Be sure to include your name at the end of your submission. We are still missing quite a few names from past submissions.
Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts
Amartya Sen
An Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members. He emphasizes the great variability in the instrumental relationship between low income and low capability affected by individual, environmental and social diversities. In 1999, Sen gave the example that African Americans in the U.S.A., although richer than people in the Third World, have an “absolutely” lower chance to reach a mature age than do people in parts of India China or Sri Lanka.
(Submitted by Matthew Wang)
Sen also illustrated the modernist way of evaluating success, based on economic contribution/focus on opulence. The example showed that married women often rank their domestic work as being less worthy than the work their breadwinner husbands do, because they are a part of a society that traditionally concerns itself with material gain, and connects success with economic growth. (Submitted by Katarina Jabri)
Who received his Ph.D. in 1959 at Trinity College in the Cambridge, and returned to India after four years, and had taught in Calcutta, Delhi. 1971 he once again returned to England, and taught at Oxford. Amartya Sen hired as a professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard University in 1988. In 1998, he returned to the Dean of the University of Cambridge, Trinity College.
Sen is trying to prove that, assuming no restrictions on personal preferences, individual freedom and Pareto optimality is incompatible, Pareto principle deprived the possibility of the existence of private space. Sen defined the principle of freedom as everyone in the society, if he thinks that X is better than Y, society should also think X is better than Y, and vice versa. Sen proved that personal preferences without any restrictions, such personal freedom and Pareto optimal makes social choice could not coming to the best results, can only get a cycle. Sen have been challenged most on this topic, the principle of freedom is different than the principle of freedom we recognized. We usually refer to individual freedom is the individual choose their own thoughts or actions within a certain range, and the freedom which not obstructed by society, this does not mean that the community must agree with the personal thoughts or actions. If this definition is adopted, individual liberty and Pareto optimality is no longer a conflict.
(Submitted by Xu Han)
Amartya Sen is an Indian economist, political scientist, professor, and scholar. He has served as President of the Econometric Society, the American Economic Association, the Indian Economic Association, and the International Economic Association. He was formerly Honorary President of OXFAM and is now its Honorary Advisor. His research has ranged over social choice theory, economic theory, ethics and political philosophy, welfare economics, theory of measurement, decision theory, development economics, public health, and gender studies. Among the awards he has received are the “Bharat Ratna” (the highest honour awarded by the President of India); the Agnelli International Prize in Ethics; the Edinburgh Medal; the Brazilian Ordem do Merito Cientifico; the Eisenhower Medal; Honorary Companion of Honour; the George C. Marshall Award; the National Humanities Medal; and the Nobel Prize in Economics. One of his most recognizable works is the “capability approach” theory which is now used widely in the field of political science, international development, and geography. Submitted by Hatim Jivanjee
Amarty Sen, An indian economist and Nobel price winner describes development as ' freedom'. that poverty or developing countries lack what is called freedom. For example the freedom of choosing clean water. Amartya Sen feels GDP is not the correct means of measuring but rather HDI( Human Development Index) is a correct means of measuring development and poverty as it coincides with his idea of development as freedom. ( Submitted by Sukaina Tejani)
Architecture of Participation
A term used by Mark Thompson in his article entitled ICT and Development Studies: Towards Development 2.0, it describes information and communication technology today. He argues that viewing ICT as a participatory platform in such a way allows us to understand the ways in which it affects the world both on and offline by creating and moderating conceptualizations of society.
(Submitted by Julianne Kelso)
The term encapsulates what Web 2.0 really is. It is a descriptive term that illustrates the usage and purpose of ICT. ICT is the means to which people can participate in the sharing and co creation of initiatives, ideas and information as a whole. (Submitted by Katarina Jabri)
Broadband
Broadband is a technology that uses a wide range of frequencies to enable the transmission of information at high speeds (uSwitch). In short, it’s a form of internet access.
I’m sure many of you remember the cringing sounds and sloth-like speeds of dial-up internet, where internet access was gained through a single band, travelling through the telephone lines. Broadband is basically the opposite of that. Instead of one band, it has “broadened” its horizons, and employs the use of numerous bands, each with a specific function (e.g. uploading, downloading).
Broadband can be found in the forms of ADSL (BT telephone line), cable (fibre optic cables), satellite, and mobile broadband (3G) (uSwitch). To learn more about those, click the uSwitch link.
(submitted by saman goudarzi)
The term broadband refers to the wide bandwidth characteristics of a transmission medium and its ability to transport multiple signals and traffic types simultaneously.Broadband is a relatively described manner, the greater the range of frequencies, which the higher bandwidth is, the information can be transmitted relatively increased. For example in radio communications, the relatively narrow frequency range of hearing can only send Morse code, it requires a large amount of bandwidth to deliver high-quality music. Broadband of TV represents of the TV antenna capable of receiving a large number of channels. In terms of data transfer, also based on the telephone line as a signal transmission medium, the current fiber-optic cable is becoming more and more common, the modem can only send 64K bytes of data per second, broadband ADSL and Fiber Modem can provide higher transmission rate.
As in the OECD Broadband statistics to December 2006, any internet connection which has transporting speed higher than 256Kbps, can be called as broadband. However, in 2010, the FCC definite broadband as any internet connection which has transporting speed higher than 4Mbps, in their Sixth Broadband Deployment Report. (July 2010)
(submitted by Xu Han)
The term broadband is simply using signals over a wide range of frequencies in high-capacity telecommunications, esp. as used for access to the Internet.
(submitted by Jannat Nain)
Capability approach (to development)
The Capability Approach is an alternative measurement of, and approach to, development. In contrast to the '"opulence focused (Income, Commodity Command) or Utilitarian (Happiness, Desire Fullfullment)" measurements of development/well-being, where development is measured by, and development projects are focused on ensuring, a person’s access to income or a certain level of happiness, the Capability Approach is "functionings and capabilities" focused, where development is defined by a person’s ability "achieve well-being" through their access to functioning and capabilities (Zheng 2011)." Functionings are defined as 'physical development commodities' while capabilities are defined as an individual’s 'ability to achieve"/ fully utilize said development physical development commodities (Zheng 2011). Example, a physical development commodity (functioning) for X woman would be to access an education (a school building, books, instructors) and her capability to achieve/ fully utilize this education would be determined by her gender role within the family (as a mother and a wife), her societies cultural rules regarding women in education, and her physical ability to access (walk to or even pay for) the education. Thus, according to the Capabilities Approach, development (ie achieving well-being), for this woman is both defined by her access to the physical commodities of development, as well as as societal, economic, political, and physical ability to utilize and take advantage of these commodities. Simply, this woman's ability to "achieve well-being" is defined by her ability to both access and fully utilizes development commodities.
However, according to the author of the CA theory, Amartya Sen not all peoples maintain the same "capabilities." Ie not all peoples maintain the same societal, economic, political, or physical abilities to utilize and take advantage of physical development commodities. For example, woman face gendered inequalities regarding their place in home rather than in schools, impoverished peoples are unable to access or pay for schooling, children affected by conflict (refugees) lack the stability or the recognition by foreign governments to access resources. In this way, the Capability Approach to Development is highly individualistic. As all peoples face differing and dynamic limitations to their capabilities, it therefore stands to reason that all development projects and assistance, if they truly aim to provide development, must be tailored to remove each individual’s personal limitations. Through the removal of these personal limitations to an individual’s capabilities, Sen argues that individuals will be able to "achieve well-being" and consequently development organizations will be able to provide for holistic development.
(Posted by Katie Ahern)
Amartya Sen believes that a means to measure inequality and for that matter measurment of development is through the capabilities approach. He belies that under development is actually the lack of freedom and choice. Amartya Sen believes that GDP is not the correct measure and emphasizes on measures such as HDI ( Human Development Index) for development ( submitted by Sukaina Tejani)
Cape Town Open Education Declaration
The Cape Town Open Education Declaration arises from a small but lively meeting convened in Cape Town in September 2007. The aim of this meeting was to accelerate efforts to promote open resources, technology and teaching practices in education. The first concrete outcome of this meeting is the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. It is at once a statement of principle, a statement of strategy and a statement of commitment. It is meant to spark dialogue, to inspire action and to help the open education movement grow (Chan).
(Submitted by Zigeng Huang)
To add on to Zigeng's Huang post, "the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the Shuttleworth Foundation convened a meeting in Cape Town to gather leading proponents of open education. The goal was to seek ways for these initiatives to deepen and accelerate their efforts through collaboration. The participants of the meeting concluded that releasing a declaration of shared vision and common strategies offered a concrete first step towards this kind of collaboration. They also hoped to extend the conversation and collaboration to others through this declaration."(capetowndeclaration.org) One might think with the name Cape Town, it would be an African initiative. That is not the case. This worldwide initiative was only named solely due to the location of the based headquarters.
