Archive for the ‘Information Policy’ Category
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
From the Announcement:
American Library Association (ALA) President Camila Alire today released the following statement regarding the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) National Broadband Plan (NBP):
“There are great opportunities proposed in the National Broadband Plan and still much important public debate facing the American public on these critical broadband issues. As the plan moves forward, it must lead to digital inclusion – not exclusion. Since libraries serve a critical role in today’s information society, ALA will be active in this important policy-making.
The plan captures the need for universal affordable broadband access to individuals at home through libraries and other anchor institutions as well as for local governments and all levels of education institutions. We thank the FCC for taking on the tremendous challenge of developing a national broadband plan and outlining how the discussion should move forward.
Libraries may be affected by many areas of the plan including the following:
+ The plan’s proposals to sustain and improve the E-rate funding and to simplify the application process for libraries and schools
+ The critical need for digital literacy recognizing that public libraries in all communities as well as the libraries in schools, higher education and health care institutions, are primary providers of digital literacy education
+ The need for broadband to make government at all levels more effective and efficient and to provide interactive e-government services and more online government information
+ The plan’s recognition of how broadband technologies can be used to foster civic engagement – another arena supported by our libraries
Source: District Dispatch, American Library Association
Posted in Information Policy, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
The Plan
You’ll find links to all of the material on this web page.
The Plan is available to read online or download. Online, the plan is organized by issues. (right side of page in blue box)
Sections
+ Executive Summary
+ Download the Plan (By Section, By Summary, or the Complete Document)
Note: The webpage points out that the document will soon be available as an e-book, braille, Spanish, and other options.
+ The Plan is keyword searchable. Look for the search box in the upper right corner and make sure “The Plan” is selected vs. searching the entire Broadband.gov site (something you might also want to do).
Source: FCC
FCC Announcement, Overview, and Quotes: FCC Sends National Broadband Plan to Congress
“The National Broadband Plan is a 21st century roadmap to spur economic growth and investment, create jobs, educate our children, protect our citizens, and engage in our democracy,” said Chairman Julius Genachowski.
“In every era, America must confront the challenge of connecting the nation anew,” said Blair Levin, Executive Director of the Omnibus Broadband Initiative at the FCC. “Above all else, the plan isa call to action to meet that challenge for our era. If we meet it, we will have networks, devices, and applications that create new solutions to seemingly intractable problems.”
The ALA Washington Office is Analyzing the Document. Look for analysis reports coming soon.
Posted in Government Documents and Political Information, Information Industry, Information Policy, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
Lock It Up or Set It Free? A risk intelligent approach to data and intellectual property
Most companies carefully guard their intellectual property—trade secrets, formulas, creative works, trademarks, patents and processes—with expensive layers of protection and through costly and time-consuming demand notices, injunctions and lawsuits. Yet we’ve found that many efforts to safeguard intellectual property are ineffectual or even counterproductive – depressing the value of the very thing they are trying to protect.
Source: Deloitte Review
Posted in Access to Information, Information Policy, Intellectual Property, Legal, Search News, Source File | No Comments »
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
From the Announcement:
Information Society Policies. Annual World Report 2009 was written by researchers from the Information Society Research Institute of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. According to their analysis, the most important effect of the information society is probably the fact that it eliminates several historical divides. Social differences caused by the unequal distribution of ICT tools are being eliminated by the same tools, which causes a paradoxical situation.
The Report outlines cultural and geographical aspects of the digital divide and highlights solutions offered by the information society, such as broadband Internet and mobile technology. It also analyses the link between social and technological changes, which vary from country to country. Among the most significant trends introduced in the Report are some important technical achievements that are likely to change people’s lives in several aspects.
Information society strategies increasingly focus on e-government, which is becoming more and more socially oriented. The authors of the World Report examine the e-government aspects that proved to be the most important last year: the breakthrough of social networking, the increasing importance of open source software and of the green IT. No information society strategy today can disregard these trends.
The last section provides an overview of the worldwide penetration of ICT tools, both globally and regionally, showing the social and policy challenges faced by particular regions.
Access the Complete Report (63 pages; PDF)
Source: UNSECO (Communication and Information Sector)
Posted in Information Policy | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
NTIA Announces New Findings on U.S. Broadband Adoption
The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) today released a new report taking a first look at data collected through the Internet Usage Survey of more than 50,000 households, commissioned by NTIA and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in October 2009. Since 2007, the data show that while virtually all demographic groups have experienced rising broadband Internet access adoption at home, historic disparities among particular demographic groups overall continue to persist.
…
Highlights of DIGITAL NATION: 21st Century America’s Progress Towards Universal Broadband Internet Access include:
- Broadband Internet access at home continues to grow: 64 percent of households have broadband access compared to 51 percent in October 2007.
- Notable disparities between demographic groups continue: people with low incomes, seniors, minorities, the less-educated, non-family households, and the non-employed tend to lag behind other groups in home broadband use.
- While the digital divide between urban and rural areas has lessened since 2007, it remains significant. In 2009, two-thirds (66 percent) of urban households and only 54 percent of rural households accessed broadband Internet service, compared to 54 percent of urban households and 39 percent of rural households in 2007.
- Overall, the two most commonly cited reasons for not having broadband Internet access at home are that it is perceived as not needed (38 percent) or too expensive (26 percent). Besides these value and affordability concerns, Americans also cite the lack of a computer as a major factor. In rural America, however, lack of broadband availability is a more frequently-cited major reason for non-adoption than in urban areas (11 percent vs. 1 percent).
- Americans who do not use the Internet in any location most commonly cite insufficient value, or no need, as the reason. In contrast, households that have dial-up access to the Internet as well as households without any type of Internet access at home most frequently cite cost as the reason they do not have broadband access at home.
- Despite the growing importance of the Internet in American life, 30 percent of all persons do not use the Internet in any location.
+ Full Report (PDF; 1.3 MB)
Source: National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce
Posted in Government Documents and Political Information, Information Policy, Papers, Presentations, Reports, Search News, Source File, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Internet Freedom in the 21st Century: Integrating New Technologies into Diplomacy and Development
Five Key Freedoms of the Internet Age
+ Freedom of Speech: Blogs, emails, text messages have opened up new forums for the exchange of ideas.
+ Freedom of Worship: The Internet enhances people’s ability to worship as they see fit.
+ Freedom from Want: Online connections expand people’s knowledge and economic opportunities including locating new markets.
+ Freedom from Fear: Those who disrupt the free flow of information threaten individual liberties and the world’s economy and civil society.
+ Freedom to Connect: Connecting with others near and far offers unprecedented opportunities for human cooperation.
Source: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs
Posted in Access to Information, Censorship, Government Documents and Political Information, Information Policy, Search News, Source File, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Monday, February 15th, 2010
From the Article:
According to recent statements by an Icelandic member of parliament, described in a post at Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab blog, that country’s government plans to put forward legislation on Tuesday that could create an international repository for leaked documents, exposed corporate and government secrets, and other information provided by investigative journalists and whistle-blowers alike. If that sounds a lot like what the Wikileaks web site does, it should — the founders of Wikileaks have been instrumental in pushing Iceland to make the proposal.
Source: Gigaom
See Also: Iceland aims to reinvent itself as a ‘journalism haven’ (via BBC)
The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI), calls on the country’s government to adopt laws protecting journalists and their sources.
It will be filed with the Althingi – Iceland’s parliament – on 16 February.
If the proposal succeeds it will require the Icelandic government to consider introducing legislation.
Julian Assange, Wikileaks’ editor, told BBC News that the idea was to “try and reform Iceland’s media law to be a very attractive jurisdiction for investigative journalists”.
He has been in Iceland for a number of weeks and is advising MPs on the IMMI.
