Berkman Center Newsfeed

Teens, Social Media, and Privacy: New Survey Findings from Pew and the Berkman Center

ashar — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:09:26 -0400

Teens are sharing more information about themselves on social media sites than they have in the past, but they are also taking a variety of technical and non-technical steps to manage the privacy of that information. Despite taking these privacy-protective actions, teen social media users do not express a high level of concern about third-parties (such as businesses or advertisers) accessing their data; just 9% say they are “very” concerned.

Key findings include:

Teens are sharing more information about themselves on their social media profiles than they did when we last surveyed in 2006:

91% post a photo of themselves, up from 79% in 2006.
71% post their school name, up from 49%.
71% post the city or town where they live, up from 61%.
53% post their email address, up from 29%.
20% post their cell phone number, up from 2%.

60% of teen Facebook users set their Facebook profiles to private (friends only), and most report high levels of confidence in their ability to manage their settings.

56% of teen Facebook users say it’s “not difficult at all” to manage the privacy controls on their Facebook profile.
33% Facebook-using teens say it’s “not too difficult.”
8% of teen Facebook users say that managing their privacy controls is “somewhat difficult,” while less than 1% describe the process as “very difficult.”

About the Survey

These findings are based on a nationally representative phone survey run by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project of 802 parents and their 802 teens ages 12-17. It was conducted between July 26 and September 30, 2012. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish and on landline and cell phones. The margin of error for the full sample is ± 4.5 percentage points.

This report marries that data with insights and quotes from in-person focus groups conducted by the Youth and Media team at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University beginning in February 2013. The focus groups focused on privacy and digital media, with special emphasis on social media sites. The team conducted 24 focus group interviews with 156 students across the greater Boston area, Los Angeles (California), Santa Barbara (California), and Greensboro (North Carolina). Each focus group lasted 90 minutes, including a 15-minute questionnaire completed prior to starting the interview, consisting of 20 multiple-choice questions and 1 open-ended response. Although the research sample was not designed to constitute representative cross-sections of particular population(s), the sample includes participants from diverse ethnic, racial, and economic backgrounds. Participants ranged in age from 11 to 19. The mean age of participants is 14.5.

In addition, two online focus groups of teenagers ages 12-17 were conducted by the Pew Internet Project from June 20-27, 2012 to help inform the survey design. The first focus group was with 11 middle schoolers ages 12-14, and the second group was with nine high schoolers ages 14-17. Each group was mixed gender, with some racial, socio-economic, and regional diversity. The groups were conducted as an asynchronous threaded discussion over three days using an online platform and the participants were asked to log in twice per day.

Throughout this report, this focus group material is highlighted in several ways. Pew’s online focus group quotes are interspersed with relevant statistics from the survey in order to illustrate findings that were echoed in the focus groups or to provide additional context to the data. In addition, at several points, there are extensive excerpts boxed off as standalone text boxes that elaborate on a number of important themes that emerged from the in-person focus groups conducted by the Berkman Center.

About the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project is one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. The Project produces reports exploring the impact of the Internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. The Project aims to be an authoritative source on the evolution of the Internet through surveys that examine how Americans use the Internet and how their activities affect their lives.

About the Berkman Center for Internet & Society

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is a research program founded to recognize, study, and engage the most difficult problems of the digital age and to share in their resolution in ways that advance the public interest. Founded in 1997, through a generous gift from Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman, the Center is home to an ever-growing community of faculty, fellows, staff, and affiliates. Fundamental to its work is the study of the relationship between digital technologies and democratic values, including civic participation, access to knowledge, and the free flow of information. More information can be found at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu.

Media contacts

Mary Madden: mmadden@pewinternet.org and 202-419-4515
Amanda Lenhart: alenhart@pewinternet.org and 202-419-4514

Berkman Buzz: May 24, 2013

rheacock — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:25:38 -0400

The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects.
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Urs Gasser analyzes Internet voting in Switzerland

We aim to track the history, promise, and challenges of Internet voting encountered by one of the two successful pioneers in the field: Switzerland. The Swiss case is of great interest to any student of Internet voting as it is to any policy-maker interested in the prospects, pitfalls, and solutions for avoiding the challenges of Internet voting within their respective contexts.

From Urs Gasser and Alexander H. Trechsel's article in Harvard International Review, "Switzerland & the Future of Elections"
About Urs Gasser | @ugasser

Participating in the National Day of Civic Hacking, 6/1-2? Be sure to hack the DPLA! http://bit.ly/19nsaXI #hackforchange @civichackingday
—Digital Public Library of America (@dpla)

Ethan Zuckerman weighs in on crowdfunding for "checkbook journalism"

Does raising money to purchase incriminating video represent a new milestone in crowdfunding? Is it a particularly ethically cloudy example of civic crowdfunding? Or just an attention grabbing stunt by [Gawker founder Nick] Denton and crew?

From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post, "Crowdfunding Checkbook Journalism: Gawker’s “Crackstarter” and its implications"
About Ethan | @ethanz

Berkman Center and Pew release new survey findings on teens, social media, and privacy

From the Berkman Center, "Teens, Social Media, and Privacy: New Survey Findings from Pew and the Berkman Center"

How Walmart uses consumer purchase history to push shopping lists to mobile app http://bit.ly/Z5Ecnd
—John Deighton (@HBSmktg)

danah boyd reviews Berkman/Pew report on teens, social media, and privacy

Yesterday, Pew Internet and American Life Project (in collaboration with Berkman) unveiled a brilliant report about “Teens, Social Media, and Privacy.” As a researcher who’s been in the trenches on these topics for a long time now, none of their finding surprised me but it still gives me absolute delight when our data is so beautifully in synch. I want to quickly discuss two important issues that this report raise.

From danah boyd's blog post, "thoughts on Pew’s latest report: notable findings on race and privacy"
About danah | @zephoria

How to Cover Elections With Social Media...Offline

Ghana Decides was an online project which aimed to cover the run up to the then upcoming presidential election of 2012, hoping to "foster a better-informed electorate for free, fair and safe elections," using online social media as their primary tool. An initiative of Blogging Ghana, it built upon this existing community of social media users and enthusiasts in and out of the country. The project ended in January 2013, after the election was completed.

Ghana Decides often faced the difficult task of online advocacy in a country with very low internet coverage, at times working in rural locations without the coverage to post updates. However, they managed to turn this to their advantage.

From Laura Morris's blog post for Rising Voices, "How to Cover Elections With Social Media… Offline"
About Global Voices Online | @globalvoices

This Buzz was compiled by Rebekah Heacock.

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Technologies of Choice? – ICTs, development and the capabilities approach

ashar — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:05:14 -0400

Berkman Events Newsletter Template

berkman luncheon series/book launch

Technologies of Choice? – ICTs, development and the capabilities approach

Tuesday, May 28, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

ICT for development (ICT4D) scholars claim that the internet, radio and mobile phones can support development. Yet the dominant paradigm of development as economic growth is too limiting to understand the full potential of these technologies. One key rival to such econocentric understandings is Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach to development – focusing on a pluralistic understanding of people’s values and the lives they want to lead.