(Submitted by Jason Pang)
Citizenship
In the West, Prof Bettina von Lieres thinks that the term citizenship is often understood very much as a legal issue. You are a citizen if you have a passport, and you are a citizen if you are a legal member of a state, nation-state. But in the Global South, there are many different understandings of citizenship, and in the Global South, you often have countries in which states are not responsive to the needs of citizens. In these contexts, citizenship is often more understood not so much as a legal issue, but as a struggle for rights, and in many contexts of the Global South, people talk about citizenship as a struggle for right to have rights. In the Global South, Citizenship is much more about a struggle to be acknowledged, a struggle to be seen, and the struggle for citizens to be included in society and in the state. In many countries of the Global South, citizens have to really mobilize, they have to act and make themselves visible to be recognized by the state.
Inherent in the notion of citizenship is the idea of struggle, citizenship is never something that is fully attained. Often in many countries, there are very democratic constitutions and on paper citizens are supposed to have rights. But the reality is often very different, and there is a big gap between the theory of citizenship and the actual practice and reality of citizenship. Even in countries in the Global South, in some middle-income countries where you have very democratic constitutions, for example in South Africa or India, where the constitution guarantees citizens’ rights, the reality is often very different and citizens have to really struggle to make some of those rights real. In the Global North and in Canada, for many marginalized communities, the rights have to been legal rights that people are supposed to have on paper are not really actualized in practice, where people live in poverty and marginalization. They do not live their lives as citizens as the legal frameworks promise.
(Submitted by Matthew Wang)
In the interview with Prof. Bettina von Lieres, a seasoned researcher on citizen engagement in the Global South, prof. von Lieres explains how the definition and meaning of citizenship is different in the West and the Global South.
In the West: there is a narrow definition of citizenship. It is defined as a legal issue, where you are considered a citizen if you have a passport and if you are a legal member of a nation state.
In the Global South: ( South and Central America, Africa, and Asia) there is a broader understandings of citizenship.
Countries are less responsive to the needs of citizens. Citizens must struggle and fight to obtain rights, to be acknowledged and to be included in the society and in the state. Rights are not assumed nor are they easily granted. Citizens must sometimes resort to public mobilization in order to communicate their opinions to the state. (submitted by: Anna Bermema)
Citizenship is defined to be a struggle for the right to have rights, where people of different nation states aspire to attain citizenship differently, as their definition differs. As the peers above have mentioned, citizenship is something that can never be fully attained, as there are often restrictions to certain "rights" although defined legally to be able to partake in certain activities. Gaventa (2006) implies that citizens are able to participate in democracy, regardless of the type of democracy the nation state is enrolled in.
Citizenship can also be defined through identity (Gaventa, 2006) such as those of gender, ethnicity, and within the community. The idea reinforcing belonging within a group, an identifier, allows individuals to be a part of a type of a 'family'.
By being empowered with the ability to engage in public discussions and contribute to solving joint problems (Gaventa, 2006, 18), Gaventa (2006) refers to citizenship in Latin America as a "crucial weapon in the struggle against social and economic exclusion and inequality but - most importantly - in the widening of dominant conceptions of politics itself" (24). This "weapon" of citizenship allows the people of the nation to be able to actively fight for their rights and other things that come with being a 'citizen'.
Gaveta, J. (2006). Triumph, deficit or contestation? Deepening the 'Deepening Democracy' debate. Institute of development studies. University of Sussex Brighton.
(Submitted by Mary Lee)
Commons-based Peer Production
Commons-based Peer Production refers to the virtual collaboration of passionate pool of individuals for the purpose of producing information. Such collaboration of several individuals can be attributed to spontaneity, not self-interest. Examples of Commons-based Peer production are Free and Open Source Software, Open Access and Wikipedia1.
Commons-based peer production has no incentives for the collaborators nor are the collaborators driven by mere self-interest. In Commons-based Peer Production, there is no central body to regulate or allocate collaboration. Therefore, it challenges the “traditional basis of hierarchical economic management”2. Commons-based Peer Production also challenges the self-interest assumption of neoliberal theories3.
1. From one of the assigned readings, by Michael A. Peters, Three Forms of Knowledge Economy, P.75, paragraph 3)
2. Michael A. Peters, Three Forms of Knowledge Economy, P.76)
3. Michael A. Peters, Three Forms of Knowledge Economy, P.75, paragraph 3)
(Submitted By Ketheesakumaran Navaratnam)
Yochai Benkler coined the term commons-based Peer Production to describes a new model of socio-economic production. It is based on sharing resources among widely distributed individuals who cooperate with each other. Yochai Benkler contrasts commons-based peer production with firm production and market based production, turns out it can be more efficient than the firms and markets.
(Submitted by Yuchao Zhang)
The Conservative’s Dilemma
Commonly referred to as the Dictator’s Dilemma, the Conservative's Dilemma - coined by media theorist Asa Briggs - refers to how those in positions of authority may respond to the introduction of media (Shirky, 2011). The word, conservative is used instead of dictator as this concept “applies not only to autocrats but also to democratic governments and to religious and business leaders” (Shirky, 2011).
The Conservative's Dilemma arises when a new medium is introduced. Those in power no longer have control over public discourse, as the dissemination of information “increase[s] public access to speech [and] assembly" (Shirky, 2011). Those who were previously unorganized are able to group together, express their grievances and expectations, suddenly holding those in power accountable (see shared awareness). The Conservative’s Dilemma suggests that authority figures have the option of controlling their citizens through propaganda or censorship. However, methods such as these also have opportunity costs, as political aspects often interrelate with aspects of apolitical life (also see the cute cat theory of digital activism). Shirky provides the example of shutting down the Internet - this action may “silence” the public,” but will also “risk radicalizing otherwise pro-regime citizens or harming the economy” (Shirky, 2011).
When it comes the Conservative's Dilemma, just remember that authority figures are not Hannah Montana - they can’t have the best of both worlds.
(submitted by saman goudarzi)
An example of conservative dilemma would be the South Korean teenage girls in 2008 protested against US beef imports. The discussion began on a website of a South Korean boy band, a rather apolitical platform. Having an online community amplified the second step of the 2-step process by allowing members to form political opinions through conversation. The two-step process proposes that mass media laone do not change people's minds. Opinions are first transmitted by media then get echoed by friends, family members, and colleagues. The second step is where political opinions are formed and activism takes place.
Conservative dilemma exists because political speech and apolitical speech are not mutually exclusive.
(Submitted by Raissa Chua)
Copyrights
Copyrights threatens the traditional civil liberties. Copyrights curtail individuals' freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of thought, intellectual freedom. The United States are active to expand and enforce copyrights through WIPO, TRIPS, regional and bi-lateral trade deals. Historically, when society was primarily an agricultural economy, the key ingredient to wealth and development was ownership and use of land. When society moved into an industrial era, the key to wealth and development shifted to ownership and use of capital. Now as we move into an information society, access to knowledge is the key factor for continued development and wealth on a personal and national level. Copyrights are also associated with capital, as copyrights are obtained by large companies to protect their profits.
(SUBMITTED BY XIAO MENG CHENG)
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other related rights. It is a form of intellectual property (like the patent, the trademark, and the trade secret) applicable to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete
(Submitted by Jannat Nain)
Creative Commons
Creative commons are free and easy to use copyright licences that enable legal sharing of ones work. These liscences gives anyone from individuals to large institutions simple and standard ways to keep a copyright on their work while allowing certain ("through rights reserved") or all uses of the work to be spread and easily obtained and shared. Creative commons allows for creative, educational, and scientific works to be instantly shared and used, anything from songs, videos, to academic works can be under a creative commons copyright.
(Submitted by Jason Zhao)
Creative Economy
The creative economy has replaced the traditional manufacturing sector in cities, as noticed from the increased prevalence of skyscrapers in the central business district (e.g. Toronto). Examples of creative employment include: skilled artisans, doctors, film makers, and computer engineers. Becoming a "Creative City" is important, as it attracts new people with knowledge and enhances their ability to communicate their knowledge to others in the city, and those outside (to attract them as well). An example of what the creative economy brings to the city is TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival). TIFF is an annual event that occurs in the city, celebrating film (which is a type of creativity) and also attracting others who appreciate this type of art to come into the city as well. The annual art festival Nuit Blanche is a celebration of art as well.
There are 40 million workers (30% of the entire workforce, worldwide) that is part of the creative class. The creative economy is crucial in attracting further investment in infrastructure and research and development.
(Submitted by Mary Lee)
The creative economy emphasises the creative industries and institutions as an overlap, producing cultural goods and services as a rapidly growing and key component of the new global knowledge economy. It refers to those the industries and institutions that couples with the collective resources of creativity, skill and talent that have strong potential for the generation of wealth and job creation through the development and utilization of intellectual property.(Peters, Michael A.) (Submitted by Jason Pang)
Cute Cat of Digital Activism:
This is a theory regarding internet activism, web censorship and popular online activity (meant by the term cute cat) This theory coined by Ethan Zukerman in 2008 states that people are not interested in using the internet for activism, but rather for surfing the internet for pornography and "cute cats,"
(Submitted by Cera Ramnaraine)
Beside what Cera Ramnaraine has explained, in this theory, it use cute cat as an example for any low-value, but popular online activity(Ethan Z,2008). And these lolcat images are often shared through the same networks used by online activists, such as Facebook, Blogger and Twitter, which are very used to social movement activists. This also makes the activists more immune to reprisals by governments than if they were using a dedicated activism platform, because shutting down a popular public platform provokes a larger public outcry than shutting down an obscure one.
