I have just returned from OSF/Chevening conference where I’ve talked on the higher education panel, as the University of Oxford Alumni, the only Internet scholar, and information management specialist, on bridging the digital divide in the super connected world.
Slides of my presentation are on my SlideShare and the podcast is at my account on SoundCloud with all descriptions, credits, and tags. The recorded talk covers three major concerns in Internet and social media and higher education, all applicable in other areas: literacies, knowledge gap, and notworking/not collaboration. Interaction, thoughts, and comments of the audience are not included. I talked pretty fast, since I wanted to give more space for discussion, thoughts, sharing. I hope you will understand what I was talking about.

I would like to inform you that Call for papers for the workshop Making Sense of Microposts (MSM) at the Extended Semantic Web conference 2011 is announced. The workshop is interdiscipinary and gathers academics and professionals from the Semantic Web technologies and Social/Web Science studies. Also, have in mind that we will have a best paper award. (I’m on the Steering committee.)

Information about the topics of interest, submissions, and important dates could be found on the MSM web page.

“Making Sense of Microposts” (MSM), will cover the topics of: information extraction and leveraging of semantics from Microposts; making use of Microposts’ semantics; and social studies related to Microposts that could help build appealing new systems based on this type of data. The workshop has two main points of difference from existing Social Semantic Web workshops which partially treat Microposts: (a) the interdisciplinary nature and interest to bring together the Social Sciences and Semantic Web research; (b) the focus on Microposts’ usage in making appealing tools for Web users and showing how the Semantic Web makes a difference in those applications. One of the main goals of MSM is to bring together the researchers from various disciplines treating the question of Microposts from different angles. We are particularly interested in submissions describing theories from the Social Sciences related to the creation and potential usage of Microposts that could inspire the creation of data structures, ontologies and finally interfaces that make advanced use of Microposts. We also envisage submissions that describe the application of Semantic Web technologies, either in enabling the inference of new facts, or the gleaning and enriching of knowledge from collections of such data.

“Open Access” to information [and knowledge, D.R.]– the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole.

I have been writing earlier about the Open Access movement and its importance for the science, research and technology, as being involved in the several Open Access projects since 2005.  This year’s Open Access Week, October 18 – 24, is dedicated to the collaboration and participation through a broad range of initiatives around the globe, including many universities, research institutes, digital repositories, online databases, and other initiatives that support Open Access.

It is very important that the academic and research community continue to learn about the benefits of Open Access, since many electronic resources relevant to the education are still under locked archives, databases, and numerous valuable material stays behind the iron gates. Institutions, scholars, researchers, educators, librarians are encouraged to share what they’ve learned with peers, share their production,  and to inspire wider participation in making Open Access a new norm in research, technology, scholarship.

I’ve collected a short list of links to digital repositories, online databases with various e-resources, thesis, articles, papers. Feel free to include your list or share some interesting Open access project.

Does it matter to you? And how?

- JISC (brings advice on implementing OA to the universities and research institutions)

-OhioLINK Electronic Thesis and Dissertation website

- read at PLoSONE how Open Access increases Citation Impact for Higher Quality Research

-OpenThesis – Open Access repository of dissertations

-Collection of videos on Open Access week offical site

- SpringerOpen, open access for authors in all disciplines

- The London School of Economics. LSE Research Online

-The SOAP project

-Creative Commons and Open Access

For those who are in Oxford these days for parallel conferences that are happening around (TransferSummit/UK, BarCamp), I want to let you know that I’m giving a talk at the interdisciplinary conference  on ‘Problems of Adolescence”.

Oxford University Centre for the History of Childhood is organising one day event, this Saturday, 26 June 2010, at Magdalen college.  The speakers (the program)come from different backgrounds: anthropology, clinical psychology, history of education, science and medicine, childhood studies, and social sciences and Web (moi).

I will talk about Adolescents and the Web: in particular social network sites (SNS), and communication, social, dynamics and practices on Facebook. This will be very interesting event, and I’m thankful to, both, UK and overseas peers, OII colleagues, and friends who’ve shared some data (British stats and references), as I’ve been analysing teen profiles and came to interesting observations that I’ll share later on with you either through an article (text of talk or proceedings) or slides.

If you are around this Saturday, come and say Hi.

Tomorrow morning I’m giving an hour session for scientists who want to get familiar with collaborative social media tools for the next three days of the conference ScienceOnline. You know that I was here [Research Triangle Park, NC] last year and that we talked about open access in developed countries, now with the accelerating emerge of participative media and their implementation in everyday life, including any professional area, there are some normative literacy’s to embrace in order to communicate and contribute.

As you know I do not make presentations in a classic way, with too much (or none) words, since this is workshop I will be demonstrating and practice interaction with people who are attending and will report, network and micro blog in the next few days on ScienceOnline2010.

Slide are uploaded on SlideShare, they are fluid in a way that I will add/talk/address/demo other issues on social media, social networks and science.

From Thursday I’m off to UK tour visiting friends around England’s, ending up far North, and after New years Eve returning back to pack for States. I won’t be checking my email regularly, but will be here and there online. My mobile will be on, I receive and send tweet DM’s regularly, and wherever wifi allows me to be present – I’ll be networked. You can check my schedule on Dopplr (if you’re a friend and using it, let me know), and of course – my Twitter stream updates. I’ll bring with me lot of eBooks and literature to read, some of those are good old paper books that I’m looking forward to hold and read.

Also, I’m ready for Science Online conference on the east coast, USA this/next January, to meet again wonderful folks from all over the globe, interact and collaborate. I miss my friends and colleagues, so I’m looking forward to see you all very soon. If you didn’t signed up for the Friday morning workshop I’m giving on social media tools and services, please do register. The only requirement is to bring yourself and laptop.

Next year will be super-excited and challenging for me in every field, as the 2009. was absolutely wonderful bringing lot of great events, people, awards, places I’ve been living/working, and the great adventures. I’m looking forward to 2010, hoping to be even better, as the same I wish to all of you who are reading these words. In the next year, I’ll be writing for different media too, so you’ll read me on other places on Web. It will be challenging both for work and PhD research, dissertation and other activities, I don’t know where I’ll be next. All I know that I’d need to get disciplined and make some time during the year for myself and my personal life as 2009. was insanely working fun mixture of random nature escapades.

I may post in the mid-0f-travel adventure more of my thoughts or announcements, so stay tuned.

For those in UK, don’t miss this weeks’ OII forum on Relationships and the Internet, that will take place this Friday, 4 December at 10am, followed by the public panel at 4pm. The forum will gather researchers in the fields of social networking, online dating, practitioners from a growing and international relationship industry and policy-makers concerned with consumer protection and media literacy in a digital age. Taken from the background to the forum:

Research on the role of the Internet in meeting new people is an increasingly vital area of inquiry, and is illustrated by a burgeoning literature on such topics as online dating. However, the Internet may shape many other aspects of relationships beyond introducing individuals, such as in undermining or maintaining ongoing relationships, from courtship to marriage.

This forum will look at the state of the art of academic research on relationships and the Internet and how this research informs research on the social aspects of the Internet in general, such as issues of trust and identity. Cross-national and cross-cultural aspects will be addressed in ways that can illuminate general cross-cultural trends and responses shaping use of the Internet in building and maintaining relationships. The forum will draw out the connections between this research and such emerging issues of policy and practice as involved in efforts to foster a digital economy in Europe.

More about the speakers and the panel here.