[Air-l] discussion on free papers

Vassilys Fourkas vfourkas at estia.arch.auth.gr
Fri Nov 1 01:44:24 PST 2002


I totally agree and sign together with Philipp Budka. One of the main
problems in Internet research is to overcome the theoretical hype (or
pessimism) and eventually to assess theoretical claims regarding their
real-world relevance. To do that you certainly need to review (or even
study) results from empirical and interdisciplinary research works. For
example, how can we see (and forsee) the effectiveness of Internet and Web
applications in urban management and governance? Can we do that based only
on various theoretical and political assumptions regarding the technology's
potentials? Certainly No. We need to look carefully and critically on why,
how, from whom, and for what that happens. And if we're in a position to
draw some conclusions from our work, we further need to compare and
correlate these to other derived from different works that either use
different methodologies or different case studies (geographically or by
sector/ topic of interest). Under this view, the as free as possible access
to Internet research through this very same tool (Internet) should be
considered of particular importance by Internet researchers. I clearly
suggest the free online publication of the AIR conferences' proceedings.
Issues of privacy and copyright could be overcome by using special security
configurations and devices available at any e-paper software (see online
journals).

Thanks

Dr. Vassilys Fourkas
Research Associate
Spatial Development Research Unit (SDRU)
Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Development
School of Architecture
PO BOX 491
Aristotle University of Thessalonica
Thessalonica, 54006
Greece

Tel: 0030 310 995584
Fax: 0030 310 995592
Email: vfourkas at estia.arch.auth.gr
URL: http://estia.arch.auth.gr





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