[Air-L] Reminder: CFP Free Culture Research Workshop 2009, deadline Aug 8th, 2009

[Jude Choonloong Yew]

Hi, 

Just a quick reminder about the approaching deadline for the Free Culture
Research Workshop 2009. More details in the call for participation below.

=== 

Call For Participation

Free Culture Research Workshop 2009

October 23, 2009

Berkman Center for Internet & Society / Harvard University

(with additional support from the NEXA center at the Politecnico di Torino
and iCommons)


The Free Culture 2009 research workshop builds on the enthusiasm generated
by the First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture which took
place during the 2008 iSummit in Sapporo, Japan. It presents a unique
opportunity for scholars whose work contributes to the promotion, study or
criticism of an emerging Free Culture, to engage with a multidisciplinary
group of academic peers and practitioners, identify the most important
research opportunities and challenges, and attempt to chart the future of
Free Culture.


Our aim is to provide an opportunity for scholars and practitioners to
discuss their findings, experiences, and vision for a Free Culture with
peers whose backgrounds extend beyond individual disciplines, because we
believe that the wider participation in the creative process (and
consequently in the formation and dissemination of our modern culture)
enabled by new Internet technologies, innovative legal solutions and new
business models, are far-reaching and therefore deserve to be examined
through the lens of multidisciplinary inquiry. More specifically, this
year's workshop will be focused on:


(a) participant interaction and joint reflection on key findings from
cutting edge research in the field

(b) the development of a research agenda, with the identification of key
topics for future research

(c) facilitating research collaborations and exchange of ideas between
different academic institutions engaged in Free Culture research

(d) fostering useful academic outputs over the next 12+ months

(e) considering policy recommendations or a policy orientation that may
emerge as a result of Free Culture research and scholarship


Program design and participant selection will be guided by these
objectives, as set by the organizing committee in consultation with the
host institution.


Venue

Harvard University


Event format

The event will consist mainly of sessions oriented towards discussion and
idea generation. The organizing committee will therefore strive to convene
those parties that will be most helpful in engendering dialogue and
providing perspectives on the future of free culture research. To that end
we will do our utmost to convene academics and others who have already made
an impact with their works and actions in shaping the landscape of free
culture. An open call for short essays (similar in length to an extended
abstract, for details see below) will complement this effort and provide
opportunities for wider participation and discussion. Submitted essays will
be reviewed by the program committee and the authors of accepted
submissions will be invited to attend the event. We will only be able to
accept a small number of participants through the open call given the small
size of the event, and we seek your understanding in this respect. Every
accepted essay will be disseminated before, during and after the workshop
and will provide useful inputs for the structuring of the discussions and
working sessions to take place during the event. However, we wish to
emphasize that the focus this year will be on participant interaction and
idea generation rather than on traditional podium presentation. Being
invited to the workshop is therefore also not a guarantee that you will be
able to present your own work, but rather an invitation to contribute your
expertise and perspectives to the discussions and outcomes that the
workshop will foster.



Dates

* Submission of short essays: Aug 9, 2009 
* Notification of acceptance: Aug 23, 2009 
* Event: October 23, 2009


Short essays

Interested parties should submit a short essay with a title and brief text
(about 1,000-1,500 words) consisting of:


1. A reflection on the main findings of the author's more recent work (from
research, any type of scholarship, or practice, depending on the author's
background) and how these relate to the topic of Free Culture. 2. At most 3
key challenges arising from these findings that the participants of this
workshop and/or relevant third parties could attempt to address during
and/or after the event (remember, accepted essays will be posted online).


In the same document the author should include:

1. References, if any, cited appropriately in the main document, in APA,
BlueBook or ACM format (not included in the word limit) 2. A separate
paragraph explaining why this essay will be of broad enough interest and
have the potential to generate interesting discussions during and after the
event (not included in the word limit) 3. A short bio of the author (not
included in the word limit)

Given the discussion/working-session focus of the event we may not invite
authors whose work may have academic merit but lack a clear fit with the
objectives of the event. This also means that we do not encourage the
submission of short essays that simply report on research findings, without
establishing why a broader community of participants should care about the
findings and what we can learn from them about the future of free culture
research and practice. Forward-thinking and agenda-setting thought pieces
(which should be clearly informed by one's own research or practice-related
experience) will be preferred.

Note that if your submission is accepted through the open call we would
expect that your home institution will assist with travel support and we
will provide letters of invitation to that end, if needed. We especially
encourage submissions from developing countries and will try to provide
assistance where possible to participants from such countries. Note that
there will be no ideological 'litmus test' of any sort applied to
submissions, i.e. all viewpoints are welcome and submissions will be judged
purely on their potential to generate interesting discussions and point to
new research directions. We especially welcome critical voices.

