TAD Consortium April 2000 Information Update 2
********************************
CONTENTS
NEWS/TRENDS
--- Deltagram to Set Up 100 Earth
Stations
--- Cybercafés threatened with
closure in Beijing
--- Gap in Low-Income Content Needs
Market
--- Net can take education places
--- Youth
Programs Should Emphasize Learning Opportunities, Says Report
ANNOUNCEMENTS/REQUESTS
--- New
course on Integrated Coastal Area Management available via the Worldwide Web
--- Early
Conference Notification: Information and Communication Technologies for Information
Transfer in Developing Countries
ONLINE RESOURCES
--- "The
Electronic Frontier: The Challenge of Unlawful Conduct Involving the Use of the Internet:
A Report of the President's Working Group on Unlawful Conduct on the Internet"
--- Math: Geometry
--- Lesson Plan: Fighting
Disease: Health Curriculum
--- "Spreading
the Word: Practical Guidelines for Research Dissemination Strategies"
--- 1999 South African Health Review
--- Grameen Telecom's Village
Phone - Case Study
--- Educause
Online Guide to Evaluating Information Technology on Campus
---
Study Finds 24 Measures Of Quality In Internet-Based Distance Learning
--- Data from the EITO 2000 report
ARTICLES
--- PFIR
Statement on Content Control and Ratings
--- The New, Soulless University?
***************************
NEWS/TRENDS
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Deltagram to Set Up 100 Earth Stations
By Uday Lal Pai
India Correspondent, asia.internet.com
[March 16, 2000--MUMBAI] Deltagram [http://www.deltagram.com/] Satellite Mail is investing U$42 million to facilitate the setting up of 100 earth stations across India to offer satellite mail and Internet access services. Deltagram, the satellite mail facility of the Chennai-based Delta Innovative Enterprises Ltd, uses satellite connectivity to transmit messages, and claims to be the first company of its kind in India to create a network of earth stations connected via satellite. "We are planning to have about 100,000 message collection centers in every street all over the country," said R. Kothandaraman, managing director of Deltagram. "We've received all clearances and approvals from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The earth stations will be equipped with the latest communication equipment, computer and proprietary software," Kothandaraman added. About 3,000 towns and 40,000 villages in India would be connected over a three-year period. Regarding the financing pattern, Kothandaraman said the proposed investment would be raised through private placement of equity, borrowings and fee from franchisees.
About US$4.6 million will go towards the planned Internet services -- the company intends to become a Category A (national) ISP shortly -- and US$23.2 million would be invested in creating the necessary infrastructure as collection centers for Deltagram. The rest of the planned investment will go towards setting up 65 earth stations in major towns and establishing a development center. The company already has 35 earth stations connecting 200 towns. Deltagram's offers a pair of messaging services: 'E-Flash' delivers messages to the recipient over telephone, fax or pager within 30 minutes, and 'E-Letter' uses Deltagram's courier network to hand-deliver your messages within 12-48 hours. With either service, a confirmatory e-mail is posted to a user's Deltagram account.
http://asia.internet.com/2000/3/1606-deltagram.html
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Cybercafés threatened with closure in Beijing
SOURCE: Reporters sans frontières (RSF), Paris
(RSF/IFEX) - In a 17 March 2000 letter to Beijing Mayor Liu Qi, RSF protested against threats by the municipality to close down cybercafés in the capital which do not monitor the web sites visited by their clientele. The decision comes less than two months after the Chinese government approved a new regulation permitting heavy jail sentences and fines for the publication of "state secrets" on the Internet. It could lead to the closure of many of the 1,000 cybercafés operating in Beijing. RSF asked the mayor to guarantee Chinese citizens free access to the Internet. Finally, the organisation reminded Liu that an Internet user, Qi Yanchen, is currently imprisoned in China.
According to information collected by RSF, the Beijing municipality announced on 16 March that cybercafés could be closed down if they did not monitor the web sites visited by their customers. A statement noted that using the Internet to visit pornographic web sites or to publish political information was prohibited. According to "China Daily", which published the news, the statement added that Internet users were not authorised to "take part in any activity that endangers public security, creates disorder or interferes with public rights and interests".
For further information, contact Vincent Brossel at RSF, 5, rue Geoffroy Marie, Paris 75009, France, tel: +33 1 44 83 84 84, fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51, e-mail: asie@rsf.fr Internet: http://www.rsf.fr
The information contained in this alert
update is the sole responsibility of RSF. In citing this material for broadcast or
publication, please credit RSF.