According to Ethan Z, internet censorship is different in the People’s Republic of China, which is self-censored. It can blocking access to Western sites.
(Submitted by Xu Han)
The cute cat theory is based on the fact that most people are not interested in activism; instead, they want to use the web for mundane activities. The tools that they develop for that (such as Facebook, Flickr, Blogger, Twitter, and similar platforms) are very useful to social movement activists, who may lack resources to develop dedicated tools themselves. This, in turn, makes the activists more immune to reprisals by governments than if they were using a dedicated activism platform, because shutting down a popular public platform provokes a larger public outcry than shutting down an obscure one]
(submitted by Jannat Nain)
Credentialism
Referred to in the Week 10: Open Education and Development lecture, Leslie deemed credentialism to be a series of qualifications that come attached to an individual through increased knowledge, education, and a competitive advantage. Credentials refer to qualifications and degrees (e.g., University, College) with the knowledge they have attained from continuing education. Credentialism places an emphasis on competition, as the more credentials an individual has, the more they are worth. This contributes to the human capital theory, as the more education someone has, the more likely they are to be hired, and therefore have more economic means.
Investing on education leads to credentials, and credentials are related to the the perception of capability and knowledge.
(Submitted by Mary Lee)
Credentialism is an one of the main characteristics of our current education system, as well as of the economic market. As Mary said, the more credentials you have the more valuable you are in the labour market. In order to reach to the stage of Education 3.0, where there is collaborative, equitable and engaged learning, there has to be a delinking from credentialism in the system, and a shift from the focus on credentials/degrees competition, towards a conception of education as an increase of skills, access to opportunities and the foundation of economic and social well-being.
(Submitted by Denisse Albornoz)
Development 2.0
According to Mark Thompson, a 'Development 2.0' view of participation calls for a radically different conception of agency that acknowledges the considerable power of Information Communication Technology-enabled social networks to transform the dynamics of group interaction.
(Submitted by Matthew Wang)
According to Thompson, Development 2.0 calls for an increase in participation in the planning and execution of developmental programs. Development becomes reflexive in a social and political sense. Inclusion is an aspect of participation that exists in Development 2.0. (Submitted by Katarina Jabri)
According to Thompson, Development 2.0 is an emerging concept, “development of a set of aims and definitive features that characterize Development 2.0,as well as ―empirical examples of attempts to introduce Web 2.0 models to serve developmental aim”.Development 2.0 refers to new ICT-enabled models that can transform the processes and structures of development. (Submitted by Junhua Tan)
Development 2.0 is the youth-led future of development is a project management platform with social network components which allows for peer-to-peer based project realization.Many young people in developing countries are making efforts to make poverty history one day in the near future. They want change to make a positive difference in their world.
(submitted by Jannat Nain)
Digital Activism
Digital activism is the use of the internet, social media, blogs, podcasts, or various ICT technologies in general to enable fast and efficient communications. These communications are usually used for citizen movements, organizing, or fundraising. An example of digital activism is the spread of the viral 'KONY2012' video. This video was spread very fast and became viral through the use of social media and allowed for a large citizen movement towards fundraising and showing support for 'Invisible Children' to fight against Joseph Kony. (invisiblechildren.com/kony)
(Submitted by Jason Zhao)
Morsi's blog that looked at digital activism in post revolutionary Egypt, defined digital activism as the link between political activism and social media. He argued that the uprising in Egypt cannot be reduced to these social media tools that helped facilitate change. Thus, digital activism in this context was the "catalyst" to the uprising, not a complete explanation of the events that occurred.
(Submitted by Katarina Jabri)
Digital Activism, is the use of electronic communication technologies, most prominently social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube etc, in order to enable faster and more efficent communications by citizens and or citizen movements. It also aids in the delivery of information to a large audience. Digital activism can play an important role in changing policy, aiding in development, and making citizen voices heard. People who understand the issues surrouding them, but may not have the opportunity to participate in mainstream media often look to collaborate with others through a variety of ways. Digital activism provides the opportunity for people to discuss, colloborate, and raise important issues in their everday life. In addtion Hani Morsi adds, that digital activism is an important tool for political activism. They go hand in hand. Submitted by Hatim Jivanjee
According to Hani Morsi, Digital activism is exactly what the egyptian rulers underestimated. the power of technology, the social network, ICT. Digital activism is in simple words activism via the means of ICT. Digital Activism played a major role in the Egypt Revolution and caused a huge dilemma in Tahiri Square where many gathered all via the means of digital activism. Digital Activism is the use of media by citizens as a method of promoting Social, Economical, Political or environmental change. ( Submitted by Sukaina Tejani)
Digital Colonization
A term coined by Richard Stallman. 'The use a non-free program is not development, is Digital Colonization.' When a non-free software is introduced to your society, nobody is in a position to understand it, maintain it, adapt it, extend it or do anything with it. It's just like the old colonial system. People just have to buy the non-free software and are not supposed to understand anything, they don't even know how to fix it. It's a secret the programmers hide inside and this is not sustainable development at all. This system is keeping people helpless and don't allow them to collaborate.
(Submitted by Kevin,Jian #997056830)
It is based on the concept that communication technologies virtually eliminate the need for a costly physical insurgence. It is by subtle insinuation and careful marketing that a culture or society is “technologized.
(submitted by Jannat Nain)
Digital Divide
A digital divide refers to the concept of accessibility (or lack thereof) to ICT amongst groups such as nations, communities, individuals, etc. Factors that affect a digital divide include inequality and geographical location (Chan, Leslie Lecture 2). A broad example of a digital divide can be seen in an example of business being done between two people, one in the USA and one in Kenya. The two will likely do business through the internet. Because the internet and communication speed in the USA is likely to be faster and more efficient than the one in Kenya, these two individuals are likely to experience a digital divide due to the differences in accessibility to ICT and wealth. The digital divide affects people's ability to learn and thrive and further widens the class gap where the rich become richer and the poor become poorer (Read).
(Submitted by: Naseem Khan)
Digital Divide, generally refers to gap that exists between those who have access to information and communication technologies and those who don't thus reflecting the socio-economic disparity that exists in the networked information society and economy especially in a global scale. (Submitted by Wairimu Njeri)
“Digital Divide” refers to the gap between those who can benefit from digital technology and those who cannot. ”Closing the Digital Divide” therefore means more than just giving the poor the same technologies already received by the rich. Closing the Divide involves restructuring the telecommunications sectors in each nation so that broadband’s benefits can flow to the masses, not just the elite urban sectors of emerging markets.
(submitted by Jannat Nain)
Distributed Truth Engine
According to Hani Morsi, a Distributed Truth Engine is an analogical term to distributed systems in computing, where multiple machines communicate with each other over a network to achieve a common goal.
(Submitted by Matthew Wang)
Hani Morsi described the "Distributed Truth Engine" to be a system of computing where the function is not processed by the centre of the engine but simply distributes the jobs to be completed efficiently across. This makes it easier to break down computational tasks that are more manageable for smaller machines, rather than a main processor. This relates to the idea where small local processes contribute to a global effort in making a difference.
(Submitted by Mary Lee)
The above definitions are correct but are missing the critical point of the term, which is that the "distributed truth engine" is a network of users who are able to create an objective "truth" that is an alternative to media and news sources that are biased by political or corporate interests. The idea is that a group of people linked together in a horizontal network with no central authority or biasing influence will be able to create more reliable, objective reporting of events such as the revolution in Egypt.
(Submitted by Julianne Kelso)
According to Hani Morsi distributed truth Engine is in relation to social media. It is when citizens come together and share information via the media (social sites such as facebook etc) or as Hani Morsi puts it “ computationally” . Hani Morsi uses the example of Egyptian revolution, where in order to get the truth, people could no longer rely on news channels, news papers etc. and thus turned towards social networks and peoples contributions on the web. ( submitted by Sukaina Tejani)
Education 3.0: Characterized by rich, cross-institutional, cross-cultural educational opportunities within which the learners themselves play a major role as creators of knowledge artifacts that are shared and, where social networking and social benefits outside the immediate scope of activity play a strong role.
Three aspects of Education 3.0 are of particular importance. Firstly, there is the role of students in making choices of a different kind than are available today. Secondly, the concept of students as producers of reusable learning content is vital which is available in abundance under licenses that permit the free sharing and creation of derivative works. Thirdly, institutional arrangements permit the accreditation of learning achieved, not just of courses taught.
(Submitted by Matthew Wang)
Characteristics of education 3.0 (Keats, 2007):
-Orchestrator of collaborative knowledge creation
-Free/open educational resources created and reused by students across multiple institutions, disciplines, nations, supplemented by original materials created for them
-Open, flexible learning activities that focus on creating room for student creativity; social networking outside traditional boundaries of discipline, institution, nation
-Loose institutional affiliations and relations; entry of new institutions that provide higher education services; regional and institutional boundaries breakdown
-Active, strong sense of ownership of own education, co-creation of resources and opportunities, active choice
-E-learning driven from the perspective of personal distributed learning environments; consisting of a portfolio of applications
(Submitted by Zigeng Huang)
3 important aspects of Education 3.0 (Keats,2007):
1st, the role of students in making choices of a different kind than are available today
2nd, the concept of students as producers of reusable learning content is vital which is available in abundance under licenses that permit the free sharing and creation of derivative works.
