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May 1, 2000: This message was distributed by Papyrus News, a free e-mail distribution list on the global impact of information technology on language, literacy, and education. Feel free to forward this message to others, preferably with this introduction. For information on Papyrus News, including how to (un)subscribe or access archives, see <http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/web/faculty/markw/papyrus-news.html>.
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The May 2000 issue of First Monday (volume 5, number 5) is now available at http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/
Table of Contents
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It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know: Work in the Information Age
by Bonnie A. Nardi, Steve Whittaker, and Heinrich Schwarz
We discuss our ethnographic research on personal social networks in the workplace,
arguing that traditional institutional resources are being replaced by
resources that workers mine from their own networks. Social networks are key
sources of labor and information in a rapidly transforming economy characterized
by less institutional stability and fewer reliable corporate resources. The
personal social network is fast becoming the only sensible alternative to the
traditional "org chart" for many everyday transactions in today's
economy.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/nardi/
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Reflective Collaborative Learning on the Web: Drawing on the Master Class
by Karen Ruhleder and Michael Twidale
We draw on the music master class as an established face-to-face pedagogical
model as one that supports reflective, collaborative learning practices. We then
illustrate how this model is being reinterpreted and extended within the context
of online learning communities exploring the skills of user interface design.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/ruhleder/
-----------------------------
Helpmate: A Multimedia Web Teaching Framework
by Kevin Curran and Barry Devine
The Internet is an effective means of disseminating information to students within
universities. It enables one to place documents on a Web server, which students
can access on campus or remotely. We have developed a Web-based collaborative
system, which enables students to work through lab-based tutorials with access
to a lecturer at a remote location through a Web cam, e-mail and a chat room
applet. The student also has access to other students through the chat room
applet and can browse through the history to check whether questions have been
previously answered. Remote control software allows the lecturer to take
control of the students machine in order to troubleshoot problems. Currently,
the system is in everyday use and here we demonstrate the many benefits of such
a collaborative environment.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/curran/
----------------------------
Creating Virtual Learning Communities in Africa: Challenges and Prospects
by Osei Darkwa and Fikile Mazibuko
This paper discusses the growing application of information communications technologies
in Africa and other parts of the world. It examines the growing global
information technology revolution and how it is transforming educational
institutions. It then discusses the state of distance education in Africa,
identifying the institutions offering distance education and the nature of the
delivery platform used. The prospects and challenges in introducing distance
education to Africa tertiary institutions is discussed. Finally, it offers
suggestions to overcome the challenges confronting technology-based education
in Africa.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/darkwa/
----------------------------
How Will the Music Industry Weather the Globalization Storm?
by Wilfred Dolfsma
The music industry is in a genuine maelstrom at the moment. Globalization is
affecting this industry more than many other industries and it is primarily induced
by developments in Information technology. The foremost avenue for change is
through the institution providing the foundation of the industry - copyright,
which will be largely disabled. The oddly global and local structure of the
music industry will be undergoing some fundamental changes. The roles of music
publishers and record companies especially are about to alter. In an
institutional economic analysis, I will analyze the present situation in this
industry, where Information technology impacts on this system, and how in
general the industry is likely to change.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/dolfsma/
----------------------------
The Binary Proletariat
by Nate Bolt
In the endless quest to transform itself, capitalism has spawned a new
working class. The proletariat was an essential product of the industrial
revolution, and the lighter, more efficient capitalism of the digital
revolution has created the Binary Proletariat.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/bolt/
----------------------------
The COMsumer Manifesto: Empowering Communities of Consumers through the Internet
by Stuart Henshall
The coming economic era and precepts are emerging as totally different from industrial
capitalism. We're learning that e-businesses and their networks destroy many of
our basic concepts of production, marketing and distribution. Jeremy Rifkin
notes that in this "Age of Access" we are entering an era in which
lifelong customer relationships are the ultimate commodities market. This
provides a different, more positive, and perhaps more likely view.
The Internet is changing business models and empowering consumers to create new
communities that combine the power to aggregate rich sources of individually
personalized data in real-time activities. Large-scale data aggregators are
emerging to navigate and mediate info markets. While information records are
proliferating, new standards for content capture and management are appearing.
Most companies continue to hope they will control their customers' information
assets. However, what if this is not true or becomes impossible? What if
consumers decide to band together and control their own personal information?
Are you ready to freely give your customers their data records? Are you
prepared to live up to the COMsumer Manifesto?
This article offers a disruptive antidote to the hierarchical, closed, supply-system,
explicit, knowledge-driven, "We Know What You Want" data mine world
where many customers feel powerless. This is a world well beyond 1999's "Net
Worth" and 2000's "The Cluetrain Manifesto". Infomediaries are
not just trustworthy agents which sit between the vendor and the customer, and
markets are not just conversations. In this new world, communities sense needs,
desires, and wishes for the future and create new data markets - to which organizations
must respond or die! We are closing in on the "tipping point" where
COMsumers take complete control of their destiny by collectively owning their
personal information assets.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/henshall/
----------------------------
The Work of Information Mediators: A Comparison of Librarians and
Intelligent Software Agents
by Laura Zick
In this paper, the author examines the characteristics of information
agency, the work of librarians and of intelligent agents as information mediators,
the differences between human and software agents, the possible tasks for
software agents in libraries, and speculates on the future of human and
software agency. A typical medical library-based information need is presented
and the attendant information processes are examined. The author describes the
future of information mediation as based on efficient interaction between human
and software agents and provides examples of possible collaborative information
tasks.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/zick/
----------------------------
FM Interviews: Louise Addis
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/addis/
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