In her book, Technologies of Choice? (MIT Press 2013), Dorothea Kleine translates Sen’s approach into policy analysis and ethnographic work on technology adaptation. She shows how technologies are not neutral, but imbued with values that may or may not coincide with the values of users. The case study analyses Chile’s pioneering ICT policies in the areas of public access, digital literacy, and online procurement and the sobering reality of one of the most marginalised communities in the country where these policies play out. The book shows how both neoliberal and egalitarian ideologies are written into technologies as they permeate the everyday lives and livelihoods of women and men in the town.

Technologies of Choice? examines the relationship between ICTs, choice, and development. It argues for a people-centred view of development that has individual and collective choice at its heart.

Discussant: Dr Nancy Hafkin (formerly UN Economic Commission for Africa)

Dorothea Kleine is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography and Director of the interdisciplinary ICT4D Centre at Royal Holloway, University of London. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

video/audio

Justin Reich on Personalized Learning, Backpacks Full of Cash, Rockstar Teachers, and MOOC Madness

For decades, policymakers and futurists have heralded digital tools as essential to the the future of learning. Has the moment of disruptive transformational revolution finally arrived? If we are at a watershed moment, what futures are available to us? Justin Reich -- visiting lecturer at MIT, Berkman fellow, and educational researcher -- discusses the intersection of technology, free-market ideology, and media hype in U.S. education reform. video/audio on our website>

Other Events of Note

Events that may be of interest to the Berkman community:

5/22: EdCamp HGSE (Harvard Graduate School of Education)
5/23: ICT, Law, and Innovation: Recent Developments, Challenges, and Lessons Learned (Istanbul Bilgi University)
5/29: Media Lab Conversations Series: Beth Noveck (MIT)
5/30: Rise of the Individual (Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University)
6/6-7: Personal Democracy Forum 2013 (NYC)
6/11: Start-Up City: Building Boston’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (Rappaport Institute)
6/16-18: ODR2013 (Montreal)
8/7-11: Wikimania 2013 (Hong Kong)

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Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more

See our events calendar if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.

Peter Suber to Direct Harvard’s Office for Scholarly Communication

ashar — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:00:00 -0400

May 21, 2013 — The Harvard Library and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University are pleased to announce the appointment of Peter Suber as director of the Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC), starting July 1, 2013. Suber will continue his current activities as director of the Harvard Open Access Project, based at the Berkman Center, as well as his affiliations as a Berkman faculty fellow, senior researcher at the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and research professor of Philosophy at Earlham College.

Suber's new role with the OSC closely aligns with his work leading the Harvard Open Access Project. Both are driven by a common vision for opening access to cutting-edge research for everyone who can make use of it. Integrating the two roles into one position will allow the projects to better share strategies, staff, resources and knowledge, and accelerate the progress of open access both within and beyond Harvard.

“This new phase of collaboration represents a wonderful recognition, extension, and synchronization of the efforts of the Berkman Center and the Harvard Library. It promises continued progress inside Harvard as well as leadership and collaboration outside its increasingly permeable walls,” said Urs Gasser, Berkman’s executive director.

Suber is taking over executive leadership of the OSC from Stuart Shieber, Welch Professor of Computer Science in Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and founding faculty director of the OSC. Shieber will continue as faculty director, though with a reduced role, co-chairing the Faculty Advisory Committee to the OSC with Suber, serving in an advisory capacity to the Office, and working on individual projects with the OSC. Sue Kriegsman, OSC program manager, will continue to oversee the Office’s operations and staff, as the activities of the Office continue to expand and mature.

According to Shieber, “Peter Suber is the world expert on open access; he literally wrote the book on the topic (Open Access, 2012, MIT Press). I am tremendously excited to get Peter even more involved in the OSC, where his leadership will foster our position at the forefront of the open-access revolution.”

University Librarian Robert Darnton noted the importance of the OSC to Harvard and to the scholarly community more broadly. “Under the leadership of Stuart Shieber, the OSC has placed Harvard at the forefront of the open-access movement. Peter Suber is the ideal choice to carry on that tradition and enhance it.”

The Office for Scholarly Communication spearheads campus-wide initiatives to open, share, and preserve scholarship. In cooperation with the OSC, faculty at eight of Harvard’s schools have put in place default rights-retention open-access policies, which have influenced similar policies at universities throughout the world. The Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) repository established and operated by the OSC holds over 12,000 scholarly articles, which have been downloaded almost 1.5 million times from every continent, some 3,000 downloads per day. The Library Lab program, funded by the Arcadia Fund and managed by the OSC, has supported dozens of entrepreneurial grants within the Harvard Library system to solve problems and improve services.

The Arcadia-funded Harvard Open Access Project is housed at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and works with the OSC to foster open access within Harvard. At the same time, it looks outward to promote open access beyond Harvard. It currently consults pro bono with more than 40 universities, foundations, publishers, and government agencies on their open-access policies. It maintains a widely-endorsed guide to good practices for university open-access policies, and a series of reference pages on topics such as federal open-access legislation, business models for open-access journals and books, and scholarly societies publishing open-access journals. HOAP also runs the Open Access Tracking Project, a comprehensive source of real-time news and comment on worldwide open-access developments.

Berkman Buzz: May 17, 2013

rheacock — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:44:49 -0400

The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects.
To subscribe, click here.

Islawmix calls for better fact checking, less sensationalism re: Muslims in the news

You have most probably heard by now that three Emirati men were allegedly thrown out of a cultural Janadriyah Festival by the Saudi religious police (pl. mutawaeen) for “being too handsome.” Most reports, however, have claimed the three men were actually deported from the Kingdom, itself, for their ‘seductive' lure that was apparently going to send the attending women into an incontrollable hormonal flux. Fementertainment blog, Jezebel, was amongst the first to reveal the identity of one of the alleged Emirati men, Omar Borkan Al Gala – a photographer, model, actor and poet. The internet went into self-fanning mode as several images of the young man went viral and thousands clamored to follow him on social media websites.

Unfortunately, no one in the English press bothered to actually fact check the story.

From Islawmix, "The Man Too Handsome for Saudi Arabia Who Wasn’t"
About Islawmix | @islawmix

Thanks, @oso, for a thorough, fair and helpfully critical review of Rewire. http://t.co/7UvoDjMXre
—Ethan Zuckerman (@ethanz)

Ethan Zuckerman critiques Charlie Mann's Atlantic story on energy, oil, and methane hydrate

Charles Mann offers a big story in the latest issue of the Atlantic. It’s 11,000 words, and it’s based around an audacious premise: the end of energy scarcity. The peg for the story is Japan’s ongoing research on methane hydrate, an amalgam of natural gas trapped in water ice that occurs in oceans around the world. If methane hydrate can be harvested, Mann tell us, the global supply of hydrocarbon fuels are virtually unlimited. This, he argues, would have massive geopolitical and strategic implications, as the history of the twentieth century can be read in part through the lens of wealthy nations without oil seeking the black stuff in less developed lands. New forms of power might center on who can extract ice that burns like natural gas.

