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APOLOGIES FOR CROSS POSTING
The Doctoral School at the Sociology Department of the University of Trento - Italy will have a three-years fellowship -sponsored by Create-Net- for a Ph.D. research about
"Social Research on ICT Technologies and Evaluation Methodologies for Digital Ecosystems"
Digital ecosystems are emerging as a novel approach for the catalysis of regional growth, they are expected to be sustainable and scalable, the process should be be recursive and self-reinforcing. The OPAALS Network of Excellence, which Createnet is joining, is the first step in a recursive, reflexive, and self reinforcing community building process that will culminate with an Open Knowledge community of research and innovation.
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Relevant links:
Scuola di Dottorato in Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale
http://www4.soc.unitn.it:8080/dsrs/content/e219/e820/index_ita.html
Ufficio Dottorati di ricerca e formazione avanzata
http://www.unitn.it/ricerca/dottorati_form_av.htm
Create-Net
http://www.create-net.org
CALL FOR APPLICATION
Deadline: August 29th, 2006
Italian version
.doc (http://www.unitn.it/ricerca/dottorati_form_av/ciclo_22/download/socio.doc)
.pdf (http://www.unitn.it/ricerca/dottorati_form_av/ciclo_22/download/socio.pdf)
English version
.doc (http://www.unitn.it/ricerca/dottorati_form_av/ciclo_22/download/socio_eng.doc)
.pdf (http://www.unitn.it/ricerca/dottorati_form_av/ciclo_22/download/socio_eng.pdf)
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BRIEF PRESENTATIONSocial Research on Information and Communication Technologies, and Evaluation Methodologies for Digital Ecosystems
Ph.D. research - University of Trento and Createnet
Research topic
Abstract "Open Philosophies for Associative Autopoietic Digital Ecosystems"
The two overarching aims of the OPAALS Network of Excellence are to build a sustainable interdisciplinary research community in the emerging area of Digital Ecosystems (DE) and to develop an integrated theoretical foundation for DE research, which spans three different disciplinary domains: social science, computer science, and natural science. DE are emerging as a novel approach for the catalysis of regional growth driven by SMEs. The main claim that OPAALS makes is that in order to achieve sustainable digital business ecosystems of SMEs and software components we need to understand in depth the collaborative processes and ICTs that underpin the continuous creation, formalisation, and sharing of knowledge in the form of business models, software infrastructure for e-Business transactions, and new formal and semi-formal languages. Because this process focuses on knowledge and innovation, it must be inclusive of research activities in a broad sense and not be limited just to Open Source software development. Because this process must be sustainable and scalable it must be recursive and self-reinforcing.
The OPAALS Network of Excellence is the first step in a recursive, reflexive, and self reinforcing community building process that will culminate at the end of the project with an Open Knowledge community of research and innovation inclusive of all the stakeholders of digital ecosystems but mainly of academic institutions and SMEs.
We will build together an Open Knowledge Space that can "organically" expand to the wider research community. We will integrate the research outputs in automatic code generation, autopoietic P2P networks, and distributed accountability, identity and trust into the existing infrastructure from the DBE project. These technical and scientific research activities will be balanced by research in the role of formal and semi-formal languages in epistemic communities and in new Open Source models emerging in public and commercial projects.
Community networks (Opaals - WP7)
A community network is a telecom infrastructure created and owned by some participation of a local or regional government. Community networks have evolved from the concept of "freenets" or "civic nets" in the last few years in North America and in Europe, and represent a dramatic shift from the current telecommunications business model, where the service providers own the network infrastructure and provide managed services for individual, institutional, business and government users for a fee. Through owning a community network, local governments can create the climate for attracting new businesses and increasing the adoption of advanced technologies and services for SMEs, generate revenues from alternative service providers, and can leverage the synergy with local universities and research centers. Thus a community network is (i) an infrastructure, (ii) a business model and (iii) the set of services it offers and provides.
A large number of community networks have been deployed and are being planned worldwide, mainly in North America and Europe. Examples of community metropolitan area network already in place include Chicago's CivicNet, Stokab in Stockholm, and Hansenet in Hamburg. Moreover, community networks at regional level are gaining momentum recently across Europe, as demonstrated by the Scotland and Pyrénées Atlantiques initiatives that have been supported by the European Commission, having identified them as key drivers for their economic development and business growth. EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum (formerly Telecities), has recently published the "Broadband Manifesto", which underlines the role of an open, accessible, passive layer of infrastructure for the improvement of community and social life and for stimulating the local economy.
The Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy, has started a community network project in 2002, to support the development of local industry, to serve the needs of the public administration, and to provide advanced communications services to the citizens. Due to the mountainous morphology of its territory and the absence of metropolitan areas, the business model applied by the local Trentino government foresees a public company (Trentino Network) which deploys, owns and operates the network, offers the transport infrastructure to the service providers, and provides communications services directly to serve the needs of the local public institutions (e.g. municipalities, hospitals, schools). Create-Net is participating in such a community network and will represent the link of OPAALS to such ongoing initiatives.
Community network research represents a truly interdisciplinary area, requiring an integrated approach and a strong collaboration among researchers of different disciplines. However, research on technological, business and social aspects of community networks in the last few years has mainly focused on the needs of citizens and public bodies. The involvement of businesses and in particular of SMEs, in this process has not yet been investigated in depth. To foster local economic development we believe that now the community networks should enable ubiquitous, responsive and efficient access to services from SMEs. This could significantly support local enterprises in expanding and conducting networked businesses and in increasing their adoption and deployment of electronic Business-to-Business (B2B) capability. Our research goal is not only to evaluate and compare the alternative business models that could be adopted and to identify those that maximize SME participation. We will also experiment concretely SME involvement in a community network digital ecosystem in a testbed environment and establish an Open Knowledge community to stimulate their interest, configuring a kind of action research. Finally, in order to increase SMEs involvement in the governance of community networks, an important aspect to be analyzed is also the definition of technology and business models for the planning, implementation and operation of community networks with optimal public-private participation.
Main references
AUTOPOIESIS AND DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS
Sistemi sociali: fondamenti di una teoria generale
N. Luhman
Autopoiesis and cognition: the realization of the living
HR Maturana, FJ Varela - 1980 - D. Reidel
Understanding computers and cognition
T Winograd, F Flores - 1986 - Ablex Publishing Corp. Norwood, NJ, USA
Broadband Services
Chlamtac et al., Wiley
Position paper following the cycle of workshops 2005 and the on-line debate among the digital ecosystem community
2005; Paolo Dini et alii, The Digital Ecosystem research Vision: 2010 and Beyond, http://digital-ecosystems.org/events/2005.05/de_position_paper_vf.pdfDiscussion paper which collected the first inputs and launched the digital ecosystem inititative
2002; Francesco Nachira et al. Towards a network of digital business ecosystems fostering the local development
More information:http://digital-ecosystems.org/de/refs/ref_books.html
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace
L Lessig - 1999
L'architettura del nuovo Web
Berners Lee, Feltrinelli
Comunità virtuali
Reinhgold
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES
Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory
B Latour - 2005 - Oxford University Press
We have never been modern
B Latour - 1993 - Harvard University Press Cambridge, Mass
The Social Study of Information and Communication Technology : Innovation, Actors, and Contexts
Chrisanthi Avgerou, Claudio Ciborra, Frank Land (eds.) - 2004 - Oxford University Press
Institutional Ecology, 'Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39
Susan Leigh Star, James R. Griesemer
Social Studies of Science, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Aug., 1989) , pp. 387-420
The Ethnography of Infrastructure
SL Star - American Behavioral Scientist, 1999
Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay
Michel Callon
First published in J. Law, Power, action and belief: a new sociology of knowledge? London, Routledge, 1986, pp.196-223.
Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: toward a theory of sociotechnical change
WE Bijker - 1995 - Mitpress
INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND ORGANIZATION
The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis
DiMaggio P. J. and Powell W. (eds.): 1991, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
The Labyrinths of Information: Challenging the Wisdom of Systems
C Ciborra, Oxford University Press
Social shaping of information infrastructure: on being specific about the technology
E Monteiro, O Hanseth - Information Technology and Changes in Organizational Work, 1995
Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation
J Lave, E Wenger
La realtà come costruzione sociale
Berger Luckmann
The Knowledge Landscapes of Cyberspace
D Hakken - 2003
Information Systems and Global Diversity
C. Avgerou, Oxford University Press
OTHERS
La logica dello sviluppo economico
A. O. Hirschman
The Rise of the Network Society
M. Castells, Blackwell
Stato, Governo e Società
Bobbio, Einaudi
I limiti dell'interpretazione
Umberto Eco
Notes
Presentazione Scuola di Dottorato:
http://www4.soc.unitn.it:8080/dsrs/content/e219/e820/index_ita.html
Programma formativo:
http://www4.soc.unitn.it:8080/dsrs/content/e219/e820/e852/e863/index_ita.html
Create-net:
Main language: italian
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Feel free to forward this message to who could be interested.
Gianluca Miscione, Ph.D.