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Internet Presence as Knowledge Capacity: The Case of Research in Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure Reform
Abstract
Knowledge is an important driver of development. As the production and dissemination of knowledge become increasingly mediated by the Internet, the Internet presence and connectivity of researchers are becoming more valid than the conventionally used publication- and citation-based indicators. This article presents a methodology that includes the use of the Google Scholar search engine to locate knowledgeable individuals in Asia in a policy-relevant field, paying particular attention to locating researchers in developing countries or in nonacademic settings in Asia. Internet presence is not a guarantee of quality. Increasingly sophisticaticated search engines offer viable means of assessing research quality and enable us to measure the connectivity of researchers on the Internet. Although the focus of the research is information and communication technology infrastructure reform in East, Southeast, and South Asia, the method can be used to assess knowledge capacity and locate knowledgeable individuals in any field. (c) 2008 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Knowledgeable and motivated policy intellectuals are needed for effective information and communication technology policy and regulation. This article describes a Telecommunication Policy Research Conference (TPRC)–influenced conference and training program intended to develop such policy intellectuals in the Asia Pacific and Africa, which began in 2006 and ended in 2018. It was unique in emphasizing the development of junior scholars. Evidence of research and policy engagement from tracer surveys is presented. The causes of the brevity of CPRsouth’s existence are analyzed in relation to EuroCPR and TPRC using a model of knowledge network evolution, including the role of external “subsidies” and the mismatch between potential funders and the scope of the activity.
In this article, we define webometrics within the framework of informetric studies and bibliometrics, as belonging to library and information science, and as associated with cybermetrics as a generic subfield. We develop a consistent and detailed link typology and terminology and make explicit the distinction among different Web node levels when using the proposed conceptual framework. As a consequence, we propose a novel diagram notation to fully appreciate and investigate link structures between Web nodes in webometric analyses. We warn against taking the analogy between citation analyses and link analyses too far.
New information and communication technologies will arrive on the market at a fast and furious pace. Two technologies of immediate relevance to information and communication infrastructure (ICI) development are broadband access and secure servers. Emerging features of an ICI include distributed computing and associated communications; sophistication of end-devices through links to global positioning systems, sensors that detect and transmit environmental conditions, unique identity systems; and Public key infrastructures for secure and authenticated commercial transactions or e-commerce. ICI developments in Sri Lanka will continue to be driven through private sector investments. An ICI develops in response to the supply of technologies and the demand by users. Given the pace of technology developments and the globalized nature of markets, the most important S&T input to ICI development is a workforce that is able to take the technologies and provide innovative solutions to e-business, e-government, and e-society uses of an ICI. In the long-term, the country needs to develop some capacity to innovate. In S&T capacity building strategies the role of the private sector is often underestimated, attempts are made to develop 'appropriate' technologies where they do not make economic sense, and public-private partnerships are prescribed for situations where the public sector simply does not have the S&T capacity necessary for such partnerships. We propose a strategy where the role of the government is to (a) provide an environment that enables industry to build their own R&D capacity through trade, direct foreign investment (DFI) or licensing relationships, (b) recognize that the universities in Sri Lanka are essentially teaching institutions and ensure that these institutions focus on preparing an innovative workforce, (c) nurture existing pockets of research excellence in the public sector that contribute to new knowledge, product development, or education and training; phase out other investments, (d) liberalize policies for private-public partnerships and (e) assess the performance of public and private sectors on a continuing basis through comparisons with institutions in other countries and loop back that information to the policy- making and funding processes.
Arguably, a small segment of organizations, governments and corporations have moved beyond ‘using’ to ‘operating’ the Internet. One of the beginnings of ‘Net operation’ lay in the emergence of Internet intelligence and monitoring companies. In 1995 the first of these companies was viewed in light of its ready off-Web comparison, the news-clipping service. Gradually, however, the companies have become known as Internet ‘surveillance’ firms, where the main services comprise actively ‘monitoring’ what’s being said on the Net by their competitors (on competitor websites), by their critics (on ‘rogue’ and other websites), and by ‘Chinese whisperers’ (on newsgroups, mailing lists and listservs) (New York Times, 8 March 1999). To their clients the monitoring companies send indices, largely in the well-known styles of Web and newsgroup search engine returns. Depending on the severity of the ‘word on the Net’, the surveillance companies also recommend some form of action to be taken, in order to quash the rumour or put a more permanent end to the mongering (see Figure 1).
