William H. Dutton

Here are the priorities for actions within the EU over th next year. See: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/i2010_actions_2008_2009/index_en.htm I do not see any surprises here, but it does provide a relatively complete set of contemporary policy issues. Comments?

The US National Academy of Engineering co-ordinated an international grand challenges project, using a selection panel of scientists and engineers. You can vote on the greatest of the 14 challenges identified by the panel at: http://www.engineeringchallenges.org Once you vote, you can see the running tally, and you might be surprised.

Just a note to alert colleagues to a talk at the OII on Thursday, 17 April 2008, entitled ‘The Role of the Internet in the Civil Society Movement: the Case of Indonesia’ from 15:00 – 16:30. The speaker, Yanuar Nugroho, is based at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, University of Manchester, where he just [...]

The attached file is an attempt to list some of the key actors involved in discussing and shaping Internet debate and policy in the UK. The list is dated already, so I would welcome comments, additions and up-dates to this draft, or pointers to better lists. UK Ecology

I am at an interesting workshop on ‘managing for usability’ that has a focus on project management. See: http://www.oesc.ox.ac.uk/usability/pm/ The discussions brought out the growing importance of the project management role, particularly as the scale and scope of projects has grown through the development of collaborative networks. In the social sciences, for example, resources placed [...]

A recent Ofcom report raises good questions about the appropriate default settings for social networking sites, particularly in the case of younger people. See their report: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/advice/media_literacy/medlitpub/medlitpubrss/socialnetworking/summary/ If default settings were such as to prevent the release of data, such as birthdates or photographs, unless explicitly and purposively opened to wider audiences, they might prevent [...]

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has recently announced major cuts in funding for future Commonwealth and Chevening scholarships for international students from Commonwealth countries. Universities across Britain are able to bring students from all over the Commonwealth, who would not otherwise be able to afford their studies here. If you are a British citizen or [...]

The third GigaNet Symposium will be held on 2 December 2008, immediately before the UN’s next Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Hyderabad, India. A good number of academics interested in Internet governance issues participate in this event, so do consider proposing a paper or attending. A call for proposals is available at http://www.igloo.org/giganet.