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572. Assessing Scholarly Communication in the Developing World: It Takes More Than Bytes
- Author:
- David Block
- Publication Date:
- 01-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Social Science Research Council
- Abstract:
- STUDIES of scholarly communication in Western Europe and North America describe a world in crisis. (Borgman, 2000.) By the early 1990s, the cost of print journals had reached a level that discouraged their purchase by even the richest institutions, and digital editions of these works, a feature of the next decade, raised the ante higher still. Copyright, the legally-enforced ownership of ideas in some fixed form, has become more contentious in a digital realm, which potentially makes unauthorized usage as simple as "copy and paste." And, finally, while archiving scholarly publications has been difficult in the medium of acidic paper, it has become even more problematic in electronic form where the data themselves, the media that hold them and the computer programs that make them intelligible are all subject to decay or obsolescence. This triumvirate—spiraling information costs, control of information and its preservation for succeeding generations—constitutes the developed world's central focus for research and planning in scholarly communication. (Atkinson, 2000. NINCH).
- Topic:
- Development, Education, International Cooperation, Science and Technology, and Third World
- Political Geography:
- North America and Western Europe
573. Science Technology — Internet Advances
- Publication Date:
- 12-2001
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxford Analytica
- Abstract:
- This week's piece examines the impact of Advances in accessibility and security of the internet. A range of new technologies that should greatly increase the commercial utility of the internet will be ready for the marketplace in the next 18-24 months. However, their advocates will need to justify the investment required to deploy them. New internet-related technologies, by enhancing the ability of commercial concerns to interact in a more personal and acceptable style with a wider range of customers, have the potential to usher in a new phase of electronic commerce. This prospect should be enough to secure the investment needed to ensure their effective deployment.
- Topic:
- Education, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
574. Aftermath: Internally Displaced Women and Women's Organizations in Postconflict Georgia
- Author:
- Pat McNees
- Publication Date:
- 04-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United States Agency for International Development
- Abstract:
- ALL POST-SOVIET STATES underwent difficult political and economic transitions in the years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but Georgia's was especially traumatic. Ethnic conflict broke out in Georgia virtually as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed. By 1992, Georgia's central authority had been diminished to near anarchy, the economy was in complete disarray, and the country had plunged into civil war that tore its fabric.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Economics, Education, Gender Issues, and Migration
- Political Geography:
- Eastern Europe and Georgia
575. Moral Freedom or Moral Anarchy?
- Author:
- Alan Wolfe
- Publication Date:
- 09-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues
- Abstract:
- It is very difficult to discuss the issues which are raised in my book, without talking about September 11. This event is so important in our history, and, in fact, so important in the history of the modern world generally, that I am going to tailor at least some of my comments around it and try to reflect both on the event itself and on some of the things that I have said in my work over the course of the last few years and how these things interact with each other.
- Topic:
- Education, Government, Politics, and Religion
576. On the Uneven Evolution of Human Know-How
- Author:
- Richard R. Nelson
- Publication Date:
- 10-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
- Abstract:
- Economists long have understood that the advance of technology, knowhow is a more inclusive term, has been the central driving force behind the improvements in standards of living that have been achieved over the last two centuries. It has been less well recognized that the advance of knowhow has been extremely uneven, dramatic in areas like communication and computation technologies and some areas of medicine, very limited in fields like housing construction and education. This essay is a preliminary investigation of the factors that might lie behind these differences. The search very quickly leads into exploration of why different fields of science have progressed so unevenly.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Education, and Science and Technology
577. Caminando por la Historia Intelectual de Seymour Martin Lipset
- Author:
- Jesús Velasco
- Publication Date:
- 01-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
- Abstract:
- This essay analyzes the life and work of one of the most distinguished American sociologists of the twentieth century, Seymour Martin Lipset. The essay evaluates two fundamental themes in Lipset's work, his analysis of democracy and anti-democracy and his thoughts on American exceptionalism. The paper concludes with some lessons derived from Lipset's work and life for Mexico and Mexican academics.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Development, and Education
- Political Geography:
- America
578. Explaining Leakage of Public Funds
- Author:
- Ritva Reinikka and Jakob Svensson
- Publication Date:
- 12-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Using panel data from an unique survey of public primary schools in Uganda we assess the degree of leakage of public funds in education. The survey data reveal that on average, during the period 1991-95, schools received only 13 percent of what the central government contributed to the schools' non-wage expenditures. The bulk of the allocated spending was either used by public officials for purposes unrelated to education or captured for private gain (leakage). Moreover we find that resource flows and leakages are endogenous to school characteristics. Rather than being passive recipients of flows from government, schools use their bargaining power vis-à-vis other parts of government to secure greater shares of funding. Resources are therefore not necessarily allocated according to the rules underlying government budget decisions, with potential equity and efficiency implications.
- Topic:
- Education, Government, and Human Welfare
- Political Geography:
- Uganda and Africa
579. Kosovo/a Standing Technical Working Group, Fourth Meeting: Review of Activities
- Author:
- Graham Holliday and Camille Monteux
- Publication Date:
- 09-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Centre for Minority Issues
- Abstract:
- After a preliminary sketch of the overall aims of the project and the objective of the weekend's deliberations, the fourth meeting of the STWG was formally declared open. The first session was chaired by Dr Gylnaze Syla, who had also chaired an earlier plenary meeting of the Group and convened the Steering Committees on Health. The first session sought to re-examine questions pertaining to civil registration in Kosovo/a and, specifically, to address issue areas that had been highlighted by the Group in its constitutive session in March (identity documentation; registration of births, deaths and marriages; and vehicle registration).
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Development, Education, and Government
- Political Geography:
- Europe
580. Human Capital and the Quality of Growth
- Author:
- Nancy Birdsall
- Publication Date:
- 12-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- T. W. SCHULTZ was ahead of his time, at least among economists. The earliest postwar models of development emphasized accumulation of physical capital, and saw spending on health and education as a drain on the accumulation of "productive" assets. But eventually, the newer classical growth models incorporated formally Schultz's insight, and related work on accounting for growth by Hollis Chenery and colleagues at the World Bank pointed to the contribution of more skilled workers with more human capital to increased productivity and growth. The more recent endogenous growth models are even more emphatic. Sustainable growth in these models is the result in part of positive externalities generated by education, an important form of human capital. In these models, the new ideas and new technologies that are critical to high sustained growth rely fundamentally on high levels of human capital.
- Topic:
- Economics, Education, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- India