The OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI) reports on Information Society

OECD's Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI) has published a few intresting reports on the indicators of information society. Here is a snip from their RSS feed.


Using input-output tables to measure globalisation [PDF]

Economic globalisation has typically been measured using trade and FDI statistics. However, the emergence of global value chains with products often fabricated in one country, assembled in a second and sold in a third country, challenges these traditional indicators. This paper shows how international input-output tables can be used to provide complementary indicators on the growing importance of these global value chains.

Economic and social impacts of ICT: what do official statistics tell us? [PDF]

Policy makers everywhere want to know about the social and economic impacts of ICT. This paper examines what official statistics tell us about these impacts and suggests areas for future work.

High-speed broadband is changing people’s use of the Internet [PDF]

The Internet is part of everyday life for a billion people and is driving major changes in people's lives. This study analyses the use of Internet and broadband in detail, showing that people’s socio-economic standing has a direct bearing on how they use the Web.

Australia opposes .XXX Internet Domains

Citing a long standing Australian policy to reduce offensive adult material online, Australia's Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Helen Coonan has shot off a letter of protest to Vint Cerf the chief of ICANN, the body that adminsters Internet Domain Names. How ICANN responds remains to be seen.

The original letter is here.

The Mashelkar Affair

As an architect of India's knowledge policy, an eminent scientist, chief of India's elite scientific research organisation CSIR, Mashelkar should have known better. Hot on the heels of his own acceptance of plagiarism in his report on Intellectual property rights (about which I blogged a few days ago) Mashelkar has been accused this time by a British IPR expert Dutfield about verbatim copyin of his 1996 paper in Mashelkar's 2004 book "Intellectual Property and Competitive Strategies in the 21st Century" which he co-authored with Shahid Ali Khan. Both the authors deny this. It seems retirement has not started on a happy note for Mashelkar. I am sure we will hear more about this affair.

 

Dutfield on his part is disappointed that Mashelkar himself never bothered to call and acknowledge the violation of his copyright. "I guess, I was not important enough to Mashelkar, or this issue was not deemed important enough for him to apologise to me directly".
Given his own experience, how does he see the controversy surrounding the withdrawal of the latest Mashelkar committee report?
Dutfield said: "I don't want to brand Mashelkar as a plagiarist, at least until there is more evidence than we have. But what I would say is that he is sloppy and irresponsible in the sense of using ghost writers to do his work for him, not checking what is published in his name, and of then blaming these people when it goes wrong".

 

Source:Mashelkar book not all his own?-India-NEWS-The Times of India

New Terminology in the Knowledge / Information Economy / Society (KIES)* Discourse:

1. FLOSS - Free, Libre, Open Source Software

2. Creative Commons.

3. Simputer.

4. OLPC: One Laptop per Child.

5. K4D: Knowledge for Development.

6. ICT4D: Information and Communications Technology for Development.

7. Infocomm: Information and Communications.

8. Broadband Divide/Gap.

9. Web 2.0

* KIES was coined by my supervisors Charles Crothers and Sharon Harvey of AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand.