The presentations from the conference, Preserving …. The presentations from the conference, Preserving the Web (Kerkira, May 22-24, 2003), are now online. [Open Access News]

this looks like it was a good conference. there are some resources attached too

Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, edited by Diego Gambetta.

This collection was originally published by Basil Blackwell in 1988. The
complete text is now available online in Word97/98 and PDF formats. Click on
the relevant icons to download the corresponding text. Click on the name of an
author for a brief biography, current contact details and relevant subsequent
publications. This electronic edition was prepared by Soojin Yu and Edmund
Chattoe.

—
donationware based knowledge, it's cool

In March, the Netherlands Institute for Scientific …. In March, the Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services (NIWI) released an anthology, Promise and Practice in Data Sharing, available both as a printed book and as free online full-text. This is the second volume in the NIWI series on The Public Domain of Digital Research Data, edited by Paul Wouters and Peter Schröder. The new volume contains four essays:

• Peter Schröder, Digital research data as the floating capital of the Global Science System

• Paul Wouters and Colin Reddy, Big science data policies
• Kathleen Casey, Issues of electronic data access in biodiversity
• Ann Beaulieu, Research woes and new data flows

The first volume in the series, Policies on Digital Research Data: An International Survey, came out in 2002. (Thanks to Shelflife.) [Open Access News]

NIWI does interesting work, I've been impressed by Prof. Wouters work at the Internet Research conferences.

We don't care.

War on terror 'hurts poor'. Poor people hit by disasters around the world are paying the cost of the fight against terror, a report says. [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

What stings is when you read:

The report says the US Defense Department raised $1.7bn of relief and reconstruction aid in April 2003 for Iraq.

It contrasts this with the $1bn shortfall in funds faced then by the UN World Food Programme to avert starvation among 40 million Africans in 22 countries.

Conclusion: We don't care about starving Africans.

[Curiouser and curiouser!]

for some odd reason there is a disjunction between money spent for defense and money spent for creating social conditions that limit the need for defense….. isn't that strange.

If You Insist on Graduate School, At Least Do Your Homework. Still, I have a mournful affection for students who remain confident of their ability to beat the odds. The young feel invincible and full of potential. And many universities view their naivetŽ and energy as an exploitable resource. The majority… [Invisible Adjunct]

it is true, you have to really think about grad school. i frequently hear undergrads saying, if i don't get a job i'll go to grad school…. then i laugh.

'Suspected terrorist' removed from flight. EFF co-founder John Gilmore was prevented from flying because he was wearing a button deemed to be in “poor taste” and refused to take it off. Seems he won't be flying anywhere for a while, unless he wins his court case. [Source: Boing Boing] [MetaFilter]

I read books, I'm a suspected terrorist too. I have many volumes, at least 3, on terrorism, its analysis, etc. I even have some fiction relating to terrorism. luckily most of that part of my research occured before they started suspecting people who read such things of being terrorists. Oh my, I also have military training… i'm probably just as dangerous are those terrorists who care about the U.S. and its laws and rights like mr. gilmore.

SiT: Response on organizing a conference. Quote: “I do quite a bit of organizing these things for groups in our system around 90-150. I am totally turned off that as educators, the primary mode of professional communication is a 50 minute lecture to a passive audience.

my response: 50 minutes? hah, no one cares, try 15 to 25 minutes and people will be interested. if they want 50 minutes, then they should hand out papers, there is nothing worse than sitting there listening to someone lecture very poorly for 50 minutes, but in 15 minutes they can hit the high points, and move on.

There is certainly room for presentations though, and depending on the topic, you can do things like computer poster sessions where participants can pick and choose demos to see up close.

my response: you would think this would work, and it does for large audiences over 2000, other than that, it doesn't seem to work very well. It is good in theory, but first you have to get the computers, then the software, then the support staff, then you need an audience that supports that investment by you and the companies, if you don't have it, people will be upset.

Panel discussions are great in theory, but difficult to pull off without a hot topic and a dynamic and forceful facilitator. We typically use them at the end of an event because you bring everyone back together.”

Comment: Thank you to everyone who responded to my request for inspiration. There's some really helpful stuff there. I am of a similar opinion to Alan Levine on the poverty of presentation as the primary mode of communication at professional conferences.