From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post, "Big stories and little details: what Charles Mann misses"
About Ethan | @ethanz

Andrés Monroy-Hernández and Mako Hill explore generativity and originality in remixing

Remixing — the reworking and recombination of existing creative artifacts — represents a widespread, important, and controversial form of social creativity online. Proponents of remix culture often speak of remixing in terms of rich ecosystems where creative works are novel and highly generative, however, examples like this can be difficult to find. Although there is a steady stream of media being shared freely on the web, only a tiny fraction of these projects are remixed even once. On top of this, many remixes are not very different from the works they are built upon. Why is some content more attractive to remixers? Why are some projects remixed in deeper and more transformative ways?

From Andrés Monroy-Hernández's blog post (co-written with Mako Hill), "The Remixing Dilemma: The Trade-Off Between Generativity and Originality"
About Andrés | @andresmh
About Mako | @makoshark

For those who've asked, you can download a straight PDF of my thesis on activist DDOS actions here: http://bit.ly/12EB0OC
—Molly Sauter (@OddLetters)

Urs Gasser appointed Professor of Practice

Harvard Law School has announced the appointment of Urs Gasser LL.M. ’03, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, as a Professor of Practice.

The professorships of practice at Harvard Law School are given to outstanding individuals whose teaching is informed by extensive expertise from the worlds of law practice, the judiciary, policy and governance.

From Harvard Law School, "Gasser appointed professor of practice"
About Urs | @ugasser

Chinese Web Floods White House with Petitions

Recently, an unsolved case of poisoning of a 19-year college student in 1994 resurfaced in the Chinese social media sphere. It not only grabbed the wide attention of Chinese netizens, but also triggered a wave of petitions to the White House.

From Gloria Wong's blog post for Global Voices, "Chinese Web Floods White House with Petitions"
About Global Voices Online | @globalvoices

This Buzz was compiled by Rebekah Heacock.

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Technologies of Choice? – ICTs, development and the capabilities approach (5/28)

ashar — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:08:32 -0400

Berkman Events Newsletter Template

berkman luncheon series/book launch

Technologies of Choice? – ICTs, development and the capabilities approach

Tuesday, May 28, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

Technologies of Choice? examines the relationship between ICTs, choice, and development. It argues for a people-centred view of development that has individual and collective choice at its heart.

Discussant: Dr Nancy Hafkin (formerly UN Economic Commission for Africa)

video/audio

Justin Reich on Personalized Learning, Backpacks Full of Cash, Rockstar Teachers, and MOOC Madness

Other Events of Note

Events that may be of interest to the Berkman community:

5/16-17: Legal Frontiers in Digital Media (Stanford University)
5/16-17: Governing Algorithms Conference (NYU)
5/20: Social Media for Nonprofits (MS NERD Cambridge)
5/23: ICT, Law, and Innovation: Recent Developments, Challenges, and Lessons Learned (Istanbul Bilgi University)
6/6-7: Personal Democracy Forum 2013 (NYC)
6/11: Start-Up City: Building Boston’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (Rappaport Institute)
6/16-18: ODR2013 (Montreal)
8/7-11: Wikimania 2013 (Hong Kong)

Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more

See our events calendar if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.

Cyber War Is Not the Answer, But What Is? Addressing Cyber Conflict While Protecting Privacy and Internet Freedom

candersen — Tue, 14 May 2013 09:22:18 -0400

May 14, 12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor

About Tim

Timothy H. Edgar is a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute and is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. His work focuses on the unique policy challenges posed by growing global cyber conflict, particularly in reconciling security interests with fundamental values, including privacy and Internet freedom.

Mr. Edgar served under President Obama as the first ever Director of Privacy and Civil Liberties for the White House National Security Staff, focusing on cybersecurity, open government and data privacy initiatives. From 2006 to 2009, he was the first Deputy for Civil Liberties for the Director of National Intelligence, reviewing new surveillance authorities, the terrorist watchlist, and other sensitive programs. He has also been counsel for the information sharing environment, which facilitates the secure sharing of terrorism-related information.

Prior to his government service, Mr. Edgar was the national security and immigration counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, where he spearheaded the organization’s innovative left- right coalition advocating for safeguards for a number of post-9/11 counterterrorism initiatives, including the USA Patriot Act. He frequently testified before Congress and appeared in major television, radio and print media.

Publications include contributions to Patriot Debates (American Bar Association 2005), America’s Battle Against Terrorism (with Nadine Strossen) (Greenhaven Press 2005) and Women Immigrants in the United States (Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars 2002), and Constitutional Governance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 25 Texas International Law Journal 207-237 (with Michael D. Nicoleau) (Spring 2000).

Mr. Edgar was a law clerk to Judge Sandra Lynch, United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He has a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he served on the Harvard Law Review, and an A.B. from Dartmouth College.

"Newsgathering in Massachusetts" Guide Now Available Online! (via @DMLPBerkman)

ashar — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:14:32 -0400

Addressing Cyber Conflict While Protecting Privacy and Internet Freedom; Technologies of Choice? ICTs and Development

ashar — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:00:00 -0400

Berkman Events Newsletter Template

berkman luncheon series

Cyber War Is Not the Answer, But What Is? Addressing Cyber Conflict While Protecting Privacy and Internet Freedom

Tuesday, May 14, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

What does talk of cyber war mean for our liberties? The United States has a new military command for cyberspace, with the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) as its commander. At the same time, the Secretary of State has announced that the “freedom to connect” is an aspect of fundamental human rights and has criticized countries that attempt to filter the Internet. Computer networks remain insecure, as sensitive data is leaked or stolen at increasing rates. This talk will examine the legal powers available to addressing network and computer insecurity and their impact on privacy, civil liberties and other fundamental values. Timothy H. Edgar is a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute and is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. His work focuses on the unique policy challenges posed by growing global cyber conflict, particularly in reconciling security interests with fundamental values, including privacy and Internet freedom. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

berkman luncheon series/book launch

Technologies of Choice? – ICTs, development and the capabilities approach

Tuesday, May 28, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

Technologies of Choice? examines the relationship between ICTs, choice, and development. It argues for a people-centred view of development that has individual and collective choice at its heart.

Discussant: Dr Nancy Hafkin (formerly UN Economic Commission for Africa)

video/audio

Work Here: Heather Whitney on Having a Voice in the Modern Workplace and Changing the World

Companies like Google and Twitter and Facebook are thought to provide some of the most envied work environments on the planet. But should employees be worried that their trust in their employer, so purposefully cultivated, has been built on promises that are more illusion than enforceable promise? Some in the labor movement think these employers create nothing more than a mirage, that like the now-prohibited company unions of the past, these employers work to ensure workers feel a sense of ownership and voice but, when push comes to shove, have nothing the company cannot just as easily take away. Others, including many who work at these companies, disagree. In this talk, Heather Whitney -- Berkman fellow, Harvard J.D. candidate, and former Google Global Ethics and Compliance team employee -- outlines the debate and tries to make headway towards some answers. video/audio on our website>

Other Events of Note

Events that may be of interest to the Berkman community:

5/9: Virality: Beyond Cute Cats (MIT Enterprise Forum)
5/10: Colonel David Pendall on, “Intelligence Gathering: Persistent Surveillance Technologies.” (Belfer Center)
5/16-17: Legal Frontiers in Digital Media (Stanford University)
5/16-17: Governing Algorithms Conference (NYU)
5/20: Social Media for Nonprofits (MS NERD Cambridge)
5/23: ICT, Law, and Innovation: Recent Developments, Challenges, and Lessons Learned (Istanbul Bilgi University)
6/6-7: Personal Democracy Forum 2013 (NYC)

Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more

See our events calendar if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.