Much More (including Video) in the Post
Posted in Access to Information, Information Policy, Legal | No Comments »
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
From the Article:
Google says it will not “voluntarily” comply with the government’s request that it censor YouTube videos in accordance with broad “refused classification” (RC) content rules.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy referred to Google’s censorship on behalf of the Chinese and Thai governments in making his case for the company to impose censorship locally.
Google warns this would lead to the removal of many politically controversial, but harmless, YouTube clips.
University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt, one of Australia’s top communications experts, said that to comply with Conroy’s request Google “would have to install a filter along the lines of what they actually have in China”.
[Snip]
This week the Computer Research and Education Association (CORE) put out a statement on behalf of all Australasian computer science lecturers and professors opposing the government’s internet filtering policy.
They said the filters would only block a fraction of the unwanted material available on the internet, be inapplicable to many of the current methods of online content distribution and create a false sense of security for parents.
CORE said the blacklist could be used by current and future governments to restrict freedom of speech, while those determined to get around the filters and access nasty content could do so with ease.
Source: The Age / Sydney Morning Herald
Posted in Censorship, Information Policy, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Monday, February 8th, 2010
From the Announcement:
From 8 February 2010 the new open source ‘Research Information Centre’ (RIC) Framework v1.0 is available to download for free – http://ric.codeplex.com
The RIC represents an entirely new way of conducting research by providing an online environment in which to navigate the unprecedented collection of digital information available to 21st century researchers. The RIC aims to maximise web technology to improve both flexibility and knowledge sharing for researchers, wherever they are in the world.
The British Library and Microsoft Research have worked in partnership to design and develop a ‘virtual research environment’ that will provide a single easy-to-use interface enabling research teams to work collaboratively. The RIC will provide an environment in which users can create, share, discuss, manage, find and track articles, references, bookmarks, funding proposals, presentations and all the other digital information related to their research.
“The RIC has amazing potential,” said Richard Boulderstone, Director of E-Strategy & Information Systems at the British Library. “Together with Microsoft and a selection of researcher-focussed development partners, we are building on the RIC research lifecycle framework to create a unique environment for biomedical research collaboration in the 21st Century.”
Built using the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Platform, the binaries and source code are being made publicly available to encourage experimentation and use amongst the scientific community to develop the RIC’s foundation templates into an application that will offer support at every stage of the research life-cycle. The British Library is developing a RIC template that will incorporate a whole range of intuitive and customisable tools of relevance to biomedical research.
Access the Complete Announcement
Source: British Library
Posted in Information Policy, Information Science, Software and Web-Based Applications, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Sunday, February 7th, 2010
Beyond scientific publication : strategies for disseminating research findings (PDF; 1.5 MB)
A community research partnership is ideally part of a larger collaboration that includes the interests of each partner and spans a wide range of activities. Often a neglected afterthought in busy research schedules, the dissemination of key findings upon project completion is a crucial step in community-based research. In fact, we believe that researchers have an ethical obligation to ensure that research findings are disseminated to research participants, as well as other individuals and institutions in the communities in which we work. In an effort to increase ease and efficiency, this document provides key strategies for dissemination, including practical advice and specific templates you can adapt for your use. Through this strategic dissemination approach, CARE intends to distribute salient findings to affected communities, participant agencies, health departments, researchers, policy makers, and health advocacy groups. We hope this will help you to do the same.
Source: Yale Center for Clinical Investigation
Posted in Access to Information, Information Policy, Papers, Presentations, Reports, Scholarly Publishing, Science, Search News, Source File | No Comments »
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
The impact of research – so hard to pin down
I’ve been doing my best to ignore the “impact agenda”, but I’m sorry to say that finally I feel the need to add my two euros’ worth. Those following the debate will know that research grant applications now need to include an “impact statement”, while the new research excellence framework assesses impact as a major component of the research quality of each academic department.
One working definition of impact is “making a demonstrable difference in a non-academic context”. Sounds pretty laudable, assuming, of course, that the demonstrable difference is a positive one. But other than finding the topic a little wearing, I’ve kept quiet about impact partly because much of my own work is “policy engaged” and so I’ve smugly assumed that the agenda will work to my advantage. But now I’m having my doubts.