While much of the more serious recommended action appears to be of the legal variety, in the form of trademark infringement, unfair trade and/or liable law suits, the less severe falls into the realm of
‘media tactics’. Indeed, certain corporations under fire for their human rights and environmental records often engage in tactical Net media (Garcia and Lovink, 1999). Be it the rather standard discursive ‘greenwashing’ of products, the more subtle creation of anger venting Net ‘graffiti spaces’ such as the Shell forum, or the establishment of hyperlinks to one’s critics, such Net manoeuvring becomes immediately legible and trackable on the Internet knowledge maps, as we come to later in introducing new Web debate mapping techniques, based on basic ‘socio-epistemological’ analysis (Lubbers, 1999; Sassen, 1998; Rogers and Marres, 2000).
The Web and innovation systems are interacting complex systems that impact each other. Web indicators used to inform decision-makers about the impact they are having on each must be reproducible and relevant. Web metrics research is young and best-practice methodologies for producing robust indicators are evolving. This study describes a methodology for producing robust indicators of the web presence of the European and Canadian innovation systems. It demonstrates that the emergent properties and scaling
characteristics expected of complex systems are captured by these indicators. It illustrates how these indicators can be used to measure the amount of recognition a nation or province’s web presence receives from other nations and provinces in their innovation systems.
The Web and innovation systems are interacting complex systems that impact each other. Web indicators used to inform decision-makers about the impact they are having on each must be reproducible and relevant. Web metrics research is young and best-practice methodologies for producing robust indicators are evolving. This study describes a methodology for producing robust indicators of the web presence of the European and Canadian innovation systems. It demonstrates that the emergent properties and scaling
characteristics expected of complex systems are captured by these indicators. It illustrates how these indicators can be used to measure the amount of recognition a nation or province’s web presence receives from other nations and provinces in their innovation systems.
This volume offers an exploration of major changes in the way
knowledge is produced in science, technology, social science,
& humanities, arguing that a new mode of knowledge production
promises to replace or radically reform established
institutions, disciplines, practices, & policies. A range of
features - reflexivity, transdisciplinarity, heterogeneity -
associated with the new mode of knowledge production are
identified to illustrate the connections between them & the
changing role of knowledge in social relations.
Methodological difficulties inherent in attempts to describe
a new mode of knowledge production are discussed, &
implications of this mode for science policy & international
economic competitiveness, collaboration, & globalization are
treated. The book is particularly relevant for those
concerned with educational systems, the changing nature of
knowledge, the social study of science, & the connections
between research & development, & social, economic, &
technological development. The book is presented in 7 Chpts
with a Preface & an Introduction. (1) Evolution of Knowledge
Production. (2) The Marketability and Commercialisation of
Knowledge. (3) Massification of Research and Education. (4)
The Case of the Humanities. (5) Competitiveness,
Collaboration and Globalisation. (6) Reconfiguring
Institutions. (7) Towards Managing Socially Distributed
Knowledge. References accompany each Chpt. 2 Tables. W.
Howard (Copyright 1995, Sociological Abstracts, Inc., all
rights reserved.)
This article spotlights the need to develop capacity for ICT pol- icy and regulation within developing countries. It argues that ca- pacity should to be developed among all stakeholders, not solely within government agencies, because that would enable effective participation by many players in the regulatory process. The result- ing participatory regulatory process will in turn increase account- ability and procedural legitimacy. The article examines different approaches to developing in situ expertise, especially just-in-time learning and open-source research.
This paper devises a new indicator (ArCo) of technological capabilities that aims at accounting for developed and developing countries. Building on similar attempts as those devised by UN Agencies, including the UNDP Human Development Report's Technology Achievement Index (TAI) and UNIDO's Industrial Performance Scoreboard, this index takes into account a number of other variables associated with technological change. Three main components are considered: the creation of technology, the technological infrastructures and the development of human skills. Eight sub-categories have also been included. ArCo also allows for comparisons between countries over time. A preliminary attempt to correlate ArCo to GDP is also presented.