3rd, institutional arrangements permit the accreditation of learning achieved
(Submitted by Junhua Tan)
Enclosure of the Commons
This term refers to the restriction of access within the internet through copyrights. The term, “the commons” in this context refers to the public domain in which resources are pooled together by internet users from around the world. Essentially, these pools of resources (also known as intellectual commons) are being closed up more and more by maximalist US policies (i.e. copyright laws). This is considered to be an example of new-colonialism, in the sense that corporations are locking up knowledge and turning it into private goods that can be sold in the market. What used to be readily available to the public, is now much more difficult to attain.
(Submitted by Jenna Davis)
Environmental View of Internet Freedom
In contrast with the instrumental view of internet freedom, the environmental view has the central base that the "public sphere is where public opinion relies on media and conversation" (Shirky 2011). Shirky deems it to be more promising as a way to think about social media by focusing on long-term tools that "strengthen civil society and the public sphere" (Shirky 2011). Positive changes in the life of a country follow the development of a strong public sphere. Support, maintenance, sustainability, and long term goals are all themes of this approach/viewpoint.
(Submitted by Katarina Jabri)
To further describe the definition above, the environmental view emphasizes access to information is far less important, politically, than access to conversation - "the public sphere." Furthermore, this public sphere is more likely to emerge in a society as a result of people's dissatisfaction in the government than from their embrace of abstract political ideas.
(Submitted by Raissa Chua)
Fritz Machlup
Machlup wrote the "Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States". He listed reasons on the importance of studying the economics of knowledge. Some of the reasons were that knowledge was connected strongly with an increase in economic development and productivity. He also emphasized the connection knowledge has with the creation of new information and with communication technologies. He held the view that although knowledge, and its production, could have potentially high costs initially, its investment would eventually pay off in a large way. (Chan, Lecture 2 Notes)
(SUBMITTED BY KATARINA JABRI)
Fritz Machlup was an Australian American economist and was the first the first economist to examine knowledge as a resource, infact Machlup calls knowledge " A commodity" and had published volumes of ' Knowledge, its creation, distribution and economic significance'
Machlup listed a number of reasons for studying the economics of knowledge :
1) Knowledge increases share of nations budget
2) Knowledge social benefits which exceed private benefits
3) Knowledge is strongly associated with increases in productivity and economic growth.
4) Knowledge linkages to new information and communication technologies
5) Shift of Demand from physical to brain workers.
6) Improving and adjusting the national income accounting in the U.S
One of the most important things said was " Producing knowledge will mean not only discovering, inventing , designing and planning but also DISSEMINATE and COMMUNICATION"
Machlup had also talked about the costs of knowledge ( giving us both pros and cons of knowledge) but in the end Machlup aimed to remind government and the people that costs associated with knowledge is an investment that is worth it. ( SUBMITTED BY Sukaina Tejani)
Machlup said that the reason as to why the US was so advanced compared to other others is because they invest money into research and development, rather than only infrastructure. More money into research and development equals to better knowledge, which is why US is home to many renowned universities such as Harvard. It should also be noted that Machlup stated that these investments have high Payoffs, however they are not traditionally listed in the economic calculation of the country's GDP. (Chan, Lecture 2)
(Submitted by Cera Ramnaraine)
Global Ranking of Universities
Universities are often ranked in the world by the amount of publications they produce in journals. This means that the reputation of universities (according to these ranking schemes) depends on their contributions to private, for-profit publishing companies. This reinforces the oligopoly of large conglomerates over knowledge and information.
(submitted by Julianne Kelso)
"The Global Ranking Of Universities" refers to a Western, and thus skewed, ranking analysis for Universities. This analysis is "Western" in so much as the quality of a University is based on criteria that is (currently) solely obtainable and maintainable by Western, wealthy academic institutions. For example, universities receive higher international rankings, the more they publish in "for-profit" journals. Given both the lack of accessible research dollars in the Global South and further, the common exclusion of Southern scholars from journals on grounds of insufficient evidence or scientific rigor, these journals become dominated by Western scholars and Western research. The exclusion of Southern scholars from scholarly journals, leads to a concentration of Western publications in international journals, and consequently a concentration of Western universities at the top of global university rankings. As Western Universities gain, and maintain their high rankings, they receive larger research grants/dollars, and are able to publish more. In this way, the Global Ranking of Universities is cyclical and reinforcing; their high ranking a result of, as well as enabling, their greater journal publications. This analysis is therefore "skewed" in so much as it over represents and over rewards Western Universities at the expense of Southern Universities.
(Posted by Katie Ahern)
Globalization
The definition of globalization is very diverse, and can differentiate depending on who it is viewed by. United Nation’s definition of globalization seems most fitted with this course of knowledge and communication for development. It refers to an increasing interaction across national boundaries surrounding the economic, social, and political aspects of life, with prominence on the role of information and communication technologies.
(Submitted by Justine Geroche)
Globalization is also a characteristic of the network society we live in. Coexistence and Collaboration are central to this concept.
Globalization considers not just the physical but also the spatio-temporal processes that enable transformation.(Submitted by Lu Chen)
Globalization refers to the continuous expansion of global linkages, development and the rise of global awareness of human interaction on a global scale. Globalization makes the world close interdependent between countries in the political, economic and trade. The globalization also can be interpreted as compression of communities on the global world as a whole.
It is very difficult to measures the benefits of globalization or disadvantages. Powerful or weak countries, big or small countries may benefit from globalization, however are also likely to have negative impacts from globalization. Globalization defeated the traditional Chinese culture, but also a rapid rise from globalization. The raised of the British Empire from globalization is also fading globalization. Right now the United States is the biggest benefit of globalization country; however, now it shows a coldly tendency of globalization, which the United States started to feel the cost of globalization. (Submitted by Yupeng Chen)
Globalization is the name for the process of increasing the connectivity and interdependence of the world’s markets and businesses. This process has speeded up dramatically in the last two decades as technological advances make it easier for people to travel, communicate, and do business internationally. Two major recent driving forces of globalization are advances in telecommunications infrastructure and the rise of ICT and the internet. In general, as economies become more connected to other economies they have increase opportunity but also increased competition. There are pro-globalization and anti-globalization advocates, both with different views. The pro-globalization lobby argues that globalization brings about much increased opportunities for almost everyone, and increased competition is a good thing since it makes agents of production more efficent. The two most prominent pro-globalization organizations are the World trade Organization, and the World economic Forum. The anti-globalization group argues that certain groups of people who are deprived in terms of resources are not currently capable of functioning within the increased competitive pressure that will be brought about by allowing their economies to be more connected to the rest of the world. Submitted by Hatim Jivanjee
Globalization is a trend toward countries joining together economically, through education, society and politics, and viewing themselves not only through their national identity but also as part of the world as a whole. Globalization is said to bring people of all nations closer together, especially through a common medium like the economy or the Internet.
(submitted by Jannat Nain)
HTML
HTML is short for Hyper Text Markup Language, and is the authoring language used to create and set-up 'pages' on the World Wide Web. Through HTML the structure and layout of a Web document can be created. For example, All the information you'd like to include in your Web page fits in between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags, so you'd start the HTML document like so:<HTML><HEAD>( and enter in between what you want o appear on the page)<BODY> and end the page with </BODY></HTML>.
A HTML file has the filename extension ".html". however, in most of the out-of-dated operating system (e.g. DOS), filename extension is maximized in 3 english characters, therefore, ".htm" is also authoring.
Early HTML rules was not defined rigorously, this caused some problem in network publishing. Though web browsers are designed to display various HTML grammar. As time passed, the official standard made strict definitions for HTML grammar. Using XML strict rules of XHTML is a W3C planned HTML replacement. Although a lot o people think that is has become the current HTML standard, but XML is actully an independent and HTML paralled Language. The W3C now suggest using XHTML 1.1, XHTML 1.0 or HTML.2.01 standards for website design. However, more and more web sites turned to "HTML5" ,which as know as the newest coding standard (e.g. Google.)
(Submitted by Yun Zhong)
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
This is a standard that allows for browsers on the web and different servers to communicate. It is built on top of of the TCP/IP. These two protocols are functions to the Network layer and Transport later respectively that are used for the function of web browsers. Specifically the HTTP is a set of rules used by computers to read HTML.
(Submitted by Connor McCauley)
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. It is a generic, stateless, protocol which can be used for many tasks beyond its use for hypertext, such as name servers and distributed object management systems, through extension of its request methods, error codes and headers.
(submitted by Jannat Nain)
Human Capital Theory:
The view that people are worth investing in as a form of capital, people's performance and their results achieved can be considered as a return of investment and assessed in terms of cost and benefits.
(Submitted by: Cera Ramnaraine)
Personal incomes may vary according to the amount invested in human capital, which is education or training. A further expectation is that investment in human capital creates a skill based labour force indespensable for economic growth.
