., Meseguer A., Torrent J.
Measuring e-business in Developing Countries
Teltscher S.
Toward a Multilateral Effort in Measuring e-Business for Development
Gagnon S.
By the way, the journal’s architecture is an odd one: there is just a sigle issue dated January 2005 and a second issue permanently “fortcoming” (due to July 2005). You might think the journal is the old story of good intentions never sustained, but no: there are five special issues, two of them (one unpublished) dated 2006. Weird.
How To Accelerate Your Internet: A practical guide to Bandwidth Management and Optimization using Open Source Software
