[WSIS Edu] IGF workshops & panels & Edu Patents
Dr. Francis MUGUET
muguet at ensta.fr
Sat Sep 9 20:39:00 BST 2006
Dear friends
I/ IGF workshops
II/ IGF panelists
III/ Edu patents
I/ I am in a much better shape, and I am recovering
from my sacrum veterbrae fracture.
We missed the deadline
of a joint (WSIS-EDU , WSIS-SI ) proposal for the IGF.
I am glad that Divina is back from her
"incommunicada" status.
Part of the fault lies with the IGF organizers.
The very idea of a deadline on August 24 was really
not a bright idea by IGF organizers who are thinking
more in terms of their own little practical convenience
instead striving to be inclusive convenors.
The end result of this silly deadline was to be expected :
there are currently only 35 proposals, when
the IGF SEcretariat has
stated that they have room for about 30 workshops.
It is not a healthy situation.
When such a situation occurs, not really good proposals
stand to be approved,
a responsible conference
organizer extends the deadline.
It is not an uncommoun situation with scientific conferences.
It is rather disheartening to read WS proposals quoting
recommendations that are the result of the hard work
of activists who were unable to send their own
proposals in time. The Forum is becoming neither
inclusive nor legitimate.
Since some of you are neither on the plenary list
or the governance list, let me quote some of the posts
on those lists/
Some were rightly concerned
>
> 34 proposals in total -- I wished there's been a few more, but
> understand the difficulties involved in putting togther a proposal.
The difficulties have been built on purpose, according to some.
My understanding is that the online submission process with its many
conditions had a chilling effect on grassroot proposals
Some ( that of course have sent a proposal ) are happy :
> The number 34 is a good one, if you ask me. The IGF SEcretariat has
> stated that they have room for about 30 workshops. Less need to fight
> over who gets in, eh?
It is a pity that our joint proposal could be not be submitted in time.
On the governance list Vittorio Bertola posted
an interesting suggestion
> Hello,
>
> I was thinking a little on the matter of workshops and specifically of a
> couple of points that I already posted in a previous message:
>
> 1) There are workshop proposals that are interesting but imbalanced (ie
> the proposers are not a multistakeholder group, the proposed
> presentation only covers some of the points of view, etc.)
>
> 2) There are issues that are hot and everyone would expect them to see
> discussed, but no workshop proposals were made on them - the two
> examples I made were net neutrality (if I didn't miss anything) and
> trusted computing.
>
> One possible solution that I imagine is to create a different type of
> event, an "open room event" where one of the free workshop slots (or
> even half of it, this could be a shorter event) is allocated to one of
> the missing or not-fully-covered issues, one moderator is appointed to
> introduce the matter and manage the event, and then you have a free
> discussion from the floor. This could be a sort of "top-down" event
> scheduled by the AG to fill the gaps, in cooperation with people that
> volunteer (or are kindly asked) to be the moderator. It could be useful
> to expand the coverage of the IGF in terms of issues, and avoid the
> problem of having to accept incomplete proposals not to leave the matter
> uncovered.
>
> What do you think? I guess that the AG could discuss this idea at the
> forthcoming meeting.
I believe it is a very interesting suggestion that we should support
and suggest to the next MAG meeting.
It is our only chance that
education could be heard at the IGF meeting.
The Open Events could be the place for more spontaenous and
open discussions.
I suggest that the deadline of those mini-workshops in the Open Events
could be at the end of September.
What does the WSIS-EDU group think ?
If the WSIS-EDU group support this idea, I might
propose to other groups, before proposing it to the
plenary list.
Some other points to restore "health" in the IGF process:
People in the MAG that are authors of proposals should be disqualified
to vote on their own proposal.
II/ IGF panelists :
Avri Doria, both coordinator of the IG caucus and a
consultant to the IGF recently posted on the IG list :
> <I am on contract to the IGF secretariat this week. This email is related to that task.>
>
> Hi,
>
> For the past few days, Markus has been in the process of collecting recommendations for potential panelists
>for the main sessions of the Athens meeting.
I was not aware of this, and it is not indicated on the IGF web site
Not very transparent process...
> As he was going through the list, he noticed that there were few known civil society names on the list.
Oh, what a surprise !!! ..so dear... really ;-) !
> He suggested including the names of those who had been nominated to the MAG but not chosen
>for the MAG to the list of potential panelists. I thought this was a
good idea since
>these people had been chosen by our nomcom for participation in the IGF.
>
> Creating this list of possible panelists is part of an ongoing process and
>advisory group members are expected to make their own additons to the
list at the meeting.
>Please feel free to send further good suggestions for panelists on
the main themes
>of Openness, Security, Diversity and Access to the CS colleagues in
the MAG.
>
> Note: The full list of recommended panelists still needs to be discussed by the
>advisory group and choices will be made later - so being included on
the list
>is only a first step in the selection process.
It is therefore suggested that the WSIS-EDU group might suggest directly
to Kummer the names of a few panelists.
--
------------------------
III/ Edu patents
Points of concern concerning Openness that could have been
discusssed at the IGF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc.
After the announcement of the lawsuit against Desire2Learn, some in the
elearning community felt that the patent award ignored prior art on
elearning and distance education and started a Wikipedia page, History
of virtual learning environments, and a Moodle Docs wiki page, Online
Learning History, to document the extant examples of course management
systems.
Because of concern over the patent claims, some in the elearning
community protested by calling for a boycott of Blackboard. See, for
example, BoycottBlackboard.org. A web site against education patents,
with a lot of information about the patent has been created:
Noedupatents.org.
http://www.boycottblackboard.org/
http://noedupatents.org/
Currently the biggest problem facing us is Blackboard and their US
Patent #6,988,138(external link), along with the many related patents
that Blackboard is taking out in countries around the world. These
patents were announced by Blackboard (external link) on 26th July, 2006.
These patents cover 44 different features that make up a Learning
Management System (also known as a Course Management System or Virtual
Learning Environment). Here are those claims in plain English(external
link), in our wiki.
Shareholders of Blackboard_Inc :
" * Oak Hill Capital Partners (Robert Bass)
* Microsoft Corporation
* Pearson Education (a subsidiary of Pearson PLC)
* The Carlyle Group
* Morgan Stanley
* Waddell and Reed
* Sandler Capital Management
* Federated Investors"
Best regards
Francis
--
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Francis F. MUGUET KNIS/ENSTA
Pôle de Développement pour l'Information Scientifique
"Réseaux de la Connaissance et Société de l'Information"
Scientific Information Development Laboratory
"Knowledge Networks & Information Society" (KNIS)
ENSTA
32 Blvd Victor 75739 PARIS cedex FRANCE
Phone: (33)1 45 52 60 19 Fax: (33)1 45 52 52 82
muguet at ensta.fr http://www.ensta.fr/~muguet
mirror http://www.muguet.org
MDPI Foundation Open Access Journals
Associate Publisher
http://www.mdpi.org http://www.mdpi.net
muguet at mdpi.org muguet at mdpi.net
World Summit On the Information Society (WSIS)
Civil Society Working Groups
Scientific Information : http://www.wsis-si.org chair
Patents & Copyrights : http://www.wsis-pct.org co-chair
Financing Mechanismns : http://www.wsis-finance.org web
UNMSP project : http://www.unmsp.org
WTIS initiative: http://www.wtis.org
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