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Taken from Nua Internet Surveys: March 20th, 2000
---
The Children's Partnership:Gap in
Low-Income Content Needs Market
A new study finds that the content and information needs of 50 million Americans are not being catered to online. Content aimed at low-income Americans and those with poor literacy is next to invisible online, according to authors of the study, Children's Partnership.The study looked at the information needs of two disadvantaged social groups and then investigated to what extent their needs were being met on the Internet. The results were shocking. 44 million US adults have below average reading abilities yet less than 1 percent of websites catered to this group.In addition, only 2 percent of sites catered to the 32 million non- English speaking population in the US and a mere 1 percent catered to the 26 million foreigners living in the States.The study, "Online Content for Low-Income and Underserved Americans: The Digital Divide's New Frontier," looked at 1,000 websites and talked to local community leaders, Internet users and literacy experts.
The group recommend working with low-income communities and using their input to design information portals, developing search tools that help low-income users find information, training members of low-income communities to develop their own local content and providing them with investment capital and conducting more research.
<http://www.childrenspartnership.org/>
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Frederick Noronha
CHENNAI 20 MARCH
The internet can act as the magic wand in spreading education in the country, as
many in India are beginning to discover. An internet site Egurucool.com offers competition
training, coursework help, career and per-sonal counselling, and the like. "This
month we've already got more than two million hits," Egurucool's Vinod Agarwal said.
Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore has developed Instruction on Demand (IOD).
With the help of the IOD, a teacher can lecture, show slides and answer queries from
students all over the world. Slides can be downloaded by students via the internet prior
to the lecture, and a teacher can flip them around on the computer screen with a
remote-control. Students can ask questions and interact with the teacher just like in an
average classroom.
This tool has been successfully tried out at IISc and Goa University. "We need a paradigm shift that allows for need-based education for all, any time, anywhere. This can come from the suitable integration and appropriate selection of available technologies," said K Subramanian, deputy director general of National Informatics Centre. - IANS
http://www.economictimes.com/today/21tech02.htm
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Taken from ASCD EDUCATION BULLETIN--MARCH
24, 2000
---
YOUTH
PROGRAMS SHOULD EMPHASIZE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES, SAYS REPORT
Young people need and want support in community settings that fit their interests and needs. But they want more than just a safe place to go---they also want exciting learning opportunities. *Community Counts: How Youth Organizations Matter for Youth Development,* a report from the Public Education Network, asks communities to rethink how they design and deliver afterschool youth services.
Based on more than 12 years of conversations with students ages 12 to 18 in challenging urban and rural areas, the report shows evidence that involvement in effective out-of-school programs helps young people do better in school and in life. Youth participating in such programs
* achieve at higher academic levels and
hold higher expectations for themselves;
* demonstrate greater self-confidence and optimism about what the future holds;
* express a strong desire to "give back" to their communities; and,
* go on to be productive, employed, and active members of their communities.
The report recommends several ways for communities to help young people:
* engage all youth-serving institutions,
particularly schools
* encourage and support youth organizations that focus on content, not just services
* support a variety of smaller, innovative programs that offer youth a menu of learning
opportunities;
* listen to youth and treat them as a resource, not as a problem;
* focus on diverse and well-trained staff;
* build on community assets.
The Public Education Network is a national association of local education funds that promote school improvement in public education in poor and urban areas across the United States. Read an executive summary of the report or download the full report at http://www.publiceducation.org
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ANNOUNCEMENTS/REQUESTS
-----------
New
course on Integrated Coastal Area Management available via the Worldwide Web
The International Ocean Institute Regional Operational Centre for Southern Africa
(IOI-SA), based at the University of the Western Cape have initiated a new distance
learning project for coastal managers and people with an interest in sustainable living at
the coast. The distance learner is a component of the South African Integrated Spatial
Information System (SA-ISIS). SA-ISIS is funded by the South African Innovation Fund of
the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST), and is being implemented
by a consortium of tertiary institutions, government departments, parastatals and the
private sector.
The distance learner, called SA-ISISlearn, is a Learning Resource that provides web-based learning materials and courseware in support of the aims of SA-ISIS. Courses are developed within the framework of the recent legislation on higher education, and the intention is to make them available for university credit as well as credit towards lifelong learning programmes. SA-ISISlearn courses will be offered as formal university courses, as well as courses targeted towards skills development of coastal decision makers in local authorities and in provincial and national governments. In most cases, the same course will serve multiple target groups. Upon request, the SA-ISISlearn resources can be adapted to any learning objective or any target group, including grassroots level. Although the focus is web-based distance learning courses, SA-ISISlearn resources can be repackaged for any delivery system including classroom learning, short courses based around paper documents, lecture materials, etc. Contact IOI-SA if you are interested in customized applications of SA-ISISlearn resources.
SA-ISISlearn is more than a theoretical course; if you take part in a SA-ISISlearn course, you can expect to become involved in a community of learning that includes the sharing of local and regional experiences among participants, as well as hands-on activities in your own local environment.
The first module of SA-ISISlearn is a course entitled An Introduction to Integrated Coastal Area Management. The target audience for the formal course includes decision-makers at local, provincial or national level who may wish to acquire or refresh a basic understanding of ICAM principles, as well as undergraduate or postgraduate students of environmental management, coastal engineering, or environmental law, or any transdisciplinary program of study, or anyone with an interest in Integrated Coastal Management. While the focus is South African, the course is available globally via the medium of the Internet, with support through CD-ROM available upon request to people with slow Internet connections or those who prefer to work offline.
Additional modules are in the planning stages and will be developed during future years. The next module will cover The Physical Environment and Ecosystems of Coastal Areas. Other modules will deal with specific ICAM management and decision-support tools, including SA-ISIS decision support tools.
The course is being offered experimentally in 2000, and has not yet gone through the UWC administrative procedures to enable the awarding of undergraduate credit for the course. Therefore, it is being offered as a non-credit course at present. As soon as it is approved for undergraduate credit, a notice will be sent to all interested parties. Should you require the credit to graduate in 2000, you may wish to consider alternatives to the SA-ISISlearn module at this stage. Please note that the course begins July 24th 2000 and continues until October 30th 2000. Fees must be paid before June 1st 2000 to secure your place. The total cost of the course is R2500 for the semester, plus R150 if you need additional support materials in print and CD-ROM (recommended).
Anyone wishing to register for the course
can do so online at the course website at:
http://sa-isislearn.uwc.ac.za/ or http://midesslearn.uwc.ac.za/ if there are
problems with the above site.
or request a registration form from Tanya Potts by sending an email to tpotts@uwc.ac.za.
Derek Keats
Director, IOI-Southern Africa
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Early
Conference Notification:ICT for IT in Developing Countries. (Information and Communication
Technologies for Information Transfer)
This conference is aimed at bringing
together decision makers in the fields of ICT and Information Transfer
(Education/Training/Marketing)and to encourage them to TAKE A FRESH LOOK at what they are
doing, why and how they are doing IT. The PROVISIONAL PROGRAM is at http://www.geocities.com/ictforit/index.html
To contact a human, email ictforit@yahoomail.com
***************************
ONLINE RESOURCES
-----------
From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2000. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
---
"The
Electronic Frontier: The Challenge of Unlawful Conduct Involving the Use of the Internet:
A Report of the President's Working Group on Unlawful Conduct on the Internet"http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/unlawful.htm
Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) http://www.cybercrime.gov/
In August of 1999, President Clinton issued
Executive Order 13133, which called for the creation of a Working Group to analyze
unlawful conduct on the Internet. This month, the Working Group has released its report,
which is now available at the Website of the US Department of Justice (DOJ). The report
discusses the legal framework in which online crimes exist, the challenges facing law
enforcement agencies in the online environment, and the role of public education and
empowerment in combating online crime. Separate appendices focus on particular types of
crime on the Internet, including fraud, child pornography, intellectual property theft,
and the sale of controlled substances. The report is also available on the second site
listed above, the CCIPS homepage. Launched by the DOJ on March 13, 2000, this site details
their efforts to stop online crime. Here users will find materials such as speeches,
reports, press releases, and testimony, covering topics including "prosecuting
computer hacking, intellectual property piracy and counterfeiting, legal issues related to
electronic commerce, freedom of speech, searching and seizing computers, encryption,
privacy, and international aspects of cybercrime." [SW]
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Taken from Education Planet Newsletter
---
Math: Geometry
http://homepage.mac.com/efithian/geometry.html
Need some new ideas for geometry? Here are
16 different types of geometrical activities: Tangrams, Golden Ratio, Geoboard, Polygons,
Symmetry, Constructions, Polyominoes & Polyiamonds, Star Polygons, Special Points in
Polygons, Tesselations, Kaleidoscope Tesselations, Escher Tessellations, Space Cubes,
Polyhedra, Symmetry in Space, and Topological Considerations. Each section contains
background material in addition to student exercises. Tired of activities? Try out the
geometry-based games Hextris and Tetris Max which are available for download.