(Submitted by Jason Zhao)
The core thesis of human capital theory is that peoples’ learning capacities are comparable to other natural resources involved in the production process; when the resource is effectively exploited the results are profitable both for the enterprise and for society as a whole.
(Submitted by DongLiang Wang)
ICT4D
ICT4D stands for International Communication Technology for Development and emphasizes openness to decision making processes to more people (via democracy and participation), opening up organizations (via transparency and accountability) and opening people and processes. The basis of ICT4D is on egalitarianism and sharing. By providing universal access to communication tools and information, participation in informal and formal groups and institutions and collaborative production of information, cultural content, and physical goods, it takes into consideration of people and human choices (policy decisions and institutional arrangements) to include more people in access.
Openness is not attained by opening up properties or public goods but the opening up of information and the ability to actively engage in decision making.
(Submitted by Mary Lee)
"instrumental" approach to Internet freedom
The "instrumental" approach to Internet freedom concentrates on preventing states from partaking in Internet censorship. This approach focuses only secondarily on public speech by citizens and least of all on private or social uses of digital media. According to Clay Shirkly in The political power of social media: technology, the public sphere, and political change, this approach to Internet freedom underestimates the ability for citizens to communicate between each other locally and underestimates their ability to locally coordinate through text messages or private messaging software.
(Submitted by Jason Zhao)
The "instrumental" approach also overestimated the broadcast media while underestimating the value that allows people to communicate privately amongst themselves. And overestimating the importance of computers while underestimating the importance of simpler devices such as cellphones.(Shirkly)
(Submitted by Jason Pang)
Industrial information economy
Industrial information economy is a term coined by Harvard University Professor Yochai Benkler. Benkler discusses this the term is in-depth in his book The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom.
Industrial information economy is the first form of information economy and has existed since the late-nineteenth century and into the twentieth-century (Benkler 2006, p. 3). Recently, industrial information economy evolved into a new form known as networked information economy with the advent of the Internet (Benkler 2003, pp. 1250–1251).
It represents one in which consumers are passive, as opposed to the networked information economy in which consumers are active often to the point of equally being producers (either in terms of creativity or by allowing usage of their idle processing, storage or bandwidth). In addition, industrial information economy promoted the dominance of the mega-corporation, and created passive workers who had no control over what they produced or consumed.
(Submitted by DongLiang Wang)
Intellectual Property Rights
IPRs are a bundle of “rights”: the right to control, the right to extra benefits, the right to transfer or sell and the right to exclude. Intellectual Property Rights are generally private but new knowledge must be publicly disclosed. This is in contrast to traditional knowledge, which generally is community based, but no claim to ownership). IPRs provide a “temporary exception to free competition to allow exploitation of specific creation of human ingenuity.
(Submitted by Matthew Wang)
Intellectual Property Rights can be easily mixed up with the traditional form of property rights. The traditional form of property refers to real estate or other personal tangible belongings that are more absolute in their grants to owners. Intellectual Property Rights encourages further contribution from other people for the ultimate benefit of all society. Intellectual property is intended to have ownership 'holes', to be imperfect in its control.
(SUBMITTED BY XIAO MENG CHENG)
Intellectual Property rights complicate the process of making knowledge publicly accessible. Especially with regards to copyrights and royalties placed on scholarly literature, which means that the authors of journal articles and the journals themselves (as publishers) restrict access to only those whom can afford to pay a subscription fee, as we see in university libraries. A broader implication is that by consequence people who are wealthy have access to a scholarly material and those who cannot afford do not. Intellectual property 'rights', gives rights to the owner and publisher of the article on the basis of monetary value. This can be linked to the uneven flow of information between universities in the global south ( financially poor and by consequence thought to be intellectually poor) and global north (financially wealthy and by consequence intellectually rich), as was illustrated under the global ranking of universities. We can see how these concepts all interrelate.
(Submitted by Mina)
Internet Freedom
Internet freedom, as stated by U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in 2010, is the freedom to access information, produce one's own public media, and converse with one another. It all means preventing states from censoring certain websites and online social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, the New York Times etc. In essence, it is the opposite of "internet censorship" and its goal is that everyone in the world who has access to the internet should be able to take advantage of the full bounty of what the internet contains. Also as stated in Clay Shirker's article "A slowly developing public sphere, where public opinion relies on both media and conversation, is the core of the environmental view of Internet freedom."
Shirky, C. (2011). The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign affairs, 90(1), 28.
(Submitted by Anika Ahmed)
Internet Service Provider (ISP)
An Internet Service Provider (ISP) is an organization that provides access to the internet. ISPs can be either community owned non-profit or privately owned for-profit. They supplies internet connectivity to home and business customers. ISPs directly connect clients to the internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. They support one or more forms of internet access, ranging from traditional modern dial-up to DSL and cable modern broadband service to dedicated T1.T3 lines.
(submitted by Shan Yu)
Interoperability
Interoperability is understood to be a technical practice of ensuring that different computing systems can communicate and that diverse digital objects could be easily exchanged and retrieved through a common protocol. Interoperability is particularly important, as common-based production has been spreading rapidly across the various knowledge domains, from software to scholarly publications to educational materials (Chan, 2008).
(Submitted by Justine Geroche)
Interoperability is the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together (inter-operate). The term is often used in a technical systems engineering sense, or alternatively in a broad sense, taking into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system to system performance.
(submitted by Jannat Nain)
"The Knockoff Economy"
This is the title of a book that was written by and Kal Raustiala, a law professor at UCLA, and Chris Sprigman. The Knockoff economy refers to an economic system, driven by the copying/imitation of goods and services. Some examples of industries that have mostly benefited from the copying and remixing of ideas are fashion, food and music. Raustiala and Sprigman claim that in such industries, the knockoff economy increases both innovation and production within these industries.
Although, there is a distinction between knockoffs and counterfeits: Knockoffs are legal, whereas counterfeits are not. Let’s say a dress was originally designed by Dior, then Forever 21 saw the dress, replicated/remixed it, and sold it to their customers as their own (a Forever 21 dress). That dress would then be a knockoff Dior dress, as it copy’s Dior’s design but is being sold as something else. However, if they replicated Dior’s dresses and then sold it claiming that it was a Dior dress, it would be a fake Dior dress, or in other words counterfeit, which is illegal.
(Submitted by Jenna Davis)
This term is related to intellectual property rights, in that the reason why companies invest in patents is so that they may sue any imitators of their brand, thereby adding to the authenticity value of their products and moreover allowing them to control and maintain a monopoly on a given style or idea, so that they may earn top dollars as the 'original', rather than allowing other to share and therefore discouraging innovation. Similar to the uneven access of information to the global south because of intellectual property rights (monetary fees) to access scholarly material from the global north, which undoubtedly hinders innovation at the academic level.
(Submitted by Mina)
Knowledge
Merriam-Webster define knowledge as:
a (1) : the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2) : acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique
b (1) : the fact or condition of being aware of something (2) : the range of one's information or understanding <answered to the best of my knowledge>
c : the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning : cognition
d : the fact or condition of having information or of being learned <a person of unusual knowledge>
(Submitted by Khadija Othman)
Knowledge is: to represent reality in thought or experience the way it really is on the basis of adequate grounds. (J.P Moreland)
( submitted by Sukaina Tejani)
Knowledge Commons:
There are two broad definitions of Knowledge commons: a social and technical aspect.
- Social definition: refers to the conceptual spaces where the boundaries between different kinds of knowledge is diminished-- lowering the barriers to knowledge and share knowledge- far more innovations and participatory spaces.
- Technical definition: non exclusive, the internet is agnostic to applications (Very open), non proprietary (no one owns the protocols)-- anyone can build applications using common standards.
(Submitted by: Cera Ramnaraine)
Knowledge as a Public Good
This terms refers to the idea of open access of knowledge that is available to everyone without social or economic barriers. It refers to sharing knowledge as a "public good" without there being a major corporation that benefits from it, as Benkler discussed. An example of this term is PLOS journal, an open access journal available without costly subscriptions. However many journals still require costly subscriptions as discussed in the Youtube video by Shockey and Eisen, despite not playing a role in the research done. They simply host the material and get money from doing so. These types of journals and high costs threatens open access as only a select few are able to access these journals (Chan et al.).
The importance of public knowledge is discussed by Professor Mary Abukutsa Onyango where she expresses the importance of this knowledge on the future of Africa. She says that public information is necessary to solve the problems Africa faces of malnutrition, poverty, etc. She was able to educate the farmers with her research on the importance of nutrition and farming techniques but she has faced problems in getting her research published in the scientific community because it was not internationally relevant. Rather she published it in Kenyan open access journals where it would be relevant and accessible to farmers but still not internationally published and recognized.
(Submitted by Naseem Khan)
Knowledge Economy
This is an economy driven by an intellectual capital. Seen in many developed countries as a large portion of economic activity. This activity is based off of intangible goods such as communication and thinking. It is the economy that is run off of production, distribution and application of knowledge not shown on a balance sheet but rather the building blocks that lead to the creation of that sheet. It is the science and technology that builds the final products rather than the labour of human resources.
