ICTlogy

Enrique Canessa and Marco Zennaro — both from the Science Dissemination Unit of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics — have collected a a compendium of selected literature on Open Access in their new book Science Dissemination using Open Access.

The book is part of the effort that the ICTP Science Dissemination Unit is doing to promote Open Access as a driver for development (including the Using Open Access Models for Science Dissemination seminar), being a means to enable knowledge diffusion within, towards and from developing countries, by leveraging the potential that open access specially brings to science both at the institutional and individual levels.

The book’s concept is to be a practical tool to steward the open access paradigm with real examples and by also providing actual solutions to most common problems. Hence, it is divided in two parts:

• Part 1, with selected literature about the main concepts and some best practices and reflections on the opportunities that open access can bring to science and scholars in developing countries,
• Part 2, with a list and how-to explanations on how to install and implant open access procedures and software.

I want to thank Enrico Canessa and Marco Zennaro for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the book with a paper of mine. Here entitled Web 2.0 and Open Access, it is an adaptation of my former article The personal research portal: web 2.0 driven individual commitment with open access for development published in Knowledge for Management Journal.

The book, following the line of previous joined efforts between the ICTP and Rob Flickenger (see below), is fully accessible online under a Creative Commons license.

More information

• Science Dissemination using Open Access, official website
• Canessa, E. & Zennaro, M. (Eds.) (2008). Science Dissemination using Open Access. A compendium of selected literature on Open Access. Trieste: ICTP.
• Flickenger, R. (Ed.) (2006). How To Accelerate Your Internet. Morrisville: INASP/ICTP
• Flickenger, R., Aichele, C. E., Fonda, C., Forster, J., Howard, I., Krag, T. & Zennaro, M. (2006). Wireless Networking in the Developing World. Morrisville: Limehouse Book Sprint Team
• Peña-López, I. (2008). “Web 2.0 and Open Access”. In Canessa, E. & Zennaro, M. (Eds.), Science Dissemination using Open Access. A compendium of selected literature on Open Access, Chapter 11, 97-112. Trieste: ICTP

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 IV. (notes at random, grouped by speaker, but not necessarily in chronological order)

Left to right: Francisco Ortiz Chaparro, Belén Perales, Javier Estévez (moderator), Javier de la Nava Trinidad, José Manuel García Prieto

Belén Perales, IBM

Why corporate volunteering? Employees demand it and their satisfaction, engagement, etc. does increase with nonprofit or development projects engagement. And this does benefit the firms beyond profit.

Francisco Ortiz Chaparro, AHCIET

Public-private partnerships are an important key for the development of the Information Society.

Big firms are kidnapped by their highest directors, that apply for themselves retribution policies that generate huge inequalities within the firm. This is a barrier for both the credibility of the firm as socially committed and the engagement of the rest (the basis) of the employees. Shareholders should enforce their rights to achieve more transparency and accountability of the behavior of such boards of directors, for both economic management and social responsibility reasons.

There is a good amount of nonprofits and projects that are created ad hoc as (public) grant raisers. Nonprofits should change their minds and think on project designs that could include firms and even benefit them, so through a mutual benefit, partnerships between the civil society and enterprises could arise. And, at the same time, the project will gain sustainability.

Javier de la Nava Trinidad, BBVA

The five groups of stakeholders: shareholders, providers, customers, employees, the society at large. And it is not only the customers that a firm has to keep content, but the whole panoply of stakeholders.

There is an increasing need for employers to have their employees engaged and identified with the firm, to be satisfied in their workplaces.

José Manuel García Prieto, SUN Microsystems

It’s true that telecoms benefit from more ICT use, hence why fostering its use in their corporate strategy.

There is not a single model of cooperation between nonprofits and firms, but normally the model is that firms give away the know how, their knowledge, their human capital, etc.

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 business and investment decision-makers worldwide (many of whom represent the Forum’s member companies). As a qualitative survey, and based on perceptions, all conclusions arising from it might be taken with tons of caution. Nevertheless, there are some findings that, even if taken with caution, are worth deserving a thoughtspan:

[click to enlarge]

As the chart shows, there is a clear relationship between quality of an educational system (at the aggregate country level) and the existence of not computers but Internet access in schools. As said, while Internet access in schools is measured quantitatively after surveys sent to sample schools in every country, the Quality of the Educational System is a variable measured through a qualitative, subjective indicator after asking the 8,000 interviewees of the Executive Opinion Survey. In the survey, the respondents range the educational system from 0 to 7 whether the Educational system
[serves the] needs of competitive economy.

