<http://www.icommons.org/isummit08/commons-research/>
CALL FOR PAPERS
First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture
Hosted at the fourth annual iSummit, 29 July –1 August, 2008, Sapporo, Japan
With submission deadline: 26 April, 2008
Introduction
The First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture presents
a unique opportunity for scholars with various backgrounds, whose work
contributes to the promotion or study of an emerging Free Culture, to
present their research work to a multidisciplinary audience of
academic peers and practitioners. It will be held in conjunction with
the fourth iSummit, one of the largest annual events for the Free
Culture and related movements. Our aim is to provide a platform for
scholars to communicate their findings to an audience that extends
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.
The focus of the workshop will be on the presentation and critique of
work in progress, and with the inclusion of both academic researchers
and practitioners, so as to produce a holistic perspective on the
future of a more participative, open and free information society.
Workshop participants will have the chance to present their work at an
event which attracts some of the world's foremost thinkers on the
future of the Internet, as well as practitioners, technologists,
activists and artists who help shape that future.
Workshop Format
The workshop will be held as a separate 'track' during the iSummit.
True to its mission of promoting the study and practice of
participatory action, it will include both a peer-reviewed academic
research program and a practice-oriented 'demo', or 'speedgeeking'
session.
The academic research programme will consist of presentations in the
traditional format of short talks with time for Q&A. Submissions to
the academic research programme will be peer-reviewed by the programme
committee, based on their academic merit, research promise and
relevance to the workshop's goals and expected audience. Authors need
only submit an extended abstract of the work they wish to present and
not an entire paper (see 'Submission Guidelines' below). The purpose
of this is to encourage the presentation of work in progress and
promote a fruitful and open environment of critique and collaboration.
Accepted abstracts will be published in the form of online workshop
proceedings, so that the broader community has an opportunity to
critique and comment. Authors whose extended abstracts are accepted
for presentation will also have a chance to upload a full paper before
the start of the workshop, if they so desire.
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 the merits and promise of the
research as well as the potential for the presentation to generate
interesting discussions at the workshop. Also, please note that
members of the academic programme committee will be allowed to submit
their own work for review but will be subject to exactly the same
review criteria and appropriate safeguards will be in place to ensure
the avoidance of any conflicts of interest.
The demo session will be in a 'speedgeeking' or similar format (quick,
informal presentations on participant laptops) and will focus on
practice-oriented work that is original and relevant to the workshop's
goals but is not intended for a purely academic audience and hence
might not fit the criteria of a peer-reviewed submission. This may
include technology/art demos, case studies, practice-oriented reports,
etc. A separate committee will be in charge of organising this
session.
The workshop will also include opportunities for participants to
discuss future directions for Commons-related research and mingle with
workshop peers and with participants of the broader iSummit, in order
to strengthen ties between research and practice and to allow the
participants to explore cross-institutional collaboration
opportunities. Also, a short presentation of the workshop's main
findings will be made by members of the programme committee during the
iSummit.
Research Topics
Topics of interest for the workshop include, but are not limited to:
* 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 or business solutions and
interfaces between the sharing economy and the commercial economy;
* Modelling 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;
* 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.
Important Dates
* Submission deadline: 26 April, 2008
* Notification of acceptance: 25 May, 2008
* Workshop: 29 July - 1 August, 2008
Submission Guidelines
Extended abstracts for the academic research programme should contain
a clear statement of the main research question, the methods employed,
central ideas, and the outcomes of the research, in addition to a
description of the topic being addressed. All extended abstracts must
be submitted electronically in PDF format to
commons.research(a)gmail.com by April 26, and should be about 1000-1500
words in length. In addition, and beyond the stated size limit, in the
same PDF file authors should include contact information, affiliations
and a short biographical note for each author.
Submission of an abstract entails a commitment that at least one
author will attend the workshop to present the work in the case of
acceptance. Also, authors of abstracts accepted for presentation grant
the workshop organizers the right to publish their submissions in the
form of online proceedings. In addition, and in accordance with
general iSummit terms and conditions, submissions accepted for
presentation will be automatically licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Unported licence, 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, although
decisions to opt out will be respected and will not influence the
review process in any way. In any case, authors of accepted abstracts
cannot opt out from the basic condition that they grant the workshop
organizers the right to publish their submissions online. The same
terms and conditions apply for the case where an author of an accepted
abstract chooses to upload an entire paper before the workshop date
for inclusion in the online proceedings.
For the demo/speedgeeking session(s) it will be possible to register
interest on site at the workshop, but potential presenters are
encouraged to express their interest in advance by submitting a 1-2
page summary of their presentation in PDF format to
commons.demo(a)gmail.com by April 26, illustrating the originality and
relevance of their work. In addition, and beyond the stated size
limit, in the same PDF file authors should include contact
information, affiliations and a short biographical note for each
author. Submitting proposals in advance will greatly help the team in
charge of organising this part of the workshop. The demo committee
will ultimately decide how to organise this session, whether to apply
any terms and conditions for participation, whether to publish online
proceedings of any form, as well as how to ensure that the content
will be relevant and of high quality.
Workshop Chairs
* Jonathan Zittrain, Oxford University, UK
* Tyng-Ruey Chuang, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
* Giorgos Cheliotis, Singapore Management University, Singapore
Academic Programme Committee
The academic programme committee comprises senior scholars, recognised
thought leaders and some promising young scholars. Moreover, it
includes representatives from virtually every part of the world,
reflecting the truly international agenda of the workshop:
* Bodo Balazs, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
* Giorgos Cheliotis, Singapore Management University, Singapore
* Tyng-Ruey Chuang, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
* Juan Carlos De Martin, NEXA Center for Internet & Society, Italy
* Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA
* Brian Fitzgerald, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
* Rishab Ghosh, UNU-MERIT, the Netherlands
* James Grimmelmann, New York Law School, USA
* Lucie Guibault, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
* Herkko Hietanen, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, Finland
* Mathias Klang, Lund University, Sweden
* Ronaldo Lemos, Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Brazil
* Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University, USA
* Lawrence Liang, Alternative Law Forum, India
* Lev Manovich, University of California San Diego, USA
* Lisa Petrides, Institute for the Study of KM in Education, USA
* Anil Samtani, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
* Jan Philipp Schmidt, UWC/UNU-MERIT, the Netherlands
* Elizabeth Stark, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA
* Alek Tarkowski, University of Warsaw, Poland
* Anas Tawileh, Cardiff University, UK
* Prodromos Tsiavos, London School of Economics, UK
* Kim Tucker, Meraka Institute, South Africa
* Ariel Vercelli, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina
* Jonathan Zittrain, Oxford University, UK
Demo Committee
The team in charge of organising the demo/speedgeeking session
consists of people who are making outstanding contributions towards
the promotion of a Free Culture in technology, legal practice and the
arts:
* Jessica Coates, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
* Kevin Driscoll, MIT, USA
* Mike Linksvayer, Creative Commons, USA
* Jon Phillips, Creative Commons, USA and China
* Elizabeth Stark, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, USA
Note
If you have questions, ideas for special sessions we should host
during the workshop, or wish to assist with the organisation of the
workshop, please subscribe to the commons-research mailing list at
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-research and send
your emails to commons-research(a)lists.ibiblio.org.
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