Source: The Guardian
Hat tip: Joanna Ptolomey
Posted in Education, Information Policy, Scholarly Publishing, Search News | No Comments »
Monday, February 1st, 2010
From the Summary:
President Obama today released his FY2011 Budget Proposal to Congress, calling for a freeze to federal library funding under the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), the primary source of federal funding for libraries.
Under the President’s plan, LSTA would be level-funded at $214 million.
As Americans deal with the weakened economy, they are using their libraries more than ever before, visiting them over 119 million times each month. American Library Association (ALA) President Camila Alire said freezing federal funding for libraries at this time of increased demand will hinder libraries from serving job-seekers, who are flocking to the library for help with online job searching and applications, resume writing, computer classes and much more.
[Snip]
The President’s budget also included a $400 billion investment into education but did not include specific funds for school libraries. Alire said the federal government should invest in school libraries to ensure every student graduates from high school with 21st century skills.
“It is alarming that the President did not recognize the value of school libraries in today’s schools and include them in this effort to improve education,” Alire said.
“Research repeatedly shows that a well-funded and fully staffed school library program with a state-licensed school librarian is an integral component of a student’s education.”
Read the Complete Announcement
Source: American Library Association (ALA)
See Also: The IMLS Announcement
President Obama has requested $265,869,000 for fiscal year 2011 for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The request, which was transmitted to Congress today, is the same as the FY 2010 enacted levels for the Institute’s programs and administration.
The President requested $213,523,000 for the nation’s 123,000 libraries. Of that amount, approximately 80 percent ($172.5 million) is distributed through the Grants to States program to the State Library Administrative Agencies (SLAAs) in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, and freely associated states, according to a population-based formula. These grants help libraries meet the community needs, use technology to develop new service models and reach underserved populations. Library funding also supports the following programs…
[Snip]
The President’s budget provides $2.1 million in continued support for research and policy activities.
A detailed table of President Obama’s budget request (PDF) for IMLS with recent budget history…
Access the Complete IMLS Announcement
Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services
Posted in Information Policy, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
From the State Department Web Site:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will deliver remarks on Internet Freedom on Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 9:30 a.m. (EST) at the Newseum, in Washington, D.C. The remarks will be live-streamed on www.state.gov.
Secretary Clinton’s policy address will lay-out the Administration’s strategy for protecting freedom in the networked age of the 21st Century.
Today, The Guardian published a preview.
“She will lay out policy to ensure that our centuries-long traditions are preserved in the 21st century,” Alec Ross said during an online discussion today.
“Internet freedom is not just about freedom of expression, but about what kind of world we live in. Is it about one knowledge [in common] or about access to information based on where you live?”
Ross said the speech was not about China as such but was a broader exploration of internet freedom, said to be based on discussions under way before Google’s decision emerged.
[Snip]
…Rebecca Mackinnon, a fellow with the Open Society Institute, who is currently writing a book on the internet and censorship said: “The wrong message … would be something to the effect of: ‘Never fear, netizens of China, America is here to free you!’”
In a blog posting, she called for an acknowledgement of the challenge which “all governments and most companies” face in deciding how to handle the net.
Source: The Guardian
Posted in Access to Information, Censorship, Information Policy, Privacy | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
From the Summary:
SPARC thanks the Office of Science and Technology Policy for convening a robust, open discussion on the importance of ensuring broad public access to the results of federally funded research. We share the Administration’s view that enhancing access to this information will promote advances in science and technology, encourage innovation and discovery, and enhance the diffusion of knowledge throughout our society.
We fully support the expansion of the current National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy to all other federal agencies that conduct scientific research, in order to create a freely accessible, permanent digital archive of the results of our nation’s investment in scientific research.
Access the Complete Document/Comments (14 pages; PDF)
See Also: Yesterday, We Posted Comments from ARL (Association of Research Libraries)
Posted in Information Policy, Libraries and Librarianship, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »