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Taken from Education Planet Newsletter
---
Lesson Plan: Fighting Disease:
Health Curriculum http://www.un.org/Pubs/CyberSchoolBus/special/health/index.html
With the rise in infectious disease on a global basis this Health At The End Of The
Millennium: Fighting Disease curriculum has been developed to help teachers educate their
students on the importance and the scientific basis for this problem. This curriculum
includes 6 multimedia online units on infectious diseases with summary information for
grades 5-7 and longer articles for grades 7-12, plus activities, an extensive teacher's
guide, a glossary, and a multimedia online quiz for students.
----------------------------------------
Taken from The Drum Beat – 44 (distributed by the Communication Initiative
partnership - http://www.comminit.com)
---
"Spreading
the Word: Practical Guidelines for Research Dissemination Strategies" by Darren
Saywell & Andrew Cotton reviews the interim findings from the 1st phase of a DFID
funded project concerning the development of practical guidelines for research
dissemination strategies. Results from a review of literature, case study analysis
and interviews with key informants are discussed.
Http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/cv/wedc/spreading_the_word/contents.htm
----------------------------------------
Taken from The Drum Beat – 44 (distributed by the Communication Initiative
partnership - http://www.comminit.com)
---
The 1999 South African Health Review
provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of developments in the health sector
throughout 1999. Subjects covered include health legislation, health sector financing,
relationships between the private and public health care sectors, state-aided hospitals,
establishing the district health system, district health information systems, drug policy,
distribution of human resources, traditional healers, occupational and environmental
health services, HIV/AIDS and STDs, tuberculosis, trauma and injury, mental health and
others. Access through http://hst.org.za/sahr/ Contact
hst@healthlink.org.za
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Grameen Telecom's Village Phone -
Case Study: www.telecommons.com/villagephone
We have just released our case study of Grameen Telecom's Village Phone initiative in
Bangladesh: www.telecommons.com/villagephone.
The case study contains in-depth analysis of the operation of the Village Phone
initiative, its impact on poverty reduction, the business case for rural
telecommunications in Bangladesh, and analysis of gender contexts and phone use. The
report also contains an extensive bibliography with hyper-text links to key documents and
reports, including an earlier research report on the Village Phone initiative by Prof.
Abdul Bayes. The report is accompanied by on-line video including an interview with
Muhammad Yunus, Managing Director of the Grameen Bank.
This study was commissioned by the Strategic Planning & Policy Division of the Asia Branch Poverty Reduction Project, Canadian International Development Agency, as a case study amongst many undertaken as part of the Asia Branch Poverty Reduction Project, to investigate the impact of the GrameenPhone and Grameen Telecom provision of micro-credit cellular phone service on poverty reduction and the socio-economic situation of women Village Phone operators and users at large.
Grameen Telecom's Village Phone pilot project currently involves 950 Village Phones providing telephone access to more than 65,000 people. Village women access micro-credit to acquire digital GSM cellular phones and subsequently re-sell phone calls and phone services within their villages. Grameen Telecom staff have announced that when its programme is complete, 40,000 Village Phone operators will be employed for a combined net income of $24 million USD per annum.
Key findings:
1) The Village Phone programme appears to be the best available technical solution for rural universal access under current regulatory and commercial circumstances. The Village Phone programme is a technical and organizational solution to rural telecommunication access partly necessitated by a regulatory environment that is not conducive to advancing rural telecommunication infrastructure.
2) The concept of "universal access" is not gender neutral. In the case of Bangladesh, the gender of the Village Phone operator and the physical placement of the phone within a gendered village context can either inhibit or improve women's access to phones. A woman's home provides a space that is acceptable for other village women to access. From the standpoint of revenue generation and profitability, it is important to ensure that the Village Phone is fully accessible to the entire village population: if 50% of the user base faces obstacles to phone use, then a significant revenue stream is lost.
3) The Village Phone acts as a powerful instrument to reduce the risk involved in remittance transfers from overseas workers and family members working in Dhaka City, and to assist villagers in obtaining accurate information about foreign currency exchange rates. Transferring cash from a Gulf State to a rural village in Bangladesh is fraught with risks; remittances are thus a key factor in demand for telephone use. Reducing the risk of remittance transfers from overseas workers has important micro-implications for rural households and villages. At the micro level, remittances tend to be used for daily household expenses such as food, clothing and health care. Remittances are thus an important factor in meeting household subsistence needs, and can make up a significant portion of household income. Once subsistence needs are met, remittances tend to be used for "productive investments," or for savings.
4) Social calls to family and friends frequently involve transfer of information about market prices, market trends and currency exchange rates, making the Village Phone an important tool for enabling household enterprises to take advantage of market information to increase profits and reduce productive expenses.
5) Rural telephone service in Bangladesh is very profitable and, due to the existing regulatory environment (lack of interconnection being the biggest barrier), telecom operators are unable to meet the demand for services. Telephones in the Grameen Telecom Village Phone programme bring in 3 times as much revenue as urban cellular phones (an average of $100/month versus $30/month). One competing telecom operator reports having revenue from 12,000 urban cellular lines equal its revenue from 1,500 rural PCO lines.
6) GSM cell phone technology is a high-cost solution for universal access in rural areas. Limited cellular coverage of rural areas may only be viable under the current set of cumbersome regulatory practices - once the regulatory environment improves, cellular phone technology may not be the most viable and efficient means of providing universal service. GSM cell phone technology also places much higher tariffs on rural phone users than would be the case for wireless local loop (WLL) technologies. Without regulatory improvements, cellular technology is a practical solution. As well, cellular phone technology is currently not a viable option for inexpensive email/Internet/data connectivity. WLL and other options can provide much better bandwidth and cost of service.
Key replicable elements:
1) The Grameen Telecom experience in business planning leads us to suggest one potential
solution for attracting telecom operators to serve rural areas: target un-served and
under-served regions and provide support for acquisition of quality market appraisal
knowledge and market data through market research in the field. Market research will help
to prove the business case, attract investment capital, and reduce the effort required by
investors and operators.
2) The Grameen Telecom experience points to a potential solution for telecom operators facing the significant challenge of managing the last mile of rural telecom operations: link existing and successful micro-credit organizations with telecom operators (fixed line and/or wireless) to expand public call office (PCO) coverage in rural areas. Small loans to rural entrepreneurs (perhaps targeted to women and youth) can enable entrepreneurs to establish PCOs and provide a range of services including telephone, fax, email and even web, photocopying and computer word-processing services. A franchise programme of this sort would also establish consistency of service across a region that would, in turn, support local social and economic development.
Don Richardson
TeleCommons Development Group
----------------------------------------
Taken from NETWORKING 4:6
Copyright 2000, the Node Learning Technologies Network.
---
EDUCAUSE
ONLINE GUIDE TO EVALUATING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ON CAMPUS
EDUCAUSE <http://www.educause.edu>, a not-for-profit association of 1600 educational institutions and 150 corporations dedicated to improving post-secondary education through information resources and technologies, has released its Online Guide to Evaluating Information Technology on Campus <http://www.educause.edu/consumerguide/>. Designed to help students make informed judgements about the adequacy and effectiveness of IT resources on college and university campuses, the Guide is regarded by many as a direct response to Yahoo! Internet Life's controversial ranking report, America's 100 Most Wired Campuses <http://www.zdnet.com/yil/content/college/>.
Critics complain that Yahoo! uses a flawed survey instrument and a misleading ranking system. Neither the survey sent to 571 U.S. four-year institutions nor the rationale for the ranking is available on the site. Most rankings rankle at least a few implicated parties (as the editors of the Maclean's magazine Canadian university rankings<http://www.macleans.ca/pub-doc/1999/11/15/Universities1999/>well know), and EDUCAUSE has prudently opted to ask questions rather than assign numbers. More importantly, the EDUCAUSE Guide asks more useful questions. Where the Yahoo! survey asks only what percentage of dorm rooms are wired, for instance, the EDUCAUSE Guide asks "What electronic reference materials are licensed and how accessible are they from outside the library (for example, in the residence halls or off-campus?" and "Does the campus assess extra fees for network connections in the dorms or for off-campus access?"
The EDUCAUSE Guide was developed with the
co-operation of the National Association for College Admission Counseling <http://www.nacac.com> and the American Association of
Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers <http://www.aacrao.com>.
For more information, see the Guide itself and a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher
Education at<http://chronicle.com/free/2000/03/2000030901t.htm>.
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NEA AND BLACKBOARD INC. STUDY FINDS 24 MEASURES OF QUALITY IN INTERNET-BASED DISTANCE LEARNING
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 21, 2000 - The
National Education Association (NEA) and Blackboard Inc. today unveiled an important,
research-driven list of quality benchmarks for distance learning in higher
education. The list of 24 quality measures is the centerpiece of "Quality On
the Line" -- an Institute for Higher Education Policy study commissioned by NEA and
Blackboard Inc.
<http://www.ihep.com/PR17.html>
---------------------------------------
The following data from the EITO 2000 report,
with accompanying commentary, have been added to the European Statistics pages at European
Telework Online:
IT Investment as a percentage of GDP, EU and USA, 1992-1998
IT Investment per capita, EU and USA, 1992-1998
Cumulative difference in investment levels, EU and USA, 1992-1998
Variations among countries, 1998
IT investment per capita, by country 1998
PCs per 100 population, by country 1998
The European Statistics are linked from the home page menu at: http://www.eto.org.uk
Best wishes to all,
Horace Mitchell
Director, European Telework Online http://www.eto.org.uk
***************************
ARTICLES
-----------
PFIR
Statement on Content Control and Ratings (http://www.pfir.org/statements/2000-03-18)
PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Greetings. One of the most contentious issues on the Internet and its World Wide Web is the rising furor surrounding the filtering and rating of site content. It has all the elements of a classic "B" movie: politics, religion, sex, and even some dandy sci-fi aspects such as runaway technology. But filtering and content matters far transcend the importance of an afternoon's idle entertainment, and strike to the very heart of some crucial concerns of both individuals and society.
The Internet has created the potential for information distribution and access without respect to organizational size, jurisdictions, or geographic boundaries. These abilities are unparalleled in the human experience. Even such fundamental developments as the printing press seem to pale in scope when compared with the vast quantity and reach of information the Internet can provide.
The Internet and Web are just tools of course, and as such do not possess intrinsic ethical or moral sensibilities. The available materials cover the entire range from the vile to the sublime. But assigning any particular page of information, photos, or other Internet data to a specific point along that continuum is a highly individualistic experience, with reasonable and honorable people disagreeing over virtually every category.
It is into this unprecedented environment that the world's populace has found itself suddenly thrust, and the urge to attempt the implementation of "simple" solutions to a very complex set of circumstances is proving to be overwhelming. As usual, however, we're finding that the simple approaches are often wrought with problems of their own.
The core issue revolves around the desire and abilities of individuals, organizations, and governments to rate, filter, or otherwise control the Internet content that may be viewed by any given individual. In some cases, their specific concerns may be fundamentally laudable, in other cases, highly suspect. Countries with a history of censoring political speech, for example, have been quick to attempt the implementation of proxy servers and other controls to try stem the flow of such communications.
But this trend is not limited only to governments with a history of draconian information controls, but also has appeared in such enlightened democracies as Australia, where government-mandated rating and blocking requirements, aimed primarily at "offensive" entertainment material, have been implemented. Similar government edicts are on the rise within the European Union and other areas of the world.
In the United States, these movements are also present. The use of content filtering software programs is on the rise by private and public organizations, municipalities in their offices, schools, and libraries, and so on. Sometimes these filters are directed at children's use of computers, but often adults as well are required to abide by the programs' restrictions. The U.S. Congress has twice attempted to mandate the use of such filters by public institutions, linking such usage to federal funding. These mandates have so far been rejected by the federal court system, though the legal wrangling continues.
Even if such filtering programs accurately performed their stated purposes, the information control, freedom of speech, and related issues would be formidable at best. But making matters even worse is the flawed nature of these filtering methodologies, and in many cases the secretiveness with which they implement their content filtering decisions.
Filtering can be applied to nearly any type of Internet content, from e-mail to Web pages. It can be implemented via automated systems, typically using keyword searching to try find "offending" materials. This tends to be the most laughable filtering technique, since its false positive rate is immensely high. Web pages mentioning the term "Superbowl XXX" have been blocked as pornography by such systems. Even the recent "PFIR Statement on Spam" (http://www.pfir.org/statements/2000-03-11) was rejected by some sites running filters that declared the PFIR message to *be* spam—possibly because terms such as "multi-level marketing" were included within the discussion of spam problems. We don't really know what triggered the rejections--you're usually not told specifically what content in a message or Web page was deemed unacceptable by the programs.
While controlling spam is certainly a positive goal, it's obvious that you cannot accurately determine the context of words via such crude techniques. Systems that are keyword-based without human review are unsuitable for use in *any* Internet content filtering application.Unfortunately, content filtering systems based on ostensibly human-created lists or human review seem to be equally inaccurate and obnoxious. Most commercially available Web filtering programs contain "secret" lists of sites to be blocked--the manufacturers often consider their block lists to be proprietary and copyrighted. Operational experiences have suggested that many of these lists are highly inaccurate, often blocking sites unrelated to the announced blocking criteria. Health information sites have been blocked as if they were pornography, for example.
In many other cases, blocks are so far off-base that it's difficult to imagine how they could have occurred unless automated systems were actually responsible for the listings. At one point, the well-respected PRIVACY Forum was blocked by a popular filtering program, which had placed the Forum Web pages within a "criminal skills" category. It turned out that the mere mention of encryption issues within some PRIVACY Forum articles had triggered this categorization! When contacted, the firm who created the filter acknowledged the obvious inappropriateness of the block, and removed the PRIVACY Forum from their block lists. The company never had a reasonable explanation of how their human reviewers could have made such an error.
This brings up another critical point. Sites who are blocked normally have no way to even *know* of their blocked status unless somebody attempting to access the site informs them about it. Companies selling blocking software don't normally even attempt to inform sites when they've been added to a block list, nor are systematic procedures for appealing such categorizations universally available. Sites have no reliable way to know which of the many available filtering programs are blocking them, possibly completely inaccurately, at any given time. Even after specific blocking errors are corrected, such mistakes could recur again without warning.
These factors, along with the secretiveness with which the filtering companies tend to treat their blocking lists, create an untenable situation. Especially when such filters are being used by public entities such as libraries and schools, they create the Orwellian atmosphere of secret censorship committees, completely devoid of any genuine accountability. What do the block lists really contain? Porn sites? Religious sites? Political speech sites? We can't know if the lists are unavailable. This is a horror in any modern public policy context. At a bare minimum, public institutions should be prohibited from using any filtering software which does not make its complete block lists available for public inspection!
Most manufacturers of filtering software are very serious about keeping their lists hidden. In a very recent case, individuals who decrypted the block list from one such package are being sued by the company involved, who is also reportedly trying to learn the identities of the persons who accessed those decrypted materials from related Web sites. While the detailed legal issues relating to the actual decryption in this case may be somewhat problematic, the intolerable fact that the block lists are kept hidden seems to have at least partly driven this situation.
Outside of the rating procedures used by the commercial filtering software packages, there are also a variety of efforts aimed at inducing all Web sites to "self-rate" via various criteria, often with the suggestion of penalties or sanctions in cases of perceived inaccurate ratings. In some countries, as in the Australian case, these ratings are being mandated by the government. In other cases they are being presented as being ostensibly voluntary. But it's clear that there'd really be nothing voluntary about them, since unrated sites would presumably be treated as "objectionable" by many Web browser configurations that would implement the rating systems.
And again, we find ourselves faced with the problem of how ratings would be evaluated for "accuracy"--given the wide range of opinions and world views present in any society. To whom do we cede the power to make such determinations in the international environment of the Internet?
It is particularly alarming to observe the extent to which the proponents of mandatory filtering seem anxious to control Internet content that is not similarly controlled in other situations. A common example frequently cited is information about explosives. There is certainly such information available on the Internet which could be used to harm both persons and property. But much of this same sort of information is available in bookstores, libraries, or by mail order. How do we draw the line on what would be forbidden? Radical literature? Industrial training materials? Chemistry textbooks? Are we really so anxious to dramatically alter our notions of free speech across the board, not just relating to the Internet?
Free speech is by no means absolute, but blaming the Internet or Web for our perceived problems is merely finding a convenient scapegoat, not a genuine solution. Before we tamper dramatically with such fundamental concepts, we'd better be very careful about what we wish for, and consider how the granting of some wishes could potentially damage society and our most cherished precepts.
In any case, personal responsibility, both in terms of our own behaviors and when it comes to supervising the activities of children, must not be replaced by automated systems. Taking responsibility is *our* job as human beings--it is certainly not an appropriate role for our machines!
It should be interesting to see how many automated content filters the vocabulary of this very document will trigger...
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@pfir.org
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Taken from NetFuture #104 (Edited by Stephen Talbot)
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The New, Soulless University?
True education is, at heart, a matter of seeing with new eyes what one previously "knew". This seeing with new eyes always requires a kind of metaphorical stretch. And nothing enables the metaphorical stretch more effectively than an opportunity to see through the different eyes -- through all the expressive presence -- of another human being, a teacher.What the student learns above all else is the teacher -- that is, he learns a set of inner, cognitive gestures. We are most inclined to forget this wherever our subject matter has degenerated into a body of technical and largely meaningless information. Here the student can let go the strenuous labor of shaping his mind to the tensions, paradoxes, and gymnastic grace of any profound truth. A collection of shoveled facts is all he needs. Once he's reconciled himself to this, he's ready to be taught by Arthur Levine.
