L I R N E . N E T

The Association for Progressive Communication (APC), the Third World Institute (ITeM), and Dutch development organisation Hivos, launched the watchdog report Global Information Society Watch (GISW 2008) at the Third Internet Governance Forum in India. It is the second edition of this landmark report and focused on “access to infrastructure”.

Click here to go to the GISW 2008 report.

One of the characteristics of the ‘Information Society” is the abundance of information. The key is finding ways to navigate, to sort the wheat from the chaff. And so it is with information about the Information Society. That is why the arrival of GIS Watch is so welcome. No other publication, to my knowledge, is dedicated to monitoring the ongoing evolution of the Information Society from the perspective of civil society, and particularly the growing movements for people’s empowerment rooted in the global South.

Marc Raboy – Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics, Media and Communications at McGill University (Canada)

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The SPARC Author Addendum is a legal instrument that modifies the publisher’s agreement and allows you to keep key rights to your articles. The Author Addendum is a free resource developed by SPARC in partnership with Creative Commons and Science Commons, established non-profit organizations that offer a range of copyright options for many different creative endeavours.

Why do we need this? In 1999, Phil Agre wrote in his Red Rock Eater news service, “The job of an academic publisher is to take my work for $0,* add almost no value to it, and sell it to my library for way too much money.” Agre’s solution to protecting his right to make his work more freely available was as follows. “So whenever I get one of those form contracts from a journal publisher, I always get out a pen and edit it. Mostly I write in the margin, ‘I reserve the right to post the paper on my Web site’.”

Today, writers and researchers are much more aware about their authorship rights, and are much more likely to self-publish on their own webpages or other online venues to make their work more widely available. The SPARC Author Addendum is a good measure for those wanting to also publish in commercial academic journals.

Click here to go to the SPARC website.
Click here to download the SPARC Author Addendum.

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The Nordic and Baltic Journal of Information and Communication Technologies – nb!ict - is an international journal promoting debate on ICT developments among academics, analysts, professionals and practitioners. The theme of the November 2008 issue is New Mobile Technologies and Services: Business Models and Adoption. In addition, the development of telecommunications in Greenland is examined.

Click here for the Editorial of the current issue by Anders Henten.

The following papers are included:

• Jørn Jespersen: Greenland in the centre of the world
• Jaakko Saijonmaa and Tiina Saaristo: TETRA developments in the Nordic and Baltic countries
• Karsten Vandrup: WiMAX vs. LTE – the role of the financial crisis
• Leif B. Methlie and Per E. Pedersen: Business model performance: Reflections from three studies of mobile data services
• Oscar Westlund: Diffusion of internet for mobile devices in Sweden
• Eino Kivisaari, Tuukka Autio, Timo Smura and Heikki Hämmäinen: Operator roles on mobile broadcast

The Nordic and Baltic Journal of Information and Communication Technologies – nb!ict

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Alison Gillwald, director of Research ICT Africa!, and Helani Galpaya, director of Strategic Development for LIRNEasia, are attending the 3rd Internet Governance Forum (IGF) this week in Hydrabad, India.

Gillwald is a panelist for the first main session on Access: Reaching the Next Billion(s).
Click here for the transcript of the Access session.

Galapaya will participate as a panelist for the workshop session, Digital convergence beyond technology: socio-economic benefits, SMEs & public policy – 9:30-11:00 am, Day 3 (5 December), in Room 1.

Click here for the full IGF programme.

Click here for the IGF workshop schedule.

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Alison Gillwald, director of the Research ICT Africa (RIA!) network, in her article published in South Africa’s Business Day, reports on the significance and implications of the most recent ruling by the Pretoria High Court denying the Communications Minister’s application for an urgent interdict to prevent South Africa regulatory authority (ICASA) from issuing certain licences.

“While those who would finally be able to enter the market unconstrained have been rubbing their hands in glee at these rulings — and those who thought they had got in through the flawed licensing process and closed the door behind them gnashed their teeth — not much has been said about the significance of Judge Norman Davis’s carefully reasoned judgment reasserting a sound institutional and administrative basis for a sector so long paralysed by indecision.”

Click here to read the full Business Day article by Gillwald.

Click here to download the RIA policy brief: South Africa – Policy vs. Performance, ICT Access & Usage in South Africa (in .pdf)

See also: Appeal plunges telecoms sector back into limbo

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