For example in tough economic times the Philippine economy survived through their largely knowledge based economy. According to "Next 500 Corporations", an economic journal, the Philippine economy sent over 8 million workers abroad who's skills were needed in other countries and between the years 2005-2006 made over 12 billion dollars. They used their knowledge and resource to produce and distribute workers for application where they were needed. -Submitted by Connor McCauley
Learning Economy
The term was coined by a Swedish Economist, Bengt-Ake Lundvall, who used the term to discuss technological change, innovation and institutional learning in relation to its effects on the field of education and universities, as well as the implications they can have for the economy. In the words of the author, linking education and schooling to national innovation. He used it in the context of the innovation of European policies.
According to him, the capacity to learn of individuals will determine their position against firms and national systems. To illustrate this concept he brings up the growing polarization of the labour market in Europe. The gap between top and bottom jobs is coming as a result of a higher usage of technology and computerization that supports abstract jobs, which are mainly performed by the top section of the labour market. By abstract he means: tasks that can only be performed by humans: solving problems, developing and testing hypotheses, managing others, etc. Learning how to use technology to support these tasks, exponentially increases their access to better paid positions. Therefore, it is crucial within the learning economy to be constantly learning in order to be up to date with the acceleration in the rate of change of markets.
The feasibility and sustainability of a learning economy, relies mainly in the adequate distribution of capabilities to learn. "Innovation is crucial to economic competitiveness and learning is crucial to innovation". Firms and employees must therefore strive to acquire new skills and competencies, in order for their knowledge not to become obsolete, while the national system must provide them with the tools and services necessary to acquire this knowledge in the first place.
(submitted by Denisse Albornoz)
Manuel Castells
"New technology is not sufficient but necessary condition for the kind of society we live in." Manuel Castells is a sociologist whose ideas about the network society rose to prominence during the 1980s-1990s. He believed the post-industrialized society would be a network society, which would greatly affect the way societies are organized and how policies are made. Castells saw a "social shaping of technology." He did not believe change in society could be solely explained by introduction of a new kind of technology, a "technological deterministic thinking" that centered on a cause-and-effect explanation. Rather, he saw the network society as a more complex interplay between technology and society both influencing one another with no direct causation. This complex relationship between social behaviour and the kind of technology introduced is a popular theory today about the evolution of the network society.
Submitted by Raissa Chua
Manuel Castells teaches both Sociology and City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. His theory on the current network society (described above), is one that emphasizes networks as being interconnected and selective (competition and cooperation show the selectivity of this new network society we live in). They are evolutionary, in that they are adaptive and change at a rapid rate. This concept can be applied to various aspects of society, including economics and politics, which Castells uses as examples to illustrate the concept. New technology is described by him as being the necessary foundation for the network society to exist. (Castells, 151-157)
(SUBMITTED BY KATARINA JABRI)
Narrow Casting
The opposite of broadcasting, "narrowcasting" is the distribution of knowledge through narrow channels based on communities of shared opinion or interest. Popularized by the list-serv model in the early days of the Internet (in which people connected through mailing lists designed for users of specific groups or to discuss particular topics), narrowcasting is commonly seen throughout the Internet today, as people form communities and direct their postings on social media, blogs, and websites towards an audience with similar views. This has led to what some perceive as a move away from Habermas's notion of a public discursive arena in which people with different opinions share ideas and interact to form a democracy. As people increasingly use individualized search engines and access mostly websites that share their own political and social perspectives, they become stuck in a loop of information created by like-minded individuals and are thus less likely to be exposed to altering views.
(Submitted by Julianne Kelso)
Network
A Network is an instrument of cooperation and competition with other networks and cooperation within the network, in which every node needs the other node for the function of the network. (Castells 153). Networks have advantages and diadvantages, the advantage is decentralizing activity in a flexible manner, but the disadvantage is that networks are not very good at coordinating, centralizing the decision making and allocating resources to one particular purpose (Castells 153) submitted by Brittany Yard)
Networked Information Economy
Michael A Peters writes, “The emergence of the global networked information economy made possible by increasingly cheaper processors linked as a pervasive network has created an information economy based on the production of information and culture that enables social and nonmarket or peer-to-peer production and exchange to play a, perhaps even, the central role.” In other words, these days’ people are able to share information online in a way like never before. It is free for them to share their knowledge with the rest of the world, through websites like Wikipedia, for example, where they create and edit pages based on information they have acquired.
Further, Yochai Benkler argues “no individual actor (person or corporation) can exercise control over the totality, and allows individuals to ‘build their own window on the world’ and to invent the pathways, the sequences, the topics and the logic of performance that determines the next.” This means, together, people around the globe can work, as the title suggests, in a network, to create and distribute information. There is not a particular person who claims control of the information distributed; rather the economy works together as a whole to distribute information.
All of these four definitions converge at two points, information and cognition. What we can derive from this definition, then, is that one gains knowledge upon receiving information and understanding it. In relation to this week’s discussion we see that knowledge can not only be 'discovered, invented, designed and planned' but, according to Machlup (slide 5:week2) information must also be 'disseminated and communicated' for it to be considered knowledge. Therefore, knowledge is information that is produced and shared after having been cognitively reasoned/apprehended as truth.
It is important to consider whether knowledge must be universal for it to be knowledge, which would also beg the question of 'universal truth'.
Castells (2000) discusses knowledge and information as two separate entities that "can be introduced in a technological system to create a positive feedback loop of knowledge and information, transforming it into a virtuous circle that expands by itself." (page 3) Here the difference between a information society and network society is highlighted; we see that where the information society was more concerned with knowledge production from one source or one group of sources, a network society engages in horizontal form of knowledge production. Chan (2012), in his lecture, gives the example of the information society doing things such as individuals producing journals and selling them back to universities. Nowadays knowledge production, and most certainly its distribution, is a lot easier - simply at the click of a button.
The conclusion here is that knowledge and information is crucial to the development and advancement of all societies, because knowledge is reinvested and evolves into knew knowledge or is passed on to future generations.
Network Society
It is an emerging society in which we live in, where technology is an inextractable dimension, which have led to the social transformation. It is centrally organized around new information, communication, technologies, which have enabled, rather than technologically determined, extraordinary changes in the social structure. It creates more flexible and adaptable forms of activity in the economy, society, politics and culture (Castells, 151). Submitted by Brittany Yard
( Submitted by Sukaina Tejani) :Networks have always existed but network society has completely evolved these past few years because of technology. Networks have always been perfect for family, relationships and communities but not for complex centralized tasks however now technology has changed the strength of society networks .'They now allow us at the same time to centralize execution and coordinate the decision making. because networks with the new information and communication technologies are able to interact casually,to adjust in real time and to manage all degrees of complexity within the logic of network' ( Castells 153)
The New Economy: it is a new economy based on three characteristics. The first, it is an economy in which value generation, productivity and competitiveness are essentially dependent on knowledge and information. Information and knowledge have always been important for an economy but it’s the new technology that allows a positive feedback loop of information that expands itself (example: the Wikipedia example prof talked about in the orientation video, how wiki just expanded by itself). Second, it is a global economy. The whole planet doesn’t have the same economy, it means that key activities like the global financial market are organized in multinational ancillary (of second importance, helping) networks. Third, it is not based on companies, governments, or the state; however these are the networks units. The operating unit is the network that is organized in a particular business project to implement the particular strategic design. It is a flexible economy that can allocate resources, move around and transform itself. The two major consequences are it eliminates labour relationships, this flexibility is taking away the core of the industrial relation system and industrial society (ex: stable long term jobs). The second is the valuation of the company’s performance on the global market (stocks, rather than actual paper money) (Castells 153-154) Submitted by Brittany Yard.
Non-rivalrous
It is a property of knowledge, which refers to the idea that one’s consumption of knowledge and goods are not affected by other’s consumption of the same knowledge and goods.
( Submitted by Ketheesakumaran Navaratnam)
Non-excludable
non-excludable means that the utility of goods and services will no be diminished by sharing with many other people; and none paying customers can not be excluded from public goods and services.
(submitted by Lu Chen)
Open Access: is free, immediate, availability of research articles with full re-use rights. This is about making all scientific research content available for anyone wherever they are in the world, to read and access and build upon so people can do interesting things in new ways with the materials. The idea is to make the research literature more valuable. The history of the model is that publishing scientific manuscripts was expensive if you wanted your article distributed widely, you sent it to a journal.
(Submitted by Matthew Wang)
Open Courseware: web-based publication of course content, including readings, course outline, exercises, and so forth. People do not necessarily need to take them for credit. The Open Courseware movement were started by MIT, and followed by a lot of institutions translating course materials into different languages.
(Submitted by Zigeng Huang)
Open Education Resources: According to UNESCO, Open Education Resources is defined as technology-enabled, open provision of educational resources for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes (Wiley 2007). Examples include MIT's Open Courseware.
OERs can be used to create a better trained, more flexible global workforce for the 21st century. Imagine what our global economy will look like when the estimated 90% or more of earth's inhabitants currently locked out of post-secondary education and job training opportunities finally get a far shot, and what happens when we can finally start matching curricula to the changing employer needs? (Daniel and Killion 2012).
