[Foundation-l] Kronberg Declaration on the Future of Knowledge Acquisition and Sharing (DRAFT)

[Ray Saintonge]

Florence Devouard wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>  
>
>>Florence Devouard wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>You may find below the Declaration I received. Note that it is a draft 
>>>and will probably undergo many many more changes before being somehow 
>>>included in a final official statement. Still, I believe it stands as a 
>>>relevant document, and even though it does not contain all what we wish 
>>>to see, it certainly recognises a great deal of the things which are so 
>>>important to us, as wikimedians.
>>>      
>>>
>>It's a very interesting document that at least shows that some people 
>>are paying attention to some of the issues that will be of serious 
>>concern over the next number of years. 
>>
>>One question that it apparently fails to address is the relationship 
>>between  these developments and intellectual property law.
>>    
>>
>Exact.
>This was also discussed during the session. I believe most participants 
>did not really understand what a free license was. Many participants 
>were part of the private sector, and largely content producers. 
>Protecting the content they had produced was a significant part of their 
>concern.
>
They are in a difficult position, and taking a defensive approach as the 
music and movie industries have done does not help their case.  People 
find ways around them.  The Wikipedia experience has show that people 
can be their own content providers.  That model still has some serious 
flaws, but it and a number of other participatory sites show a trend 
toward rejecting mass produced ideas.  The harder the producers work to 
protect their investments, the less people will want them. 

I think that many of the content producers are starting to recognize the 
desperation in their position.  Even if the big players are given their 
way over net equality, it's not going to create a bigger demand for 
their product.  It's in the nature of real paradigm shifts that many who 
did very well under the old system are no longer able to function.  They 
can protect their products from legal abuse, but it may be difficult to 
protect it from people not wanting to use it at all.  We know what is 
happening to Britannica. 

When I try to imagine the economic models that will apply in what we are 
trying to build the picture becomes very murky. 

>I think that given the nature of participants, the end results definitly 
>show an interest and understanding of our concerns.
>
>Also, see 
>http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=17589&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
>
I liked the reference to Wengers ideas

>One point that I regretted not to see in the outcome (I mentionned it) 
>is the fact most participants considered the nature of the teacher 
>should also change and in particular that we should move away from a 
>situation where many teachers are hired to teach at 20 years old, for 
>the rest of their life, without any "real life" experience. This is in 
>large part why our universities in France at least, are stuck in 
>educating students to become researchers or teachers, much more than 
>they are educating students to become managers, accountants, salesmen, 
>developers, or architects. I would hope that in the future, more 
>fluidity is possible and a focus be put on hiring teachers who have had 
>professional experience in more than just teaching...
>
To an extent I agree.  How do we provide them with that life 
experience?  Here students do not enter into an education certificate 
programme until they have completed a bachelor's degree in something 
else.  Many people end up with honours degrees in literature; then it 
dawns upon them that there isn't much demand for that particular skill.  
Becoming a teacher becomes a product of restricted choice.  The people 
with literature degrees (disproportionately female) end up teaching in 
elementary schools, where they are incapable of promoting any enthusiasm 
for science.  After all, many of them studied literature because they 
couldn't handle science in the first place.

We also have the problem of overcredentialisation.  The time that a 
future teacher could be spending getting professional experience is 
spent taking useless courses, and getting into massive debt over student 
loans.

>A point which was mentionned in the first draft, but now appears pretty 
>much hidden under poorly defined terms, is the possibility to 
>standardize curriculum vitae - so that hiring an Executive Director in 
>France recover the same time of requirements and experience than in the 
>USA - currently, many titles do not recover from one nation to another, 
>making it doubly difficult for people to be hired in other countries. 
>This will naturally also need a sort of standardization of diplomas, so 
>that again, citizens can be hired more easily for the same job in 
>another country.
>
There will always be support for this as an ideal, and none for it as a 
practical application.  By putting up barriers countries (or in Canada 
provinces as well) are able to maintain control of the supply of such 
people.  Maintaining an artificially low supply of some specific kind of 
worker helps to protect higher wages for those who are already in the 
system.  Competition would lower the price of labour.  Look at what's 
happening in the United States over migrant Maxican workers.  We're not 
talking about professionals here, but the market forces remain similar.

>But also... maintaining a curriculum vitae which would not be written 
>only by the person itself, but also by others. Right now, when we hire 
>someone, it is frequent to ask contact of previous co-workers, so that 
>we can collect information about the person, from another point of view.
>Why not set up a sort of wiki-curriculum vitae, where the resume is not 
>only written by the person, but by the co-workers, who can leave their 
>comments. This is also the type of service one can find in social network.
>
I don't know if we're ready for that.   It gets into privacy issues that 
have not been fully worked out.

Ec