Depending on how you agree with the definition of “quality” for a national educational system, and how you’d like the reality to fit your beliefs, different interpretations arise:

• The more straightforward: Internet access increases the quality of the educational system. The more Internet access, the better education.
• Inversely, we can say that high quality educational systems are more eager to introduce the Internet in schools than lower quality ones. The more quality of the system, the more (awareness in) the use of Internet.
• There’s a relationship between educational quality (as understood by the Executive Opinion Survey) and Internet access in schools, but we do not know which is the cause and which the consequence: they just happen to go hand in hand.

Even if some of the previous statements are sweet music for cyberoptimists (like me), I wouldn’t strongly stand for any of it: there are too many loose ends to be axiomatic.

But one thing is absolutely clear: even if we cannot establish (yet) any causality between quality and educational Internet access, the perception is that some degree of relationship does exist. And if this perception is widely shared at both the decision-taker and policy-maker levels, some consequences in the short run would be likely to be expected:

1. Firms would be more likely to hire candidates with strong digital competences, as it looks like Internet and quality go together, and quality means a more competitive economy (i.e. firm).
2. Stress would then be put in teaching digital skills in the design of educational strategies, along with the introduction of the Internet in the school
3. If the Internet — this huge information silo — enters the classroom, the role of the educator should change, and shift from an information holder to a knowledge acquisition enabler or facilitator
4. Open educational resources should be coming in and out of the classroom both as input and output
5. This abundance of (educational) material would require more and better reputation systems and information assessment systems, all of them based in more and better digital skills
6. And back to #1

In the most conservative scenario, I see this as the perception of inflation: regardless whether there is not the slightest chance for inflation to happen, if citizens believe so, there’ll be inflation. The sensation is now that digital skills matter and that we are going to evaluate education under this light. Schools must not just let themselves go along with the current (i.e. the cyberhype), but neither swimming against it.

Share:

I have been invited to create some materials and impart a workshop on content assessment systems. The idea is comparing the traditional academic system of double blind peer review with other systems emerging on the Information Society to assess content in online communities, like the ones used in Wikipedia, Slashdot or Digg. But without using computers: everything off-line, analogue.

A project within the framework of the Bank of Common Knowledge, the idea is to help communities — online or offline, whatever — to evaluate their incoming content in order to assess its suitability for their purposes. To do so, we created a workshop were the rudiments of several systems (three, so far) were explained, compared and practiced in simulations of situations where such content had to be evaluated — in no more than an hour.

Adapting online systems for offline use — no computers used — has been quite a challenge and, of course, not all features of online systems could be included, for both reasons of time or feasibility. One of this (sadly) missing features is all the karma system which, in some way, is the core reputation system — explicit or implicit — of many online communities, the problem being that karma is cumulative along time and requires lots of interaction, direct or indirect voting on the user and his contributions, etc., something the workshop just cannot aim at achieving. In other words: content and reputation of the user creating or promoting this content are becoming, as time passes, two sides of the same coin, something that not necessarily has been this was in analogue systems like the scientific peer review, where double blindness is usually a must.

After a beta testing that took place in February, the last version of the workshop will be officially presented today at 20:00 at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona [Center for Contemporary Culture], as an scheduled activity at the NOW – Meetings in the Present Continuous biennial platform.

I’m in terrible debt with the Platoniq collective (especially Olivier Schulbaum and Susana Noguero) for inviting me (and putting up together such a terrific project like the Bank of Common Knowledge), the beta testers that provided much valuable feedback unselfishly, and Pau Alsina for his networking aptitudes.

More info

• Sistemas de evaluación de contenidos (, 482.59 Kb), materials for the workshop (Spanish)
• Short video presentation about the Bank of Common Knowledge (English, dubbed in Spanish)
• Another short video presentation about the Bank of Common Knowledge (Spanish)
• Benkler, Y. (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press. — a good reading (more or less) related to this subject

I am imparting a short, informal seminar about the Open Paradigm (Open Access, Open Science, Open Educational Resources, Open Source Software, etc.). To support my speech — and prepare the audience — I draw a simple diagram and collected some suggested readings. Here they come. As always, all comments are welcome.