(Submitted by Matthew Wang)
Examples of OERs (Chan):
-MIT Open Courseware
-Curriki
-OER Commons
-Connexions
-KHAN Academy
-Athabasca University
-African Virtual University
-OER Africa
(Submitted by Zigeng Huang)
Patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property. A patent is a legal document that gives rights of an invention solely to the inventor in exchange for the government to sell that invention for a period of time. It is essentially a contract between the inventor and the government where the inventor's invention is protected from others potentially stealing or copying the invention and gives the government disclosure of it who then disclose the invention to the public (Canadian Intellectual Property Office).
Gross challenges this notion where she argues that "community rights" should triumph over "individual rights" in information and knowledge sharing. She explains that privatization and legality of knowledge is preventing the public from accessing knowledge, something that is key to the growth and prosperity of society. She quotes the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights where humans are free "to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" (Gross 18) and this should not be limited by the internet (Gross 19).
Gross, Robin D. "Tragedy of the Commons”: Intellectual Property Rights in the Information Age. The Threat to Civil Liberties and Innovation Posed by Expanding Copyrights." MIT Press (2006): 1-19.
"What is a patent? - Canadian Intellectual Property Office." Canadian Intellectual Property Office.
http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/wr01400.html.
(Submitted by Naseem Khan)
A patent is a property right for an invention granted by a government to the inventor. A United States patent gives inventors the right “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling their invention throughout the United States or importing their invention into the United States” for a limited time.
(submitted by Jannat Nain)
Post-Industrial Age
Describes the “transformation of Western capitalism, (and society),” after WWII, where there's an emphasis on the production and consumption of knowledge (Peters, 68). Where the industrial age is characterized by the physical production of tangible goods, the post-industrial age is characterized by innovation, and the production of non-tangible goods and services (Chan, Lecture 2). The post-industrial age is “organized around (ICTs)” (Castells, 156) and relies heavily on knowledge. Examples of such goods are scientific journals. Examples of such services include jobs in the banking, health and education industries (Chan).
Castells uses this term interchangeably with the “contemporary network society” and suggests this transformation has been enabled, rather than caused, by emerging ICTs (Castells, 151).
Malchup's concepts of the contributions of knowledge and technological growth to the GNP were derived from his observations of post-industrial USA (Chan, Lecture 2).
(submitted by saman goudarzi)
Public Domain
The public domain is a place in which work is available to the public and is openly accessible to anyone without any types of intellectual property claims. Gross notes that anything made before 1923 belonged in the public domain thus could be accessed, copy and used freely without any legal action from the invention (Gross 3). She talks about the significance of the public domain, especially regarding the expansion of culture and art in society. She states that without this public domain, we would not see all of the freely available art we get to see everyday, like musicians in the park or public school teachings of classic writers and music composers. Elimination of the public domain, as stated by Gross, would hurt our chances as a society of growing culturally and experiencing this art that is freely available to us (Gross 14).
Gross, Robin D. "Tragedy of the Commons”: Intellectual Property Rights in the Information Age. The Threat to Civil Liberties andInnovation Posed by Expanding Copyrights." MIT Press (2006): 1-19.
(Submitted by: Naseem Khan)
Public Sphere
The public sphere is an area where citizens can come together to freely discuss societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. In Democratic governments, these areas often exist because in these governments, political action is typically driven by the public sphere and the wants of the citizens.
(Submitted by Jason Zhao)
This is known as participatory democracy where members of a private sphere (households) may collaborate with other private spheres in order to accomplish a common goal with the hope of changing policy. This collective action may be the result of a social capital, where citizens unite in order to change the status quo in their favour. This collective action of the public sphere is likely to happen using ICT and social media (Shirky), as seen in the current group projects that this class is working on.
(Submitted by Naseem Khan)
Hani Morsi spoke of public sphere, in light of having an arena that united Egyptians of all classes/demographics, to voice their needs, and all push for change. The emergence of this new public sphere would require unity, in order for the expression to be derivative of assorted members of society.
Shirky's article also made the point that public sphere is where public opinion depends on media and communication.
(Submitted by Katarina Jabri)
A strong and unified public sphere is seen as the precondition for political change and revolution. It is only through the communal identification of issues, and further the communal acknowledgement of the need for change within a community, society, or state, that "revolution" can occur. In this way, the public sphere is seen as the arena or the space utilized by citizens to, through conversation, identify their issues, and discuss the need for change. However, it is worth noting that underlying this definition of the public sphere, specifically underlying the claim that a strong public sphere is the precondition for political change, is the assumption that this public space is free and open to all peoples. That is, this definition assumes that all peoples have access to the public sphere, and further have the freedom to converse and enjoy dialogue and debate within this space. However, as evident in many countries, the public sphere is often threatened by violence or gendered based exclusions, or is captured by government and industry elites and their propaganda. For example, the violent capture of public space in Pakistan by the Taliban. Thus, what is needed in this definition is a caveat; that while a strong public sphere is the precondition for political change and revolution, access to this public sphere is a precondition for a strong public sphere. In this way, there may need to be a revolution in order to open up these political spaces, before people can begin to converse and address their broader sociopolitical and economic issues.
(Posted by Katie Ahern)
A discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment in a democracy.
(submitted by Jannat Nain)
Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) is a joint initiative between Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! NASA,and the World Bank. The objective is to bring together subject matter experts around disaster management and crisis response with volunteer software developers and designers in order to create solutions that have an impact in the field.
(submitted by DongLiang Wang)
RHoK is unique in the space of “apps competitions”, “hackathons” and “technology for social good”. RHoK’s model is to start from identifying, defining and refining problem definitions provided by subject matter experts and local stakeholders. This ensures that volunteer time is focused on solving real problems for real people.
(submitted by Kevin Jian)
Richard Stallman/The four software freedoms
0. Freedom to run the program as you wish.
1. Freedom to study the source code of the program and then change it so the program does what you wish.
2. Freedom to help your neighbour. That’s the freedom to redistribute the exact copies of the software when you wish.
3. Freedom to contribute to your community. That’s the freedom to distribute copies or modified versions when you wish.
(submitted by DongLiang Wang)
The four software freedoms is the definition of the free software which is written by Richard Stallman, whoc is the founder of the free software movement. Free software is the software which is unrestricted, freely to use, copy, study, modify and distribute the software. Relative to the free software is Proprietary Software, non-free software, often referred to as proprietary software, closed software (which is defined unrelated whether charges, free software is not necessarily free software).
If a user of the software has the rights of these four, the software can be called "free software". Which means the users must be able to freely, no charge or charge for a reasonable distribution costs, and then distribute the software's original or revised version at any time, to anyone anywhere. If the user does not have to ask anyone or pay any licensing fees to engage in these behaviors, then she / he has the right of freedom conferred by the free software.
(submitted by Xu Han)
Shared Awareness
Shirky's article speaks of social media as being exemplars of shared awareness, in that it unites a common awareness through the use of social media forms. Participants of a social media-driven movement, for example, would share an awareness of the movement and what it entails.
(Submitted by Katarina Jabri)
Shared awareness indicates that members of a group knows what is currently happening and also that members of a group are also aware that all members of the group are aware of what is currently happening. Shirky indicates in the article that social media makes everyone in a local area (or a group) to share an important information much faster due to the speed and the advancement of technologies such as the internet. Shared awareness can only be achieved when there is a 'public sphere' in our society. 'public sphere' allows people in the same region to share a common information/news and thus everyone in the group will possess the shared information that everyone in the group knows. Shirky states that shared awareness will create 'the dictator's dilemma', or also be known as 'the conservative dilemma"
(submitted by XIAO MENG CHENG)
"Slacktivism"
This term refers to individuals who participate in activism, but their level of activism is minimal. The activities they participate in are low-cost activities (Shirky, 2011). These activities may be as simple as joining a Facebook group that pertains to certain activism (Shirky, 2011). This shows casual participants that are committing to a cause, but barely committing at the same time.
Shirky, C. (2011). The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign affairs,90(1), 28.
(Submitted by Mary Lee).
Participants who engage in "slacktivism" would seek the goal of social change (Shirky, 2011), but through low-cost activities. Another example of this would be creating a mural that depicts a particular cause, and letting that be the extent of your involvement towards helping that cause.
(Submitted by Katarina Jabri)
Slacktivism refers to casual participants who seek social change through low-cost activities. Criticism lies in the belief that this activity is short of any useful action. In other words, people cannot "click their way to a better world" (Shirky, 2011). However, this does not undermine the use of social media. Recent protest movements have used social media not as a replacement for real-world action but as a way to coordinate it; this approach has led to several revolutionary events.
(Submitted by Raissa Chua)
As was alluded to by Hani Morsi, Slactivism in the context of the Egyptian uprisings can be thought of as the distinction between virtual activism and physical activism on the streets. Hani mentions that when the Egyptian government restricted access to certain social media sites, and government sites the citizens who could not get dependable information were pouring out onto the streets. In other words if people could not participate in slactivism (online activism) or if by participating in slactivism they were not getting the kind of information they deemed legitimate to further their cause, they were on the streets participating in physical activism. This challenges the asumption that people cannot use the convenience of social media at fingertip reach to change their societies. If anything this slactivism and the very convenience behind it has allowed people to connect like never before.
