[WSIS Edu] Texto de la Sociedad Civil

[Meigs]

Chers membres de la liste
J'ai été silencieuse ces derniers temps, par excès de travail suite au
Sommet de Tunis. Veuillez m'en excuser, je reprendrai plus activement la
liste l'année prochaine... Je participe à la rédaction du texte final de la
société civile et je vous transmets ci-dessous le texte de la déclaration de
la société civile, en ce qui concerne nos sujets (culture, savoir,
éducation). N'hésitez pas à me signaler des manques avant la finalisation du
document.

Bonnes fêtes
Divina

Dear members of the list
I have kept silent over the last few weeks, being extremely busy after
Tunis. Please accept my apologies. I'll be more active again on the list
next year. I have been participating in the draft of the civil society
document. Please find below the current text of the declaration of civil
society concerning our issues. Let me know if you feel some aspects are
missing, so that i can finalize.

Merry celebrations for the new year
Divina

Estimados colegas

Por favor perdonad mi silencio estas ultimas semanas, debido a mucho trabajo
retrasado desde el final de la Cumbre. Volvere a activar la lista el ano que
viene para ver a donde vamos. He participado a la redaccion del documento
final de la sociedad civil. Ahi teneis la ultima version de la declaracion
de la sociedad civil, por lo que toca a nuestros problemas. Si hay algo que
anadir or cambiar, por favor decidmelo pronto para finalizar ya el
documento.

Felices fiestas
Divina


El texto:

Culture, Knowledge, and the Public Domain

Each generation of humankind is depending upon its predecessors to leave
them with a liveable, sustainable and stable environment. The environment we
were discussing throughout the WSIS is the public domain of global
knowledge. Like our planet with its natural resources, that domain is the
heritage of all humankind and the reservoir from which new knowledge is
created. Limited monopolies, such as copyrights and patents were originally
conceived as tools to serve that public domain of global knowledge to the
benefit of humankind. Whenever society grants monopolies, a delicate balance
must be struck: Careless monopolization will make our heritage unavailable
to most people, to the detriment of all.

It has become quite clear that this balance has been upset by the interests
of the rights-holding industry as well as the digitalization of knowledge.
Humankind now has the power to instantaneously share knowledge in real-time,
without loss, and at almost no costs. Civil Society has worked hard to
defend that ability for all of humankind.

Free Software is an integral part of this ability: Software is the cultural
technique and most important regulator of the digital age. Access to it
determines who may participate in a digital world. While in the Geneva
phase, WSIS has recognised the importance of Free Software, it has not acted
upon that declaration and fallen behind it in the Tunis phase. In the Tunis
Commitment, Free Software is presented as a software model next to
proprietary software, but paragraph 29 reiterates ³the importance of
proprietary software in the markets of the countries.² This ignores that a
proprietary software market is always striving towards dependency and
monopolization, both of which are detrimental to economy and development as
a whole. Proprietary software is under exclusive control of and to the
benefit of its proprietor. Furthermore: Proprietary software is often
written in modern sweat-shops for the benefit of developed economies, which
are subsidized at the expense of developing and least-developed countries in
this way. 

While WSIS has somewhat recognised the importance of free and open source
software, it has not asserted the significance of this choice for
development. It is silent on other issues like open content (which goes
beyond open access to academic publications), new open telecom paradigms and
community-owned infrastructure as important development enablers.

The WSIS process has failed to introduce cultural and linguistic diversity
as a cross-cutting issue in the information society. The information society
and its core elements - knowledge, information, communication and the
information and communication technologies (ICT) together with related rules
and standards - are cultural concepts and expressions. Accordingly,
culturally defined approaches, protocols, proceedings and obligations have
to be respected and culturally appropriate applications developed and
promoted. In order to foster and promote cultural diversity it must be
ensured that no one has to be mere recipient of Western knowledge and
treatment. Therefore development of such cultural elements of the
Information Society must involve strong participation of all cultural
communities. The WSIS has failed to recognize the need for developing
knowledge resources to shift the current lack of diversity, to move from the
dominant paradigm of over-developed nations and cultures to the need for
being open to learning and seeing differently.

