Center For Information Policy Research

News and Upcoming Events

 

 

 

CIPR Assistant Director Dick Kawooya Announces: Copyright & Education in Africa: Launch of the ACA2K Network

As the global community marks World Intellectual Property Day 2008 (26 April), an eight-country African research network is being launched with a mandate to investigate the relationship between copyright and education in African countries.

The network, called the African Copyright & Access to Knowledge network (ACA2K network) , is a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda, supported by a team of international advisors.

Between now and early 2010, the ACA2K team will gather research evidence, and engage with policymakers, in an effort to ensure maximum use of copyright law flexibilities that have the potential to increase learning materials access in the study countries. Access to both digital and hard-copy resources will be probed.

The ACA2K network comes out of the access to knowledge (A2K) paradigm within the intellectual property field – a paradigm which regards the protection and promotion of user access as a central objective of copyright law. The A2K approach seeks an appropriate balance between the rights of content users and the rights of the content rights-holders, with particular attention to the types of balancing necessary in developing country contexts. Elements of this approach connect with the World Intellectual Property Day focus on "encouraging creativity," from a clear developing world perspective.

The eight initial study countries have been chosen to provide a wide range of African contexts, in terms of legal, linguistic, cultural and historical experiences/traditions.

The ACA2K network also has a clear focus on the opportunities and challenges offered by the digital, Internet era – in which there are greater opportunities for learning materials access, but also new technological, legal and behavioural barriers.

Over the next two years, ACA2K researchers in each of the eight study countries will investigate the "copyright environment" (policies, laws, regulations, practices, perceptions) in their respective countries in relation to access to learning materials by their countries' learning communities, with a particular emphasis on tertiary university learning environments.

Of central concern to the network is to find out which copyright law flexibilities are being deployed in each of the study countries, and the effects these flexibilities have in these countries. Examples of important possible flexibilities are legal exceptions, limitations and regulations that cater for:

  • use of learning materials in teaching, research, learning
  • distance education
  • adaptation and use of learning materials by the sensory-disabled
  • local-language translations of learning materials
  • affordable local pricing of materials

Also of concern to the network are the gender dynamics at play in the national copyright environments and at play in the realities of access to learning materials, both digital and hard-copy.

After the completion of the country studies, there will then be a comparative review of the findings across all of the countries, and presentation of research findings and policy recommendations through a National Policy Dialogue Seminar in each country.

The ACA2K network is supported by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and South Africa's Shuttleworth Foundation, and managed through the LINK Centre, Wits University, Johannesburg.

The network held a Methodology Workshop in Johannesburg in January 2008, and has just finalised a Methodology Guide. The Guide is the roadmap for the project's research and policy engagement activities between now and early 2010.

The ACA2K Methodology Guide and other information on the project can be found at the ACA2K's website: www.aca2k.org .

 

 

 

2008-09 Information Ethics Fellows Named!

 

Rafael Capurro
Nancy Kranich

Dennis Ocholla

Jeremy Hunsinger
Annette Markham

 

Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual Music Culture, was chosen as Book of the Month at the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies. CIPR Director Elizabeth Buchanan's chapter on Deafening Silence: Music and the Emerging Climate of Access and Use, was extremely well received!

 

 

Assistant CIPR Director Dick Kawooya's 'Information and Professional Ethics in Sub-Saharan Africa', 
published in Information Development in June 2004, was among the 50 most frequently read articles from the journal in January 2008.  Most- read rankings are recalculated at the beginning of the month and are 
based on full-text and PDF views.

 

See CIPR Senion Fellow Rafael Capurro's work on the European Group on Ethics News Release on on ethical aspects of animal cloning for food supply

Call for papers: International Review of Information Ethics: The Internet as an Ethical Challenge for Religions

 

Call for papers: Information for Social Change: The Summer 2009 issue of the online journal Information for Social Change (ISC) will focus on the theme of SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY FOR UTOPIAS.