(submitted by Mina Waziri)
Simply put, it is the act of participating in obviously pointless activites as an ecpedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem.
(submitted by Jannat Nain)
Technological Determinism
Technological determinism refers to a belief that technology is one of the most influential forces in a society's development is technology. Technological determinism states that information technology is the force behind social change, the way society acts and thinks, and social progress. Through technological innovations, society inevitably professes and there is no force that can delay the progress of technology. (Posted by Jason Zhao)
Technological Determinism posits that technology, specifically communication and network technologies drive societal and economic development. Specifically, Technological Determinism argues that a country’s economic and social development is dependent upon that country’s use AND production of “networking technologies (Castells 2000)”**. For example, X country’s financial development (i.e. access to foreign capital investment) is both dependent upon the country’s participation within the Global Stock Market, and the country’s production of open capital markets (i.e. the removal of capital barriers such as limits on portfolio capital inflows). Alternatively, if the X country does not involve itself within the Global Stock Market and further does not open its capital markets, Technological Determinism posits that the country will not develop (will not gain access to foreign capital investment). In this way, a country’s use and production of networking technologies is both "necessary and sufficient" for economic and social development (Castells, 2000). However, Castells contends this strict definition of technological determinism; countering that while a country’s use and production of technology is an important aspect of its development, technological use does not solely determine a country’s development. Geoffrey Garret, in his article “The Causes of Globalization,” defines this criticism further, arguing that technology is only deterministic in specific markets. That is, networking technologies are ONLY necessary and sufficient for development in specific markets; Garrett arguing that technology only determines development fully in financial markets (Garrett, 2000). See his article here, for more. However, while the degree of dependency between networking technologies and development is debated, technological determinism, as a theory, defines a linear relationship between a country’s technological use and production, and its development.
**For this definition, networking technologies are defined as those technologies that facilitate a country's entrance into markets and political arenas, and further facilitates their communication with other actors in these spaces (firms, citizens, states, governments) through economic, social, or political means (stock markets, social media forums, webcasted international panels).
Sources: Garrett, Geoffrey. "The Causes of Globalization." August, September 2000.
Manuel, Castells. "The Contours of the Network Society." April, 2000.
(Posted by Katie Ahern)
"The Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism"
There are different ways to use digital social media outlets to broadcast messages and organize political and economic coordination. The tools that have been designed to tackle state censorship is simple to remove from the internet (Shirky, 2011) but the sites that have been designed to, for example, post pictures of "cute cats" on are harder to shut down or censor. This is because these tools are used by a large portion of the population and is difficult to manage as compared to sites that have direct political objectives.
Shirky, C. (2011). The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign affairs, 90(1), 28.
(Submitted by Mary Lee).
--
In the article by Clay Shirky, he states that if the government were to shut down online tools made for opposing official policy and defeating state censorship - such as a proxy server - it would be politically easy for the them to do so, however if they were to attempt to shut down a broader social media tool (that can be used to impact politics) - the kind that allows one to share photos of cats - i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc. it would have a much harder time doing so because it would mean garnering the negative attention of citizens who were otherwise apoltical actors. This phrase was coined by Ethan Zuckerman of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. For this reason it is better for the state to invest in social media to promote self-governance, than it is to oppose it and try to shut it down.
Shirky, C. (2011). The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign affairs, 90(1), 28.
(Submitted by Anika Ahmed)
TRIPS
The full name is called 'Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. when someone is engaging in crimimal activities related to commercial infringement, they can be sent to prison. Therefore, it is a governing agreement that protects interllectual property rights and copyrights
(SUBMITTED BY XIAO MENG CHENG)
Furthermore, TRIPS poses serious threats in the Global South as it limits the access to information and resources. An example would be the decline in affordable generic anti-retroviral medication, as the patent on the drug requires producers to purchase a license from the patent holder –making it very costly for those suffering from HIV/AIDS in the Global South (Birn, Holtz & Pillay, 2009).
(Submitted by Kirthika)
Birn, A., Holtz, T., & Pillay, Y. (2009). Textbook of International Health: Global Health in a Dynamic World. New York: Oxford University Press.
View of Internet Freedom
In January 2010, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton outlined how the US would promote several kinds of Internet freedom. She defined Internet freedom as:
1. Freedom to access information (eg. ability to use Wikipedia and Google in places like Iran)
2. Freedom of ordinary citizens to produce their own public media (eg. such as blogs and websites)
3. Freedom of citizens to converse with one another
The problem with this view of internet freedom is that it is primarily an "instrumental" view. It overestimates the value of broadcast media while underestimating the value of tools for local coordination (such as cell phones). Shirky believes in a reorder of the State Department's internet freedom goals to put more emphasis on general support for local public speech and assembly by:
1. securing freedom of personal and social communication among a state's population
2. securing individual citizens' ability to speak in public
Shirky believes a strong civil society is a more important goal of internet freedom rather than access to websites such as google or youtube.
(Submitted by Raissa Chua)
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol):
Technology that allows the user to use the broadband internet connection to make phone calls. There are many advantages in using VoIP, one advantage being that the cost is very cheap to use it, international calls for example are cheap to make.
(Submitted by Cera Ramnaraine)
Web 2.0
According to the Thompson article, "ICT and Development Studies: Towards Development 2.0", Web 2.0 is the expression of current open, collaborative logic, uniting the ICT. In other words, it is the networked architecture of ICT. This network enables social expectations and behaviours that can result from its usage/operation.
Tim O'Reilly defines it as, "network as a platform, spanning all connected devices". He says that when it is applied, those who make use of the platform's advantages, engage fully in this architecture of participation. It delivers rich user experiences, and facilitates a two-way interaction. ICT offers the opportunity to generate/mediate/moderate a particular conception of what social life is. The focus is shifted from delivery to cocreation, emphasizing involvement of people increasingly.
(Submitted by Katarina Jabri)
enlist users as participants and producers at least some of the time: they move from consuming content, watching and listening, to sharing, rating, ranking, amending, adding. A public sector which just treats people as consumers—even well treated ones—will miss this dimension of participation which is at the heart of the most successful organisational models emerging from the interactive, two-way internet, known as Web 2.0 (Leadbeater and Cottam, 2007).
(Submitted By Yuchao Zhang)
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
Development of a framework for the promotion and protection of IP at the international level. It broadens the participation of developing countries through the use of WIPOnet, participating in global policy formulation, and settles disputes like domain name assignment.
Yochai Benkler
Yochai Benkler is author of “Wealth of Nations.” Yochai Benkler looks at non-market based, commons based, peer production. Challenging conventional market views such as the idea that price is determined by supply and demand. He examines cases in the network and virtual world and argues that movements have developed that are providing open access information without monetary compensation because there is alternative self interests. He sees the Internet as a public space that can be utilized to develop a society in which access and distribution of information is possible. For example Wikipedia is being co-produced by people around the world, not necessarily due to market motives. (Submitted by Kirthika Umasuthan)
Benkler is a law professor who uses collaborative projects to illustrate how humans organize information now. His focus is on the shift from traditional laws that have become outdated (e.g. copyright laws), towards new economic laws that allow individuals to feel as if they are equally important in their participation, as their larger "industry giants" are. (Chan).
(SUBMITTED BY KATARINA JABRI)
The knowledge commons encompass immaterial and collectively owned goods in the information age. Normatively loaded, it promotes free share of knowledge. Since the modern commons' resource is information, the tragedy of the commons has no effect within the knowledge commons—information does not depreciate when being shared with others. Author Clay Shirky cites Wikipedia.org as an example of the successful mining of the knowledge commons in his book Here Comes Everybody. In 2012, the concept was discussed at the First Thematic Conference on the Knowledge Commons by the International Association for the Study of the Commons.
(submitted by DongLiang Wang)
Comments (5)
Ketheesakumaran Navaratnam said
at 11:35 pm on Sep 22, 2012
If anyone interested in reading on Commons-based Peer Production, refer to this link:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/papers/jopp_235.pdf
Becky Hillyer said
at 7:33 am on Sep 28, 2012
Hi Everyone, I just wanted to re-emphasize the message that Leslie recently sent out about the Glossary. Please see the message below:
Thanks to everyone who has contributed a definition or more. I would like to encourage others to join in, and to help edit and clean up some of the existing entries.
I would like to trouble those of you who put in an entry already to go back and put your name at the end of the entry, in the form of (Submitted by Your Name), as in the case of the Web 2.0 examples.
Some of the entries are obviously better than others. If you had put in a definition earlier, you may wish to revisit and update it while adding your name.
Anyone willing to put the entries in alphabetical order?
Thank you !!!
rabia said
at 10:33 pm on Oct 3, 2012
I'll arrange it in alphabetical order. :)
Danielle Phan said
at 10:39 pm on Oct 3, 2012
I've already took care of that :)
rabia said
at 10:35 pm on Oct 3, 2012
Oh wait, its already arranged. My bad lol.
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