My Response: Panels are easy, super easy, just do it, they are much better than the single person droning on model. Just ask people for topics, and put them facing each other with a central question related to their topic and watch conversation occur.

Just to clarify, this conference is small, with perhaps 50-75 people (guess-timate), mostly librarians and people like me (instructional technologists/distance learning administrators, but not perhaps so much web developers).

I am particularly taken with some elements of the World Cafe and Open Space (whaddya know, they have a wiki) approaches. Something as simple as paying attention to creating the right environment and providing simple resources can really make a big difference. [Serious Instructional Technology]

I've worked on 6 conferences so far in my career, 2 in distance learning, and 4 in internet research, and it is a great experience. for insight into a smaller conference, i suggest checking out Adrian Miles's Dac Blog. Dac is Digital Arts and Culture.

AO Reflections.

Settling in after some very intense days at the Always On Innovation Summit.  It was a great experience, excellent networking and a different use of Social Software for events.  Socialtext provided an integrated video/chat/wiki conference support system. 

During the first day, wifi was frustratingly spotty, so the bulk of its use was from remote participants.  High quality video streaming allowed people to listen, the BackChat allowed people to interact and the wiki to annotate.  Unfortunately the lack of in-room connectivity led to less wiki collaboration and public blog posting right at the time when it usually engenders wider participation.

But the real dynamic took hold on the second day, wifi enabled, where it became part of the program.  The Remote Posse and the people Blogging Always On really had an impact.  The BackChat was particularly vibrant, with in-room and remote participants (from as far away as Tokyo and the Netherlands) exchanging commentary.  A big font version of the chat program was projected on to the big screen, the feedback loop was complete: 

• BackChat participants kept the discussion relatively high brow.  They fact checked, posed questions, had side discussions that were pertainent and in general participate without denegrating into vulgarities or
• Moderators fielded questions from the chat, particularly with the open source panel
• Panel members interjected requests to respond to things on the chat and in general were kept in check from being to commercial, not revealing bias or ducking questions.
• One member of a panel noticed that people were paying more attention to the BackChat screen than the panel itself.

The golden moment was at the end of the show, when I had them project JoiTV.  We caught Joi in his underwear and the heckler became the hecklee.  Joi waved, we all waved back.  Some folks told me that was when something clicked with them about how large the room really was.  And many of the remote posse enjoyed a richer participation experience than they have had before.

You have to hand it to Tony for having the vision to run with an untested mix of video with our conference system.  You also have to hand it to him for having the grace to extend blogging passes.  I hope he has set a precedent for other events.

A bit on some of the folks there.   Chris took great photos.  Scott posted beyond the limits of connectivity. Jason had his camera phone (took a nice snapshot of me, Pete & Adina).  Ev wore a blogger shirt.  Dave left shortly to do other things.  Adina kept it real.  Esther is community.   Ramana gets information flow.  Richard gets biology.  Zack was fully on.  Edward is still settling in.  Keith is into real-time people.  Eric, Larry & Sergey still don't have a blog but that's okay.  Dan is our hero.

 

Chat with Google Founders (photo by Chris Gulker)

And remote posse awards go to Greg, Ed, Kevin & Joi.

[Ross Mayfield's Weblog]

Hmm, i wonder if they'd want to do this at Internet Research 4.0 this year, it looks like great fun.

The Revolution Will Be Bitmapped. Yesterday I posted an essay on the fact that the user experience of the Net is ripe for revolution, and proposed that we start telling the world that if they use any browser but Microsoft Internet Explorer, they will have a better browsing experience. A couple of people proposed graphics, here they are, along with an invitation for more…. [ongoing]

a revolutiona day keeps the doctor away, says this safari user

Cory points at How the Nerds Were Having A Perfectly Good Time Until The Businesspeople And Lawyers Showed Up And Ruined Everything, saying

Lisa Rein is slowly uploading her footage from last month's ILAW conference. She posted a real prize today: Jonathan Zittrain and Terry Fisher's talk: “Domain names – How the mess came about” or “How the Nerds Were Having A Perfectly Good Time Until The Businesspeople And Lawyers Showed Up And Ruined Everything.” Brilliant stuff.

[bOing bOing] [A blog doesn't need a clever name]

this is interesting stuff, it could easily be used in a course.