The university has become the subject of much critical debate in the social sciences in recent years. While earlier interpretations, such as those of Weber (see Shils, 1973), Parsons (Parsons and Platt, 1973), Bourdieu (1988, 1996), emphasized the autonomy of the university within the context of a social theory of modernity, the recent appraisals are more critical and call into question the very coherence of the project of modernity in the postmodern and global age. Four debates can be identified.
1. The entrenched liberal critique, which can be called a cultural critique since it is primarily concerned with the university as a medium of cultural reproduction. The liberal idea of the university—associated with the positions of Allan Bloom (1987), who bemoans the attack on the traditional curriculum in the name of diversity, and Russell Jacoby (1987), who regrets the decline of the public intellectual who has disappeared from the university—on the whole looks backwards to the golden age of an earlier university. Despite the different positions within this broad stance that derives from the neo-humanist tradition, the tendency is to see the university in crisis because of the decline of the autonomy of culture, be it the culture of critique or, in its more conservative version, the traditional culture of the canon.
2. The postmodern thesis, associated with Lyotard (1984) and recently restated by Bill Readings (1996), announces the end of the university along with the end of the nation-state. It is claimed that knowledge has lost its emancipatory role and the very notion of universality, or even the very idea of a curriculum, is now impossible, given the fragmentation of knowledge, as in, for instance, the separation of teaching and research.
3. The reflexivity thesis, which is best associated with claims that there is a new mode of knowledge based on a more reflexive relationship between user and producer, offers a less dramatic theory but one nevertheless that announces the obsolescence of the university (Gibbons et al., 1984). As a Mode 2 paradigm around applied knowledge emerges, the university, which is caught up in the more hierarchical and disciplinary-based Mode 1 knowledge production, becomes, it is claimed, increasingly irrelevant to the postfordist economy.
4. The globalization thesis draws attention to the instrumentalization of the university as it embraces market values and information technology. According to various authors, the university is far from irrelevant to capitalism, as the previous thesis would claim, but is in fact fully integrated into it and, as a new manageralism takes over the university, there is a resulting loss of academic freedom (Curie and Newson, 1998; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1997; Slaughter and Leslie, 1997). This thesis suggests that the university has become a major player in the global market and in information-based capitalism.
What are we to make of these announcements of crisis and even of the decline of the university? I believe a more nuanced interpretation is possible.
This paper devises a new indicator (ArCo) of technological capabilities that aims at accounting for developed and developing countries. Building on similar attempts as those devised by UN Agencies, including the UNDP Human Development Report's Technology Achievement Index (TAI) and UNIDO's Industrial Performance Scoreboard, this index takes into account a number of other variables associated with technological change. Three main components are considered: the creation of technology, the technological infrastructures and the development of human skills. Eight subcategories have also been included. ArCo also allows for comparisons between countries over time. A preliminary attempt to correlate ArCo to GDP is also presented.
By virtue of their education, training, and experience, college and university faculty are a rich national resource. Opportunities abound for faculty scholars to apply their knowledge and expertise to pressing community and public issues and problems. Yet, narrow definitions of scholarship embedded in higher education practice act as disincentives to such faculty work. After a brief discussion of the problem, this article reviews efforts made in the US to expand the definition of scholarship and proposes a conception of scholarship that works across disciplinary contexts and addresses 21st-century challenges.
By virtue of their education, training, and experience, college and university faculty are a rich national resource. Opportunities abound for faculty scholars to apply their knowledge and expertise to pressing community and public issues and problems. Yet, narrow definitions of scholarship embedded in higher education practice act as disincentives to such faculty work. After a brief discussion of the problem, this article reviews efforts made in the US to expand the definition of scholarship and proposes a conception of scholarship that works across disciplinary contexts and addresses 21st-century challenges.
The World Wide Web provides a unprecedented opportunity to automatically analyze a large sample of interests and activity in the world. We discuss methods for extracting knowledge from the web by randomly sampling and analyzing hosts and pages, and by analyzing the link structure of the web and how links accumulate over time. A variety of interesting and valuable information can be extracted, such as the distribution of web pages over domains, the distribution of interest in different areas, communities related to different topics, the nature of competition in different categories of sites, and the degree of communication between different communities or countries.
You are what you link
- L A Adamic
- E Adar
The future of STS on the Web
- R Rogers
The new production of knowledge
- M Gibbons
- C Limoges
- H Nowotny
- S Schwartzman
- P Scott
- M Trow