Topics

Even if we may not be looking for 'traditional' paper presentations this
year, you may find it useful to look at this list of research topics that
we are generally interested in:

* Studies on the use and growth of open/free licensing models * Critical
analyses of the role of Creative Commons or similar models in promoting a
Free Culture * Building innovative technical, legal, organizational, or
business solutions and interfaces between the sharing economy and the
commercial economy * Modeling incentives, innovation and community dynamics
in open collaborative peer production and in related social networks *
Economic models for the sustainability of commons-based production *
Successes and failures of open licensing * Analyses of policies, court
rulings or industry moves that influence the future of Free Culture *
Regional studies of Free Culture with global lessons/implications * Lessons
from implementations of open/free licensing and distribution models for
specific communities * Definitions of openness and freedom for different
media types, users and communities * Broader sociopolitical, legal and
cultural implications of Free Culture initiatives and peer production
practices * Free Culture, Memory Institutions and the broader Public Sector
* Open Science/ Research/ Education * Cooperation theory and practice,
dynamics of cooperation and competition * Methodological approaches for
studying the characteristics, history, impact or growth of Free Culture

Submission Guidelines

Short essays must be submitted by the given deadline for peer review.
Submission entails a commitment that at least one author will attend the
event in the case of acceptance. Also, authors grant the organizers the
right to publish accepted submissions in the form of online proceedings or
a similar format. In addition, accepted submissions will be automatically
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, unless
the authors explicitly state in their submission that they wish to opt out
of this licensing agreement. We encourage authors to use said license in
order to promote open access to scholarly work, although decisions to opt
out will be respected and will not influence the review process in any way.
In any case, authors of accepted essays cannot opt out from the basic
condition that they grant the organizers the right to publish the essays
online. Please submit your short essay in PDF, Word or plain text format
at: https://www.easychair.org/login.cgi?conf=freeculture2009 (you will need
an easychair account to submit, you can create one on the spot if you don't
already have one).

Organizing Committee

The organizing committee is tasked with setting the basic framework and
agenda for this year's event, coordinating activities before, during, and
after the event, and ensuring that the experience will be valuable for all
participants.

* Amar Ashar, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA * Yochai Benkler,
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA * Giorgos Cheliotis, National
University of Singapore, Singapore * Juan Carlos De Martin, NEXA Center for
Internet and Society, Italy * Terry Fisher, Berkman Center for Internet &
Society, USA * Urs Gasser, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA *
Lawrence Lessig, Harvard University, USA * Colin Maclay, Berkman Center for
Internet & Society, USA * Elizabeth Stark, Yale University and iCommons,
USA * Prodromos Tsiavos, London School of Economics, UK * Jude Yew,
University of Michigan, USA * Jonathan Zittrain, Berkman Center for
Internet & Society, USA

Academic Program Committee

The academic program committee comprises senior scholars, recognized
thought leaders and some promising young scholars from around the world.
Its main task will be to assist in the review of submitted manuscripts.

* Bodo Balazs, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary *
Yochai Benkler, Berkman Center for Internet & Society USA * Giorgos
Cheliotis, National University of Singapore, Singapore * Tyng-Ruey Chuang,
Academia Sinica, Taiwan * Juan Carlos De Martin, NEXA Center for Internet &
Society, Italy * Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, University of Amsterdam, the
Netherlands * Terry Fisher, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA *
Urs Gasser, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA * James Grimmelmann,
New York Law School, USA * Herkko Hietanen, Helsinki Institute for
Information Technology, Finland * Minjeong Kim, Colorado State University,
USA * Mathias Klang, Lund University, Sweden * Karim Lakhani, Harvard
University, USA * Ronaldo Lemos, Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Brazil * Lawrence
Lessig, Harvard University, USA * Lawrence Liang, Alternative Law Forum,
India * John Palfrey, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA * Wolf
Richter, Oxford University, UK * Anil Samtani, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore * Jan Philipp Schmidt, UWC/UNU-MERIT, the Netherlands
* Elizabeth Stark, Yale University, USA * Victoria Stodden, Yale
University, USA * Alek Tarkowski, University of Warsaw, Poland * Anas
Tawileh, Cardiff University, UK * Prodromos Tsiavos, London School of
Economics, UK * Ariel Vercelli, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina
* Jude Yew, University of Michigan, USA * Jonathan Zittrain, Berkman Center
for Internet & Society, USA

Note

If you have questions about the event, or wish to be kept updated on this
and related topics, please subscribe to the commons-research mailing list
at: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-research

You can then send your emails to commons-research at lists.ibiblio.org and one
of the organizers and/or other members of the list will follow up on your
query.