Personalized Learning, Backpacks Full of Cash, Rockstar Teachers, and MOOC Madness

candersen — Tue, 07 May 2013 09:40:01 -0400

May 7, 12:30pm ET
[New Location] Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C
[Event at Capacity] Please join webcast live at 12:30pm ET or view archived video on our site shortly after.

Researchers are developing new methods to leverage big data for personalized learning systems. Free-market advocates are envisioning how online learning could let students use vouchers not only to buy whole school experiences, but to buy individual courses from multiple vendors. Most radical of all, technologists and policymakers are exploring ways of using technology to "unbundle teaching", to create a suite of new roles in schools from rockstar teachers to full-time remote classroom observers, much as health care has shifted from the general practitioner to teams comprised of a few surgeons and many orderlies.

In this luncheon presentation we'll explore the different futures made possible by these digital tools, and examine the political and civic implications of transforming schools and learning with networked technologies.

About Justin

Justin Reich is an educational researcher interested in the future of learning in a networked world. Currently, he is a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a visiting lecturer at MIT, and the director of online community, research, and practice at Facing History and Ourselves. Justin is the co-founder of EdTechTeacher, a professional learning consultancy devoted to helping teachers leverage technology to create student-centered, inquiry-based learning environments. He earned his doctorate from Harvard University, where he led the Distributed Collaborative Learning Communities project, a Hewlett Foundation funded initiative to examine how social media are used in K-12 classrooms. He writes the EdTechResearcher blog for Education Week, and his writings have appeared in Educational Researcher, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, and other publications.

Gasser appointed professor of practice (via @Harvard_Law School News)

ashar — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:13:36 -0400

Watch the recordings of six special events for Terry Fisher's HLS and EdX copyright courses

nlevy — Thu, 02 May 2013 16:27:40 -0400

Over the course of the Spring 2013 semester, Professor Terry Fisher held six special events for his two copyright courses: one was offered at Harvard Law School, and the other, CopyrightX, was an experimental course offered under the auspices of the online learning initiative EdX. Both courses explore in depth the law, theory, and practice of copyright. The events brought together the Harvard Law School students, EdX students, and guest experts for real-time conversations.

You can read more about CopyrightX and access the course materials here.

Each of the events features a guest expert and examines a difficult issue growing out of, or adjacent to, copyright law. In the courses overall, and in the special events in particular, considerable attention is devoted to the relationship between copyright law and creative expression in a variety of fields: literature; music; film; photography; graphic art; software; comedy; fashion; and architecture.  

The Interests of Authors, February 6

Speakers: Dale Cendali, Richard Kelly, William Landay, John Drake

IP Protection for Fashion, February 13, 7:00 p.m. EST

Speakers: Jeannie Suk & Chris Sprigman

Extralegal Norms, February 27, 7:00 p.m. EST

Speakers: Dotan Oliar & Jim Mendrinos

Appropriation Art, April 3, 7:00 p.m. EDT

Speakers: Shepard Fairey, Marita Sturken & Geoffrey Stewart

Free Culture, April 17, 7:00 p.m. EDT

Speaker: Larry Lessig

Orphan Works and Digital Libraries, April 24, 7:00 p.m. EDT

Speakers: Robert Darnton, John Palfrey, Brewster Kahle

Berkman Buzz: May 2, 2013

rheacock — Thu, 02 May 2013 16:19:59 -0400

The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects.
To subscribe, click here.

Eric Gordon ponders a new definition of civic action

In 2000, the sociologist Robert Putnam was unambiguous in his concern that the new World Wide Web was leading to the decay of civic engagement. People were simply spending too much time online and becoming more comfortable with being disconnected from their physical space. Much has changed since the days of Alta Vista and personal homepages, but specifically the proliferation of social media and what I have elsewhere called net locality have led to a complex civic landscape where civic actions exist well beyond geographic communities and institutions. It is possible to advocate and to organize entirely online. Protesting Facebook’s newest privacy policy is a civic action, signing an online petition against the passage of SOPA and PIPA is a civic action, even joining a Kickstarter campaign to get a website funded can be a civic action. These “online” actions are civic insofar as they are taken to affect change in a community or institution outside of one’s private domain. In other words, the deliberate taking part in any social situation that extends beyond one’s immediate family and home can be considered civic.

From Eric Gordon's blog post, "What are civic actions?"
About Eric | @ericbot

Facebook is evaluating its policies regarding decapitation videos in response to some Mexican narcovideos: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22368287
—Andrés Monroy-Hernández (@andresmh)

Ethan Zuckerman responds to David Rieff's critique of "cyberutopianism"

As one of the fools pilloried in David Rieff's scathing attack on "cyberutopianism," I'm of two minds about responding. I've urged other authors unfairly characterized as cyberutopians to resist the temptation to respond to critics who misrepresent their arguments in the hopes of creating controversy. Rieff praises the most notorious of those critics, Evgeny Morozov, and deploys similar tactics, engaging less with my arguments than with a chimera that features my head alongside Ray Kurzweil's and others with a far more optimistic view of technology and change than I hold.

From Ethan Zuckerman's article for Foreign Policy, "Who’s Afraid of Cyberoptimism?"
About Ethan | @ethanz

Matthew Battles discusses literary writing and social media

The image has been handed down throughout the long iconography of the West, most effectively transmitted in the image of Saint Jerome: the writer as a recluse, weaving spirited collocations of words in hushed seclusion. Jerome may have a lion at his feet, but he lacks other company — and, of course, he has no Wi-Fi. His condition is distinctly different from that of the modern writer; her room is not only well-lighted and likely lion-free, but also furnishes an Internet connection, through which the world’s tumult pours.

From Matthew Battles' piece for the New York Times, "How Writers Interact With the World"
About Matthew | @MatthewBattles

The first post in a #DPLA Blog series looking deeply at some of the objects available through the DPLA: http://bit.ly/13PBTEL
—Digital Public Library of America (@dpla)

CopyrightX posts new lectures online

On April 17, Larry Lessig discussed Free Culture.

On April 24, Robert Darnton, John Palfrey, and Brewster Kahle discussed Orphan Works and Digital Libraries.

From the Berkman Center, "Watch the recordings of six special events for Terry Fisher's HLS and EdX copyright courses"
About CopyrightX

‘Africa Is A Country’ Blog Challenges West's Idea of Africa

This isn't another blog about “famine, Bono, or Barack Obama,” warns the blog Africa is a Country in its description on Facebook.

The ironically titled blog aims, among other things, to do away with the the narrative told and retold by western media that Africa is “a perpetual sob story”, Africa is a Country founder Sean Jacobs told Global Voices.

At the same time, Jacobs said, the blog is a collective of scholars, writers, artists, filmmakers, bloggers, and curators who together produce online commentary, original writing, media criticism, short videos, and photography that is working to reimagine Africa as a community.

From Ndesanjo Macha's blog post for Global Voices, "‘Africa Is A Country’ Blog Challenges West's Idea of Africa"
About Global Voices Online | @globalvoices

This Buzz was compiled by Rebekah Heacock.

To manage your subscription preferences, please click here.

Creating the Policy and Legal Framework for a Location–Enabled Society; Filling the News Gap; Personalized Learning & MOOCs

ashar — Wed, 01 May 2013 10:09:02 -0400

Berkman Events Newsletter Template

conference

CGA Annual Conference: Creating the Policy and Legal Framework for a Location–Enabled Society

May 2-3, CGIS Tsai Auditorium, Harvard University. Organized by the Center for Geographic Analysis and co-sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

The 2013 CGA Annual Spring Conference will be held Thursday and Friday, May 2-3, 2013 in the CGIS Tsai Auditorium. It is free and open to the public. Location matters. Energy, sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, natural hazards, traffic and transportation, crime and political instability, water quality and availability, climate change, migration and urbanization – all key issues of the 21st century – have a location component. Critical geographic thinking, understanding and reasoning are essential skills for modern societies, and geospatial technologies for location based data collection, management, analysis and visualization have developed rapidly in recent decades. Today, these technologies are widely applied in routine operations in large corporations, entrepreneurial businesses, government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the social media of our daily lives. They save cost, improve efficiency, increase transparency, enhance communication, and help solve problems. Location-enabled devices are weaving "smart grids" and building "smart cities;" they allow people to discover a friend in a shopping mall, catch a bus at its next stop, check surrounding air quality while walking down a street, or avoid a rain storm on a tourist route – now or in the near future. And increasingly they allow those who provide services to track, whether we are walking past stores on the street or seeking help in a natural disaster. Such deep penetration of the geospatial technologies into people's daily lives, however, generates policy and legal concerns with privacy, ownership rights of location information, national and homeland security, uncertainty about government funding and regulation, and more. These issues are relatively new to the academic community and to human societies at large. Technology developers, industries, legal experts, policy makers and citizen rights advocates would be well served in talking to one another as they grapple with the opportunities and challenges of a location-enabled society. The Centre for Spatial Law and Policy based in Washington, DC, the Center for Geographic Analysis, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University are co-hosting a two-day program examining the legal and policy issues that will impact geospatial technologies and the development of location-enabled societies. Registration Required. more information on CGA's website>

special event

Filling the News Gap in Cambridge and Beyond: Citizen Journalism and Grassroots Media

Saturday, May 4, 9:30-1:30pm ET, Cambridge Public Library. Co-sponsored by the Berkman Center's Digital Media Law Project, Cyberlaw Clinic, and MIT's Center for Civic Media. Free + open to the public.

Cambridge Community Television will present a half-day forum entitled "Filling the News Gap in Cambridge and Beyond: Citizen Journalism and Grassroots Media" at the Cambridge Public Library on May 4th. The Berkman Center's Digital Media Law Project and Cyberlaw Clinic are pleased to be co-organizers, along with MIT's Center for Civic Media.

The event will explore the quickly expanding world of citizen journalism: how technology is fueling its growth; how that growth is changing the way we see our world, enact change, and disseminate the news; and how people in communities around the world are taking the initiative to share stories that are left untold by the mainstream media. It is free and open to the public.

The DMLP and the Clinic will participate in a workshop addressing legal issues facing those who gather news. State and federal laws provide tools and protections on which reporters can rely in collecting the facts on which their reporting is based -- enhancing access to government records, shielding from disclosure certain communications between journalists and their sources, and ensuring that journalists can record the acts of public officials in public places. But, these tools and protections are subject to limitations that can frustrate newsgatherers and impede their ability to practice their craft. The session will explore some of the important protections available to citizen journalists and others in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the hurdles that reporters face as they engage in newsgathering activities.

Other workshops will address the ways in which Cambridge residents are filling the void in local news in Cambridge and highlight tools being used by citizen journalists. Exhibitors will be on hand to present the latest technologies available for community reporters, and attendees will learn how to tap into local news outlets as well as how to get started reporting on local news.

Content will be geared toward consumers and creators of local news content; journalists and media professionals; independent and collaborative website owners; legal professionals; and everyone who values local information, civic participation, and social justice.

"Filling the News Gap" commemorates the 25th anniversary of Cambridge Community Television. The event is presented in memory of Karen Klinger, a correspondent with CCTV's NeighborMedia program and community activist who died in December after a six-month battle with cancer. Karen was in the original group of NeighborMedia journalists chosen in 2007. She focused on her neighborhood, Porter Square, particularly on issues related to development, safety and cleanliness. The community looked to her to cover vital issues in Cambridge. Karen was one of very few professional journalists in NeighborMedia, and brought a fierce commitment to the journalistic principles that guided her career. Her efforts to ensure journalistic integrity have had a profound impact on the structure of the NeighborMedia program.

To Register, and for additional information, visit event's Eventbrite page. http://citizenjournalismforum.eventbrite.com/ RSVP Required. more information on our website>

berkman luncheon series

Personalized Learning, Backpacks Full of Cash, Rockstar Teachers, and MOOC Madness

Tuesday, May 7, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

Justin Reich is an educational researcher interested in the future of learning in a networked world. Currently, he is a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a visiting lecturer at MIT, and the director of online community, research, and practice at Facing History and Ourselves. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

berkman luncheon series

Cyber War Is Not the Answer, But What Is? Addressing Cyber Conflict While Protecting Privacy and Internet Freedom

Tuesday, May 14, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

video/audio

Work Here: Heather Whitney on Having a Voice in the Modern Workplace and Changing the World

Other Events of Note

Events that may be of interest to the Berkman community:

5/3: Cameron Neylon on Altmetrics (Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication)
5/6: The Business of Personal Data (Harvard Topics in Privacy Luncheon / Data Privacy Lab)

Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more

See our events calendar if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.

Urs Gasser Appointed as Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School

ashar — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:52:00 -0400

We are delighted to announce that Urs Gasser, the Executive Director of the Berkman Center, has been offered -- and has accepted -- a renewable five-year appointment as a Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School. The appointment, which will commence in July of 2013, is richly deserved. Urs' remarkable record of scholarship and teaching, combined with his experience providing legal and policy advice to governments, nonprofit organizations, and private firms, make him an ideal candidate for this position. His appointment will enhance and extend, not detract from, his work with the Berkman Center and with the Network of Internet Research Centers that he helped create. We look forward to continuation of his leadership for years to come.

Terry Fisher
Faculty Director

Martha Minow
Dean of Harvard Law School

From Harvard Law School:

Harvard Law School has announced the appointment of Urs Gasser LL.M. ’03, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, as a Professor of Practice.

The professorships of practice at Harvard Law School are given to outstanding individuals whose teaching is informed by extensive expertise from the worlds of law practice, the judiciary, policy and governance.

Gasser’s scholarship and teaching focus on information law and policy, society issues, and the interplay between law and innovation. His projects explore such topics as policy and educational challenges for young Internet users, the regulation of digital technology (currently with focus on cloud computing), ICT interoperability, information quality, the law’s impact on innovation and risk in the ICT space, cybersecurity, and alternative governance systems.