 

Press Release
For Immediate Release: January 29, 2008

This coming fall, Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan, Associate Professor at the
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee School of Information Studies, will
spend the month of October in residency at the University of Oxford, UK,
as part of a National Centre for e-Social Science fellowship, awarded in
December 2007. Dr. Buchanan will spend the majority of her time at the
Oxford e-Social Science Node (OeSS), which focuses specifically on the
ethical, legal and institutional dynamics of grid-enabled e-sciences (
http://www.ncess.ac.uk/researc h/social_shaping/oess/ ).

During her fellowship, Dr. Buchanan will engage with members of NCeSS
through joint research, publications, seminars, training and capacity
building activities. She will contribute to the NCeSS working papers
series during the tenure of her Fellowship.

"I will work with researchers and fellows, exploring various aspects of
human subject protections models and EU data and research laws as they
pertain to internet-based research," said Dr. Buchanan.

In addition, Dr. Buchanan was invited by the executive director of NCeSS
to lead a workshop during her visit for researchers and policy makers on
internet research ethics literature. The main purpose of the workshop is
to provide a forum in which the NCeSS Hub and Node teams can benefit
from Dr. Buchanan's expertise. Buchanan is co-founder and co-editor of
the new International Journal of Internet Research Ethics, and a
frequent author and speaker on internet-based research ethics.

Following her fellowship, Dr. Buchanan will then remain an honorary
fellow of the institution. She also recently received a $26,000 grant
from the National Science Foundation to expand her existing
NSF-supported research on US-based institutional review boards and
internet research ethics ( http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SOIS /cipr/irec.html )

 

2006-07 Fellow Toni Samek wins the first annual LJ Teaching Award sponsored by ProQuest. Samek "is a light for human rights and core values", writes John N. Berry III in Library Journal, 11/15/2007.The award honours Toni's teaching of the core value of the profession, especially intellectual freedom and social responsibility. See
http://www.libraryjournal.com /article/CA6497260.html

and see http://www.libraryjournal.com /blog/1010000101/post/26002002 6.html on the responses to Toni's award!

 

CIPR's Office Moved! CIPR can now be found in Bolton 540, UWM Campus, 3210 North Maryland Avenue, Milwaukee WI 53201.

 

 

CIPR Director Receives National Science Foundation Grant ($150,000), Internet Research Ethics: Discourse, Inquiry, and Policy, with Dr. Charles Ess, Drury University

 

CIPR Lecture featured on First Monday! Siva Vaidhyanathan was interviewed by First Monday's Podcast Editors at his Milwaukee Googlization talk. Check out http://firstmonday.org/

 

Thinking Critically: Alternative Perspectives and Methods in Information Studies

 

May 15-17, 2008, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Sponsored by the Center for Information Policy Research, the School of Information Studies, and the UW-Milwaukee Libraries, UW-Milwaukee

 

 

CIPR announces the creation of the International Journal of Internet Research Ethics (IJIRE).

 

***The CIPR is assuming work on an exhaustive online resource on Internet Research Ethics (IRE). CIPR received materials from the American Association of Advancement of Science's Scientific Freedom, Responsibility, and Law Division and will make available a searchable database of IRE research. When completed, it will be serve as the most comprehensive database of IRE research.

 

The AAAS began work on IRE with their seminal report "ETHICAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN SUBJECTS RESEARCH IN CYBERSPACE." CIPR Director Elizabeth Buchanan also chair's the Association of Internet Researchers Ethics Working Group, which released "ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING AND INTERNET RESEARCH", under the direction of former chair, Charles Ess.

 

***CIPR houses INSEIT, the International Society of Ethics and Information Technology, beginning January 2007. CIPR Director Elizabeth Buchanan and SOIS Alum Kathrine (Kat) Henderson, Librarian, Thunderbirdwill assume the Co-Directors of INSEIT, following Rick Spinello and Herman Tavani. INSEIT promotes and facilitates scholarship, education, discussion, and debate on the issues in and surrounding information technologies.