Indigenous Peoples, further to self-determination and pursuant to their
traditional and customary laws, protocols, rules and regulations, oral and
written, provide for the access, use, application and dissemination of
traditional and cultural knowledge, oral histories, folklore and related
customs and practices. WSIS has failed to protect these from exploitation,
misuse and appropriation by third parties. As a result, the traditional
knowledge, oral histories, folklore and related customs, practices and
representations have been and continue to be exploited by both informal and
formal (being copyright, trademark and patent) means, with no benefits to
the rightful Indigenous holders of that knowledge.

Education, Research, and Practice

If we want future generations to understand the real basis of our digital
age, freedom has to be preserved for the knowledge of humankind: Free
Software, open courseware and free educational as well as scientific
resources empower people to take their life into their own hands. If not,
they will become only users and consumers of information technologies,
instead of active participants and well informed citizens in the information
society. Each generation has a choice to make: Schooling of the mind and
creativity, or product schooling? Most unfortunately, the WSIS has shown a
significant tendency towards the latter.

We are happy that universities, museums, archives, libraries have been
recognized by WSIS as playing an important role as public institutions and
with the community of researchers and academics. Unfortunately, telecenters
are missing in the WSIS documents. Community informatics, social
informatics, telecenters and human resources like computer professionals,
and the training of these, have to be promoted, so that ICT serve training
and not training serves ICT. Thus special attention must be paid to
supporting sustainable capacity building with specific focus on research and
skills development. In order to tackle development contexts training should
have a sociological focus too and not be entirely technologically framed.

Problems of access, regulation, diversity and efficiency require attention
to power relations both in the field of ICT policy-making and in the
everyday uses of ICT. Academic research should play a pivotal role in
evaluating whether ICT meet and serve the individuals¹ and the public's
multiple needs and interests - as workers, women, migrants, racial, ethnic
and sexual minorities, among others - across very uneven information
societies in the world. Furthermore, because power relations and social
orientations are often embedded in the very designs of ICT, researchers
should be sensitive to the diverse and multiple needs of the public in the
technological design of ICT. Similarly, educators at all levels should be
empowered to develop curricula that provide or contribute to training to
people not only as workers and consumers using ICT, but also the basic
science and engineering of ICT, participatory design of ICT by communities
with computing professionals, in the critical assessment of ICT, the
institutional and social contexts of their development and implementation,
as well as their creative uses for active citizenship. Young people - given
their large numbers, particularly in developing countries, and enthusiasm
and expertise in the use of ICTs - remain to be an untapped resource as
initiators of peer-to-peer learning projects at the community and school
levels. These issues have largely been ignored by WSIS.

The actors that need to be involved in the process of making this vision a
reality are the professionals and researchers, the students and their
families, the support services and human resources of the resources centres,
politicians at all levels, social organizations and NGOs, but also the
private sector. However, in the teaching profession, it is necessary to
recognize and accept the need for learning and evolution with regards to
ICT. 

We emphasize the special role that the computing, information science, and
engineering professions have in helping to shape the information society to
meet human needs.  Their education must encourage socially-responsible
practices in the design, implementation, and operation of ICT. The larger
information society has an equally important and corresponding role to play
by participating in the design of ICT. We, therefore, encourage increased
cooperation between the computing, information science, and engineering
professions and end-users of ICTs, particularly communities.

We furthermore have repeatedly underlined the unique role of ICT in
socio-economic development and in promoting the fulfilment of
internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the
Millennium Declaration. This is not least true in the reference to access to
information and universal primary education. To secure the fulfilment of
these goals, it is of key importance that the issue of ICT as tools for
improvement of education is also incorporated in the broader development
strategies at both national and international levels.