Said HLS Dean Martha Minow: "Urs Gasser is an international leader in information law, internet use and governance, youth media, and the relationship between law and innovation. His work exploring how the Internet is promoting significant shifts in the information ecosystem has been pivotal, most recently in helping to launch the global Network of Internet & Society Centers, a collaborative initiative among academic institutions to advance new cross-national, cross-disciplinary research, teaching and engagement on the most pressing policy questions surrounding new technologies and social change. I could not be more delighted that he will take up this appointment as a Professor of Practice."

Said Gasser: “I am deeply honored to continue serving at HLS in this new role. I look forward to working with our extraordinary students and sharing my international experience with the wonderful Law School community.”

In addition to teaching at HLS, Gasser teaches at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and the Fudan University School of Management in China.

He has written and edited several books, and published more than 100 articles in professional journals. He is the co-author, with John Palfrey ’01, of “Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives” and “Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems.”

Before returning to the Berkman Center as executive director in 2009, Gasser served as associate professor of law at the University of St. Gallen, where he was faculty director of the Research Center for Information Law, and as a visiting professor at KEIO University in Japan. Prior to those appointments, he served as a resident and faculty fellow at the Berkman Center, where he was the lead research fellow on the Digital Media Project, a multi-disciplinary research project aimed at exploring the transition from offline/analog to online/digital media.

Gasser is a graduate of University of St. Gallen (S.J.D. 2001, J.D. 1997) and Harvard Law School (LL.M. ’03).

Berkman Buzz: April 26, 2013

rheacock — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:13:44 -0400

The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects.
To subscribe, click here.

John Palfrey reflects on the launch of the Digital Public Library of America

Today is launch day for the DPLA. Hooray! So many people have worked so very hard in the past two years to get the plan down, the services built, the data in, and the site up and running. It’s just a start. There’s vastly more to be done. And it’s not the launch day we had in mind; the in-person celebration will have to wait until the fall. But the team got to the launch date on time and on budget. I’m so grateful to everyone who has put their shoulder to this wheel together, across institutions, time, and space.

From John Palfrey's blog post, "The Launch of the Digital Public Library of America"
About John | @jpalfrey

David Weinberger highlights the dangers of literalism on the Web

When The Associated Press appeared to tweet Tuesday that there were two explosions in the White House, we were right to believe the news, even though it turns out that the AP Twitter account had been hacked. There were no explosions; the tweet was false. But believing the AP is not where we went wrong. Our occasional believing false reports should awaken us to the dangers of literalism.

From David Weinberger's piece for CNN, "Why bogus AP tweet tricked us"
About David | @dweinberger

"When Your Twitter Friend Turns Out To Be The Boston Bomber" - analysis of Dzhokhar's network by @gilgul: http://bit.ly/14TPb7S
—danah boyd (@zephoria)

Ethan Zuckerman sheds light on threats to Bangladeshi bloggers

This is a hard day to write about issues other than sudden, unexpected disasters – the bombing in Boston, the earthquake in Iran – and horrific ongoing disasters of continuing violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. But I’ve been trying to get my head around a complicated situation in Bangladesh that’s become very dangerous for bloggers and activists in that country: the aftermath of the Shahbagh protests and the arrest of Bangladeshi bloggers for alleged atheism.

From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post, "Bloggers in Bangladesh facing arrest, assault, murder"
About Ethan | @ethanz

metaLAB launches Library Observatory

In conjunction with the launch of the DPLA, metaLAB at Harvard is pleased to share Library Observatory, a web-native graphical search tool for discovering the DPLA’s growing collection of millions of digital books, images, maps, and archival treasures. It’s available at libraryobservatory.org, as well as through the DPLA’s App Library.

From Matthew Battles' post for metaLAB, "Library Observatory goes live!"
About metaLAB | @metalabharvard

actually pretty smart: RT Companies Should Be Fined If They Get Hacked, Regulator Says http://huff.to/XZP6u4
—Lawrence Lessig (@lessig)

Giants, Hackers, Trolls: Where Mythology and Online Activism Meet

The online world has much more in common with the mythological world than you might expect. A look at Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks, and Anonymous and their corresponding roles in mythology.

From Barbara Auger's blog post for Global Voices, "Giants, Hackers, Trolls: Where Mythology and Online Activism Meet"
About Global Voices Online | @globalvoices

This Buzz was compiled by Rebekah Heacock.

To manage your subscription preferences, please click here.

Creating the Policy and Legal Framework for a Location–Enabled Society (5/2-5/3); Filling the News Gap (5/4)

ashar — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:48:58 -0400

Berkman Events Newsletter Template

conference

CGA Annual Conference: Creating the Policy and Legal Framework for a Location–Enabled Society

May 2-3, CGIS Tsai Auditorium, Harvard University. Organized by the Center for Geographic Analysis and co-sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

The 2013 CGA Annual Spring Conference will be held Thursday and Friday, May 2-3, 2013 in the CGIS Tsai Auditorium. It is free and open to the public. Location matters. Energy, sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, natural hazards, traffic and transportation, crime and political instability, water quality and availability, climate change, migration and urbanization – all key issues of the 21st century – have a location component. Critical geographic thinking, understanding and reasoning are essential skills for modern societies, and geospatial technologies for location based data collection, management, analysis and visualization have developed rapidly in recent decades. Today, these technologies are widely applied in routine operations in large corporations, entrepreneurial businesses, government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the social media of our daily lives. They save cost, improve efficiency, increase transparency, enhance communication, and help solve problems. Location-enabled devices are weaving "smart grids" and building "smart cities;" they allow people to discover a friend in a shoppi ng mall, catch a bus at its next stop, check surrounding air quality while walking down a street, or avoid a rain storm on a tourist route – now or in the near future. And increasingly they allow those who provide services to track, whether we are walking past stores on the street or seeking help in a natural disaster. Such deep penetration of the geospatial technologies into people's daily lives, however, generates policy and legal concerns with privacy, ownership rights of location information, national and homeland security, uncertainty about government funding and regulation, and more. These issues are relatively new to the academic community and to human societies at large. Technology developers, industries, legal experts, policy makers and citizen rights advocates would be well served in talking to one another as they grapple with the opportunities and challenges of a location-enabled society. The Centre for Spatial Law and Policy based in Washington, DC, the Center for Geographic Analysis, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University are co-hosting a two-day program examining the legal and policy issues that will impact geospatial technologies and the development of location-enabled societies. Registration Required. more information on CGA's website>

special event

Filling the News Gap in Cambridge and Beyond: Citizen Journalism and Grassroots Media

Saturday, May 4, 9:30-1:30pm ET, Cambridge Public Library. Co-sponsored by the Berkman Center's Digital Media Law Project, Cyberlaw Clinic, and MIT's Center for Civic Media.

To Register, and for additional information, visit event's Eventbrite page. http://citizenjournalismforum.eventbrite.com/ RSVP Required. more information on our website>

berkman luncheon series

Personalized Learning, Backpacks Full of Cash, Rockstar Teachers, and MOOC Madness

Tuesday, May 7, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

video/audio

Bruce Schneier & Jonathan Zittrain on IT, Security, and Power

How does the Internet affect power? How does power affect the Internet? Factors such as ubiquitous surveillance, the rise of cyberwar, ill-conceived laws and regulations on behalf of either government or corporate power, and a feudal model of security collide to create a circumstance in which those in power are using information technology to increase their power, at the expense of users. Bruce Schneier—renowned security technologist and author—discusses these issues and more with the Berkman Center's Jonathan Zittrain. video/audio on our website>

video/audio

Anil Dash on The Web We Lost

In the past decade, we've seen an unprecedented rise of powerful social networks, connecting millions or even billions of people who can now communicate almost instantaneously. But many of the promises that were made by the creators of the earliest social networking technologies have gone unfulfilled. In this talk, Anil Dash—entrepreneur, technologist, and writer—takes a look at some of the unexamined costs, both cultural and social, of the way the web has evolved. video/audio on our website>

Other Events of Note

Events that may be of interest to the Berkman community:

4/24: Orphan Works and Digital Libraries (featuring Robert Darnton, John Palfrey, & Brewster Kahle) (edX/webcast)
4/26: CodeX FutureLaw 2013 (Stanford University)
4/26: Second Cambridge Area Economics and Computation Day (MIT)
5/3: Cameron Neylon on Altmetrics (Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication)

Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more

See our events calendar if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.

How to archive for the future? Ensuring the Present benefits from a Relevant Past

candersen — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:03:49 -0400

April 23, 12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor

About Daniel

Daniel J. Caron joined the federal public service in 1982. In 2009, he was appointed Librarian and Archivist of Canada. One year later, he launched the modernization initiative to ensure that Library and Archives Canada could meet the multiple challenges of the digital environment. This initiative is a call for collaboration, epistemologically grounded institutional policies and policy driven decisions. In addition to his organizational experience, Mr. Caron is a seasoned author and speaker on public administration and issues related to information and memory both in Canada and abroad. Mr. Caron has also taught in several Canadian universities. He holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Economics from the Université Laval, and obtained a doctorate in Applied Human Sciences from the Université de Montréal. Mr. Caron has been Chair of the Forum of National Archivists for the International Council on Archives since 2010. He is the author of WEB HT.0 Pour une société informée: la pertinence numérique et ses défis pour les sociétés démocratiques au XX1^e siècle, Hermann 2011.

About Eric

Eric Mechoulan is a professor at the Université de Montréal and visiting prof at Harvard, chair of the Intermedial Research Center on Letters, Arts and Techniques as well as the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Emerging Technologies (Montreal). His most recent research project is about “Archiving in the digital age”. Recent publications : special journal issue on “Archiving”, Intermediality, 2012; D’où nous viennent nos idées? Métaphysique et intermédialité, VLB, 2010; La culture de la mémoire, PUM, 2008

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Launches

kwhitebloom — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 12:19:49 -0400

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) launched a beta of its discovery portal and open platform today. The portal delivers millions of materials found in American archives, libraries, museums, and cultural heritage institutions to students, teachers, scholars, and the public. Far more than a search engine, the portal provides innovative ways to search and scan through its united collection of distributed resources. Special features include a dynamic map, a timeline that allow users to visually browse by year or decade, and an app library that provides access to applications and tools created by external developers using DPLA’s open data.

“The wonder and joy of entering an expansive library for the first time is truly a special feeling. We are delighted to be able to share this unified, open collection with Americans and the world, and can’t wait to see what people discover, and what new applications and knowledge will be created,” said Dan Cohen, Executive Director of the DPLA.

"Many decades in the visioning, two and a half years in the planning, with a small steering committee and an incubation hub at the helm, and featuring dozens of great libraries, universities and archives involved in hundreds of meetings, workshops, plenary meetings, and hackathons, attracting thousands of volunteers backed by millions of foundation and government dollars, today the Digital Public Library of America goes live! It's a great day for education and progress, as if the Ancient Library of Alexandria had met the modern World Wide Web and digitized America for the benefit of all," said Doron Weber, Vice President of Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, an early funder of the project.

The DPLA portal is powered by a rich repository of information, known as the DPLA platform, which enables new and transformative uses of America’s digitized cultural heritage. With an application programming interface (API) and maximally open data, the DPLA can be used by software developers, researchers, and others to create novel environments for learning, tools for discovery, and engaging apps. The DPLA App Library (dp.la/apps) features an initial slate of applications built on top of the platform; developers and hobbyists of all skill levels are freely able to make use of the data provided via the platform.

"The DPLA launches virtually today, a symbol of what people can accomplish through collaboration in a networked era," said John Palfrey, President of the Board of Directors of the DPLA. "The most exciting idea is that we cannot begin to imagine the extraordinary things that librarians and their many partners can accomplish with this open platform and such extraordinarily rich materials, from so many institutions large and small, together and at the ready. We will create new knowledge together and make accessible, free to all, information that people need in order to thrive in a democracy."

“The DPLA’s goal is to bring the entire nation’s rich cultural collections off the shelves and into the innovative environment of the Internet for people to discover, download, remix, reuse and build on in ways we haven’t yet begun to imagine,” said Maura Marx, Director of the DPLA Secretariat. “Regular users can search in the traditional way using the portal, and developers and innovators can build on big chunks of code and content using the platform—we’re creating access, not controlling it.”

Led by Cohen, the DPLA aims to expand the realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used. To date, the DPLA has partnered with six state and regional digital libraries and an equal number of large cultural heritage institutions— including the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Smithsonian Institution, the New York Public Library, and Harvard University—to provide access to millions of unique digital objects.

“Among the 2.4 million records available at launch, you will find gems that include daguerreotypes of former Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, images of women marching for the vote in Kentucky, news film clips of the Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights movement, The Book of Hours, an illuminated manuscript from 1514, Notes on the State of Virginia, written by Thomas Jefferson, and paintings by Winslow Homer,” said Emily Gore, DPLA Director for Content.

With its content partners, the DPLA has developed a number of diverse virtual exhibitions (dp.la/exhibitions) that tell the stories of people, places, and historical events both here in the US and abroad; all are available freely via the portal. A History of Survivance: 19th c. Upper Midwest Native American Resources in the DPLA, developed by the Minnesota Digital Library, tells the story of extraordinary cultural disruption, change and continuity in Minnesota and the surrounding areas during the 19th century through objects of both Native and non-Native origin. Other exhibitions include Boston Sports Temples, developed by Digital Commonwealth (Massachusetts), which celebrates the rich histories of Boston’s professional stadiums and arenas; and This Land Is Your Land: Parks and Public Spaces, an exploration of the history, impact, and significance of our national parks and protected areas curated by the South Carolina Digital Library.

“The project unleashes access to a volume and variety of historical and cultural assets through a dynamic, digitized information platform,” said Jorge Martinez, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at the Knight Foundation. “It offers an invaluable opportunity to reanimate this information and further strengthen the roles of libraries as centers for engagement—bringing communities together, fostering deeper understanding and connecting people with traditional culture - by leveraging the power of new technology.”

The DPLA began in October 2010 with a small meeting of representatives from foundations, research institutions, cultural organizations, government, and libraries who came together to discuss best approaches to building a national digital library. In 2011, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University established, with the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a two-year planning initiative to guide the conceptualization, planning, and development of the DPLA.

Today’s launch is, in large part, the culmination of that effort, marking the transition from a two-year planning initiative towards a fully realized, standalone 501(c)3 non-profit organization that will continue to make the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums freely available to the world.

A series of festivities to celebrate the launch, scheduled to occur at the Boston Public Library today and tomorrow, were postponed until the fall in the wake of the April 15 Boston Marathon tragedy, which occurred near the storied public library.

“I see the building of a new library as one of the greatest examples of what humans can do together to extend the light against the darkness,” said Dan Cohen, reflecting on the recent events in a letter to the DPLA community. “In due time, we will let that light shine through.”

About the Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. The DPLA aims to expand this crucial realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used.

The DPLA is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Arcadia Fund, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

More information is online at http://dp.la.

How to archive for the future? Ensuring the Present benefits from a Relevant Past (4/23); Filling the News Gap (5/4)

ashar — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:55:33 -0400

Berkman Events Newsletter Template

berkman luncheon series

How to archive for the future? Ensuring the Present benefits from a Relevant Past

Tuesday, April 23, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

If we want to preserve accessibility to valuable information about legal, political, social and cultural discourses in an era of information abundance, it becomes vital to design carefully how we distinguish between noise and significant pieces of information. In order to secure our future, we need to know how to organize our past. Daniel J. Caron joined the federal public service in 1982. In 2009, he was appointed Librarian and Archivist of Canada. One year later, he launched the modernization initiative to ensure that Library and Archives Canada could meet the multiple challenges of the digital environment. Eric Mechoulan is a professor at the Université de Montréal and visiting prof at Harvard, chair of the Intermedial Research Center on Letters, Arts and Techniques as well as the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Emerging Technologies (Montreal). RSVP Required. more information on our website>

special event

[Postponed] Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) to launch at Boston Public Library

A Message from Executive Director Dan Cohen: From all of us at the Digital Public Library of America, our hearts go out to those affected by the terrible events in Boston yesterday.

The tragedy took place right in front of the Boston Public Library, where we planned to have our gala launch on Thursday. I have been in touch with Amy Ryan, the President of the BPL, and I extended our sympathies to the BPL staff and their loved ones.

We have all been looking forward to this week’s festivities, to celebrate how thousands of people and institutions have come together to build the DPLA, to thank our incredibly generous contributors and funders, and to mark the DPLA’s transition from vision to reality.

Unfortunately, I no longer think it is possible to hold those events this week. The area around the BPL has been closed off, perhaps for several days, and it is not easy to relocate such a large-scale meeting. But logistics are the least of my concerns. People need time to mourn and to get resettled. Amy’s staff, like so many other honorable public servants in Boston, have to be there for the surrounding community first.

I am very sorry to those who planned to attend Thursday and Friday. Airlines and hotels have been forgiving about rescheduling; I hope by making this decision rapidly it will be possible for all attendees to rework their travel easily. For those of you with questions about this process, please see the DPLA launch section of this website.

I do not have the exact details yet, but we have already begun to plan an even larger event for the fall, one that will highlight our continued growth and emergence from the beta phase, and that also can serve as our first annual DPLAfest. This week’s event had been filled to capacity for weeks, with hundreds of people on the waiting list; we will use this time to see what we can do to accommodate even more people in the fall. We want to thank everyone for their great interest in the DPLA.

The new DPLA site will still go live at noon ET on Thursday as planned, and we look forward to sharing the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums. Although we have canceled all of the formal events, DPLA staff will be available all day online, and informally in person in the late afternoon in the Boston area (at a location to be determined), for those taking their first look.

I see the building of a new library as one of the greatest examples of what humans can do together to extend the light against the darkness. In due time, we will let that light shine through.

The DPLA is taking the first concrete steps toward the realization of a large-scale digital public library that will make the cultural and scientific record available to all. This impact-oriented research effort unites leaders from all types of libraries, museums, and archives with educators, industry, and government to define the vision for a digital library in service of the American public. Find more information on the DPLA website>

conference

CGA Annual Conference: Creating the Policy and Legal Framework for a Location–Enabled Society

May 2-3, CGIS Tsai Auditorium, Harvard University. Organized by the Center for Geographic Analysis and co-sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

special event

Filling the News Gap in Cambridge and Beyond: Citizen Journalism and Grassroots Media

Saturday, May 4, 9:30-1:30pm ET, Cambridge Public Library. Co-sponsored by the Berkman Center's Digital Media Law Project, Cyberlaw Clinic, and MIT's Center for Civic Media.

To Register, and for additional information, visit event's Eventbrite page. http://citizenjournalismforum.eventbrite.com/ RSVP Required. more information on our website>

video/audio

Bruce Schneier & Jonathan Zittrain on IT, Security, and Power

video/audio

Anil Dash on The Web We Lost

Other Events of Note

Events that may be of interest to the Berkman community:

4/18: Size Is Only Half the Story: Valuing the Dimensionality of BIG DATA (MIT Comparative Media Studies)
4/18-19: Reform(aliz)ing Copyright for the Internet Age? (UC Berkeley)
4/19: Reinventing the Internet's Phone Book? Institutions, Industry, Infrastructure (Georgetown University)
4/20: Social Media Summit (NYTimes)
4/26: CodeX FutureLaw 2013 (Stanford University)
4/26: Second Cambridge Area Economics and Computation Day (MIT)
5/3: Cameron Neylon on Altmetrics (Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication)

Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more

See our events calendar if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.

Berkman Center Newsfeed

Teens, Social Media, and Privacy: New Survey Findings from Pew and the Berkman Center

Berkman Buzz: May 24, 2013

Technologies of Choice? – ICTs, development and the capabilities approach

Other Events of Note

Peter Suber to Direct Harvard’s Office for Scholarly Communication

Berkman Buzz: May 17, 2013

Technologies of Choice? – ICTs, development and the capabilities approach (5/28)

Other Events of Note

Cyber War Is Not the Answer, But What Is? Addressing Cyber Conflict While Protecting Privacy and Internet Freedom

About Tim

Links

"Newsgathering in Massachusetts" Guide Now Available Online! (via @DMLPBerkman)

Addressing Cyber Conflict While Protecting Privacy and Internet Freedom; Technologies of Choice? ICTs and Development

Other Events of Note

Personalized Learning, Backpacks Full of Cash, Rockstar Teachers, and MOOC Madness

About Justin

Links

Gasser appointed professor of practice (via @Harvard_Law School News)

Watch the recordings of six special events for Terry Fisher's HLS and EdX copyright courses

The Interests of Authors, February 6

IP Protection for Fashion, February 13, 7:00 p.m. EST

Extralegal Norms, February 27, 7:00 p.m. EST

Appropriation Art, April 3, 7:00 p.m. EDT

Free Culture, April 17, 7:00 p.m. EDT

Orphan Works and Digital Libraries, April 24, 7:00 p.m. EDT

Berkman Buzz: May 2, 2013

Creating the Policy and Legal Framework for a Location–Enabled Society; Filling the News Gap; Personalized Learning & MOOCs

Other Events of Note

Urs Gasser Appointed as Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School

Berkman Buzz: April 26, 2013

Creating the Policy and Legal Framework for a Location–Enabled Society (5/2-5/3); Filling the News Gap (5/4)

Other Events of Note

How to archive for the future? Ensuring the Present benefits from a Relevant Past

About Daniel

About Eric

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Launches

How to archive for the future? Ensuring the Present benefits from a Relevant Past (4/23); Filling the News Gap (5/4)

Other Events of Note