[Air-l] Panel about Quality on the Internet

[Irene Berkowitz]

Hi Paul,

I am currently working with another member trying to put together a
panel on time and space, however, we are having a bit of trouble with
following through from the others who initially expressed interest.  

As you may recall, must of my work is focussed on traditional research
being done in non-traditional ways via the internet and what differences
might be attributed to that process.

Currently, I am about to begin writing about the transpositions of
space and time in electronic culture and the implications for academic
research, particularly in terms of the current schism between
institutional structures within the Academy and the funding agencies
being constructed to respond to a different space/time paradigm.  These
implications are important to the quality of research because in many
cases the actual research and alliances far exceed the geopolitical
structures of the actual physical  institutions, which "house" the
research, provide the support, etc.  I am going to attempt to address
some of the policy implications and the evidences of self-organizing
structures, which have addressed some of these issues.  I believe the
internet has been integral to this phenomenon.

In case this isn't making sense.  NASA is a reasonable example.  It now
well exceeds the boundaries of US involvement to be successful, but
because of it's non-specific attachment to the US (or anywhere else), is
no longer is supported in a way that it was when it represented a more
symbolic manifestation of national power.  On the other hand, other
nations have trouble with support as well.  The EU, itself may be
another good example of the complexities of more global organization and
the affect on the quality of scientific research or quite conversely,
since the scientific community is even frequently less physically
bounded than the institutions with which it is associated (eventhough,
it always has had cross national boundaries), what implications does
this have for the quality of science?  What part do the multinational
corporations play, if governments aren't as aggressively multinational
in supporting science as well?  

If this is of interest, please let me know and I will let you know if
we haven't gotten the other panel together.  Actually, for this panel I
would be much more interested in talking about the policy implications
from this work.  For the other panel, I am proposing to talk more
theoretically about what's happening with time and space.

Thanks,
IB


Irene Berkowitz
Program Director, Curricular Publications and Systems
Office of the Vice Provost
Temple University
tel. 215-204-7596  fax. 215-204 3175
berkowitz at mail.temple.edu

>>> Paul.Wouters at niwi.knaw.nl 02/18/2003 11:37:00 AM >>>
Dear colleagues,

I will be submitting a paper on the construction of scientific quality
and the internet to the next conference in Toronto. It might be a nice
idea to see whether we can bring together papers about quality (which
may be defined in very different ways and discuss diverse aspects of
"quality") in different areas together in one session or panel. So this
is a call for everyone interested, especially PhD students, to send me
titles and abstracts before Wednesday February 26. If there is enough
interest it might become an interesting session.

Looking forward to your responses!

Regards

Paul Wouters

Dr. P. F. Wouters
Programme Leader Networked Research and Digital Information (Nerdi)
NIWI-KNAW
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
PO Box 95110
1090 HC Amsterdam
The Netherlands
T 3120 4628654
F 3120 6658013
http://www.niwi.knaw.nl/nerdi 
paul.wouters at niwi.knaw.nl 



_______________________________________________
Air-l mailing list
Air-l at aoir.org 
http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l