Levine is president of Teacher's College, Colombia University, and author of a *New York Times* op-ed piece, "The Soul of a New University" (March 13, 2000). Referring repeatedly to the education "industry", Levine cites his biggest fear: some company will come along and hire the world's best teachers and then offer a high-quality, cut-rate education. "A top-notch professor on our campus touches a couple of hundred students a year. The lower-paid online professor may touch thousands. The economics is not in our favor."(It happens that a couple of days after Levine's essay appeared, entrepreneur Michael Saylor announced the gift of $100 million as a down payment on an electronic, "Ivy League-quality" university offering everyone in the world a free education based on lectures by the "geniuses and leaders" of our time. Levine's economics is looking more desperate by the day.)
How does one professor "touch" thousands of students a year? Wasn't this precisely the promised benefit of television? Buying the advertisements for distance education with all the uncritical enthusiasm of a grade schooler surfing the Web for goodies, Levine asks, "Why do we need the physical plant called the college?" Then he cites with approval the corporate entrepreneur who told him,
You know, you're in an industry which is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and you have a reputation for low productivity, high cost, bad management and no use of technology. You're going to be the next health care: a poorly managed nonprofit industry which was overtaken by the profit-making sector.
So Levine stands among the increasing number of education prophets who seem incapable of distinguishing between two propositions: first, that education (like virtually everything) has an economic dimension; and second, that education is an economic matter pure and simple. As obviously false as this latter proposition is (what price do you put on a well-placed metaphor, or a mind's moment of insight, or a student's cognitive maturation?) it seems to be taking ever wider root.
That Levine has reconceived educational
content as a shovelable commodity is also evident when he says,
It's possible for all of us to feel we're sitting in the same classroom. It's
possible for me to nudge (via e-mail) the student from Tokyo and say, "I missed the
professor's last comment. What was it?"; have my question translated into
Japanese; have the answer back in English in seconds.
This fantasy of adequate machine translation carries a degree of validity only in those mostly technical disciplines where a living, metaphorical language capable of conjuring the often-reticent truth has decayed into a predictable, univocal language fit only for transmitting facts in terms that carry no surprise. Language, in other words, that needs no expressive teacher and that has been drained of its ability to help us see with new eyes. Language fit for training, but not education.
Once you've accepted the idea that the educator trades in commodities, it no longer seems grotesque to restrict your students to the level of machine communication. Arthur Levine has erected an entire vision of educational renewal upon this economic presupposition. In reality, he's asking for the reduction of education to those impersonal and insipid elements that have already led many institutions like his own into decline. Hearing him speak is almost to wish these institutions good riddance.
Levine and his kin should look around themselves and tremble. Yes, corporate-style, online training programs are booming -- but only because the current, distorted economic system is demanding them, not because the content is deeply meaningful or students love the programs. If you really want to see what's new -- if you want to see where students are being led by their own desires and sense of need -- look at the thriving holistic education centers like the New York Open Center, the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, Esalen in Big Sur, California, or Hollyhock in British Columbia. Or the small, low-profile, nature-centered outdoor schools and camps springing up everywhere. Or the innumerable, mission-oriented, mostly nonprofit organizations that offer intense, focused educational experiences (like The Nature Institute where I work; two students are currently resident here, because they desired to learn about Goethean science from Craig Holdrege, one of the few people in the country qualified to oversee their work). Or just the local extension education centers at high schools, community colleges, and universities.
At many of these places you find teachers (often itinerant) and students joining *together* for a few hours or weeks or months in pursuit of a practice and an understanding. Some of the organizations mentioned above began as New Agey, crystal-gazing, feel-good escapes from sober life -- and my personal distaste for the touchy-feely aspects of their programs remains (perhaps rather too) extreme. But there is no doubt that they are now broadening out and tapping into a huge vein of educational need in our society. It is the same vein that the really good teachers in traditional schools have always managed to work, where education means the self-transformation of both student and teacher in their mutual encounter.
It all suggests to me that the decisive
challenge today is almost the opposite of what we are hearing. How can we bring
teachers *closer* to students? And if that's what students really want, then anyone
who turns green with envy at the thought of one teacher reaching thousands of students
through a glass screen has lost touch not only with the students' educational needs, but
also with their pocketbooks.
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Telematics for African Development Consortium
P.O. Box 31822
Braamfontein
2017
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel: +27 +11 403-2813
Fax: +27 +11 403-2814
neilshel@icon.co.za
www.saide.org.za
* To view an archive of previous updates visit:
www.saide.org.za/tad/archive.htm
* For resources on distance education and technology use in Southern Africa visit:
www.saide.org.za/worldbank/Default.htm
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