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Digital inclusion - the vision, the challenges and the way forward
This paper considers the vision and aspiration of digital inclusion, and then examines the current reality. It looks beyond the rhetoric to provide an analysis of the status quo, a consideration of some facilitators and challenges to progress and some suggestions for moving forward with renewed energy and commitment. The far-reaching benefits of digital inclusion and the crucial role it plays in enabling full participation in our digital society are considered. At the heart of the vision of universal digital inclusion is the deceptively simple goal to ensure that everyone is able to access and experience the wide-ranging benefits and transformational opportunities and impacts it offers. The reality is a long way from the vision: inequality of access still exists despite many national campaigns and initiatives to reduce it. The benefits and beneficiaries of a digital society are not just the individual but all stakeholders in the wider society. Research evidence has shown that the critical success factors for successful digital participation are (i) appropriate design and (ii) readily available and on-going ICT (Information and Communication Technology) support in the community. Challenges and proven solutions are presented. The proposition of community hubs in local venues to provide user-centred ICT support and learning for older and disabled people is presented. While the challenges to achieve digital inclusion are very considerable, the knowledge of how to achieve it and the technologies which enable it already exist. Harnessing of political will is necessary to make digital inclusion a reality rather than a vision. With the cooperation and commitment of all stakeholders actualisation of the vision of a digitally inclusive society, while challenging, can be achieved and will yield opportunities and rewards that eclipse the cost of implementation
From Artifacts to Aggregations: Modeling Scientific Life Cycles on the Semantic Web
In the process of scientific research, many information objects are
generated, all of which may remain valuable indefinitely. However, artifacts
such as instrument data and associated calibration information may have little
value in isolation; their meaning is derived from their relationships to each
other. Individual artifacts are best represented as components of a life cycle
that is specific to a scientific research domain or project. Current cataloging
practices do not describe objects at a sufficient level of granularity nor do
they offer the globally persistent identifiers necessary to discover and manage
scholarly products with World Wide Web standards. The Open Archives
Initiative's Object Reuse and Exchange data model (OAI-ORE) meets these
requirements. We demonstrate a conceptual implementation of OAI-ORE to
represent the scientific life cycles of embedded networked sensor applications
in seismology and environmental sciences. By establishing relationships between
publications, data, and contextual research information, we illustrate how to
obtain a richer and more realistic view of scientific practices. That view can
facilitate new forms of scientific research and learning. Our analysis is
framed by studies of scientific practices in a large, multi-disciplinary,
multi-university science and engineering research center, the Center for
Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS).Comment: 28 pages. To appear in the Journal of the American Society for
Information Science and Technology (JASIST
Get yourself connected: conceptualising the role of digital technologies in Norwegian career guidance
This report outlines the role of digital technologies in the provision of career guidance. It was commissioned by the c ommittee on career guidance which is advising the Norwegian Government following a review of the countries skills system by the OECD. In this report we argue that career guidance and online career guidance in particular can support the development of Norwa y’s skills system to help meet the economic challenges that it faces.The expert committee advising Norway’s Career Guidance Initiativ
The Application of the Montage Image Mosaic Engine To The Visualization Of Astronomical Images
The Montage Image Mosaic Engine was designed as a scalable toolkit, written
in C for performance and portability across *nix platforms, that assembles FITS
images into mosaics. The code is freely available and has been widely used in
the astronomy and IT communities for research, product generation and for
developing next-generation cyber-infrastructure. Recently, it has begun to
finding applicability in the field of visualization. This has come about
because the toolkit design allows easy integration into scalable systems that
process data for subsequent visualization in a browser or client. And it
includes a visualization tool suitable for automation and for integration into
Python: mViewer creates, with a single command, complex multi-color images
overlaid with coordinate displays, labels, and observation footprints, and
includes an adaptive image histogram equalization method that preserves the
structure of a stretched image over its dynamic range. The Montage toolkit
contains functionality originally developed to support the creation and
management of mosaics but which also offers value to visualization: a
background rectification algorithm that reveals the faint structure in an
image; and tools for creating cutout and down-sampled versions of large images.
Version 5 of Montage offers support for visualizing data written in HEALPix
sky-tessellation scheme, and functionality for processing and organizing images
to comply with the TOAST sky-tessellation scheme required for consumption by
the World Wide Telescope (WWT). Four online tutorials enable readers to
reproduce and extend all the visualizations presented in this paper.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures; accepted for publication in the PASP Special
Focus Issue: Techniques and Methods for Astrophysical Data Visualizatio
Toward a New Definition of Pro Bono
Every day, nonprofit groups around the country are meeting a wide variety of community needs, often with volunteer and corporate philanthropic assistance. Yet while these organizations are doing important and innovative work, they often cannot take their ideas to scale, in part because they lack the professional skills needed to operate as efficiently as possible, or to successfully plan for their growth. To help rectify this situation, The President's Council on Service and Civic Participation, together with several key private and government partners, convened The Summit on Corporate Volunteerism in February 2008. Toward a New Definition of Probono, produced out of this summit, makes the case for utilizing probono volunteer services
The Information Commons: a public policy report
This report describes the history of the information commons, presents examples of online commons that provide new ways to store and deliver information, and concludes with policy recommendations. Available in PDF and HTML versions.BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE at NYU SCHOOL OF LAW
Democracy Program, Free Expression Policy Project
161 Avenue of the Americas, 12th floor New York NY 10013
Phone: (212) 998-6730 Web site: www.brennancenter.org
Free Expression Policy Project: www.fepproject.or
Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research
This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing
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