Map/Diagram

Click and drag to move the map. Click on tags to expand. Click here to open in full new window

Readings

Lady Virginia Mugarra Velarde
Education 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 Medina
Cybervolunteering at Iníci@te Programme

[note: in this session, cybervolunteer = ICT volunteer, not online volunteer. See my Online Volunteering Taxonomy for more details]

Volunteers experts in ICTs to help users in telecenters.

Volunteers are trained about attitudes, techniques, the environment they are going to work in, the target beneficiaries of the several activities, etc.

The public-private partnership between the regional administration (coordinating the project) and the local administrations and telecenters a must for success.

Olga Fernández Berrios
Reflections, tools and experiences about cooperation 2.0

Training for nonprofits about technology for nonprofits, with a strong use of Web 2.0 applications, such as feed aggregation, metablogs, wikis, instant messaging, VoIP, microblogging, online volunteering, etc.

Blogs in the field: use of blogs to raise advocacy and transparency by writing within and from a development project.

Blogs at the headquarters: same, but from the nonprofit headquarters (no need to be really there, but the focus)

Directories of projects and institutions.

Metablogs: Global Voices Online

Planets: feed aggregators, automatically updated once have been set up. The information comes to you.

Wikis: Where nonprofits share their information, handbooks, procedures… and with the possibility that this information can be updated/build collaboratively.

Caveat: some of these initiatives are not top-down, not institutional, but raised by individuals, sometimes as a personal answer (critique?) to the bureaucratic slowness and lack of flexible response of some organizations.

Social networks: some of them using richest media, such as The Hub.

We should shift from talking about technology to talking about the uses of it. The Web 2.0 allows this shift, as technological solutions come more and more irrelevant.

Free flow of information: RSS, copyleft or open licensing, syndication

Slides:

Vicente Carlos Domingo González
humania.tv

To enable media diffusion, especially video, for nonprofits and development issues.

Their role is to act as a new information agency to cover events, projects from nonprofits. It runs on a volunteering basis coming from the media sector + a technological platform to broadcast video.

The goal is not only to broadcast, but have audience too, thus the commitment with high-quality low-band requisites of the portal.

José Manrique López de la Fuente
Opportunities of Mobile Web in developing countries

Success bridging the digital divide

• The will, motivation to access the Net
• Material access
• Personal capacity, competences
• Access to advanced uses

The importance to generate local business possibilities based on ICTs.

Part of the material access and personal capacity interaction is about the ease of use, that should be kept clear in all ICT4D projects.

Mobile Solutions

• Specific applications for mobile phones: maximum integration with the device, but device diversity can generate incompatibilities
• Voice and/or SMS based solutions: simple and working, interoperability could be a pro or a con
• The Web as platform: rich, standards are mainstream

Mobile Web

• Advantage: Integration of existing solutions
• Advantage: Technologies based on open standards
• Problem: user experience, diversity and cost in some places
• Problem: low-tech devices that cannot access the web, mobile carriers not providing access

Carolina Moreno Asenjo
Global Networks and social engagement: ICT integration strategies at Entreculturas

Goals

• Improve quality in education, at a global level
• Foster advocacy through ICTs
• Fight the “loneliness” of the teacher in his classroom
• Cut down costs in training and knowledge sharing
• Create a link to catalyze network building

Leverage communities of practice and communities of learning with ICTs.

Challenges

• engagement of the beneficiaries
• funding
• logistics when setting up the hardware and technological platform
• motoring, coordination
• sustainability

Communication in Alegría Activity

Mobile (connected) classrooms.

Eduardo Pérez Gutiérrez
Geographic Information Systems in Educational Centers for Regional Development

Goals: Develop web-based GISs for diagnose and monitoring of educational centers for regional development.

To fight lack of education in remote, rural areas, governments supply these regions with instructors, that are not actually teachers but have a broader profile, socially speaking, but a lower profile as an educator. So, their social profile is good to interact with the community but the quality of teaching might not be as good as expected.

The GIS should help cross data about the reach of an instructor’s activity, the profile of the population reached by this instructor, etc. and then help the decision-making about the instructor, his activity, the way he spends his budget, etc.

Benefits: focused investments, allows centralized administration, transparency and monitoring, enables confidence, provides context and helps strategy design.