|
|
|
|
CIAO DATE: 12/99
Second International Workshop on the Future of the Internet Service on Conflcit and Ethnicity (FISCE II)
July 1st-2nd, 1997
Table of Contents
The central aim of the workshop was to enable participants to learn from each other and explore the possibilities for co-operation in the field of conflict and ethnicity. This report aims to provide the main points of the papers presented, rather than the full text and will highlight internet links where available.
Discussion paper: Thinking about users
Niall O Dochartaigh, Research Officer, Conflict Data Service, INCORE
The central theme of this year’s workshop is ‘Focusing on the User’. Over the past year we at the INCORE Internet Service have been moving towards the conclusion that a large part of our energy should be devoted to closely defining our target group and developing a strategy for reaching that target group. As the ‘sea’ of information on the web widens and deepens those who are on-line may well become ever less likely to accidentally bump into our little atoll. One of INCORE’s main services is our Internet country guides on ethnic conflict which consist in large part of annotated links. We noticed that, although these guides begin to atrophy almost from their creation, use accelerated after the first few months, simply because awareness had spread gradually across the net. However, it is important to us that they be used immediately, when they are of maximum value. This dilemma lay behind our initial development of an energetic ‘publicity’ strategy and started us thinking about our users and potential users rather than about ‘the whole world’ which many web sites conceive of as their potential audience. In addition, in our field of ethnic conflict resolution, a large proportion of those most urgently in need of information are not ‘on the net’ in the first place. For all of these reasons we have begun to move towards the opinion that building up a relationship with users and clearly defining and targeting your user group may well become as important for website managers as providing an information service.
By choosing the theme ‘focusing on the user’, we do not intend to restrict discussion but merely to provide a useful frame for discussion on a wide variety of issues. Intending participants should feel free to propose papers which do not seem to fit neatly into this theme. ‘Focusing on the user’ covers a multitude of issues, from issues of publicity to issues of access and training. Below is a list of topics around which we intend to build sessions.
Report compiled by Grainne Kelly, Conflict Data Service, INCORE
Session One: ‘Focusing On The User’ Providing the Content, Using the Content
Chair: David Officer, Ulster People’s College, Belfast
Speakers:
Lincoln Ellis, Columbia International Affairs Online ‘Centralizing and streamlining Information’
Ulf Hansson, Dept. of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Ulster ‘A conflict researcher’s perspective’
Martin Melaugh, Conflict Archive on the Internet ‘CAIN and its users’
Pat Curran, INCORE Conflict Data Service ‘The INCORE ethnic conflict research database on the web’
Centralizing and streamlining Information
Lincoln Ellis
The speaker began by providing the participants with a background to the philosophy and research that has gone into the development of Columbia International Affairs Online (http://www.ciaonet.org). The project received a grant from the Mellon Foundation out of their new technologies initiative which was set up to look at a number of questions which were being raised, such as:
Technology can begin to build some of these bridges between academics and policymakers. In the States there is a very clear distinction between the two.
The core of the Columbia On-line project was to use and create a site based around working papers (often not easily or highly disseminated) and archive them on the web. Distribution and profile of working papers has been extremely poor and many people do not even know that they exist. This idea was expanded to include conference proceedings, publishing entire books and journals on-line. The aim was to create a one-stop shopping site on the web for analytical material in order that people could find this information in an efficient and timely way.
Three things were found to be important to keep in mind when developing a site for your members.
How do we make use of developing and emerging technology so that there is not large amounts of uninteresting text? One has to make it more interesting and enticing than that. From the research and focus groups that were used it was found that the ability to centralise and index the large amounts of information that is both disparate and widespread on the web was very important. There was also a realisation that a lot of material is not available on the web. The focus groups indicated that the concentration of large amounts of material in one place was very useful when they do not have a lot of time to spend on the web.
How does one create virtual communities? How do you get people to come back to your site and build these virtual communities? Firstly, there is the traditional way—name brand recognition. Secondly, provide a lot of material that is high in content. Thirdly, continually innovating your site to keep up with developments. One should also trust your user to know what they are actually needing. Most important is to create a sense of trust and allegiance between the people who are using it.
What are the fiscal constraints? I think the days of the free flow of information are over. Information is becoming more and more by subscription or a usage fee. We have developed a cost recovery model—to have enough money to cover for staff etc. Target subscription goals can be worked out when you know the projected budget. The culture of the web seems to be evolving in such a way that people realise that there are costs involved.
A conflict researcher’s perspective
Ulf Hansson
I wish to emphasise the users perspective in this presentation, as a researcher in the field in peace and conflict studies.
I have actually found the INCORE site very useful. For example, the country guide (http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/cds/countries/russia.html) that has been produced on Russia has been very helpful. Among all of the annotated links provided, I wish to highlight the Radio Free Europe site (http://www.rferl.org/bd/ru/index.html), as particularly useful. This site, although funded by the US government does seem that is quite well respected with updated information and in depth articles. This is the first point I wish to make. Often there is not a lot of background information provided on the organisation/person providing the material on the website. An added problem is that one is not clear how to cite this information. Who or what am I supposed to give credit to? The organisation or the writer? I think this is something that needs to be clarified.
A good example is the Parameter Journal , a very well presented site. This brings me to my second point—the use of the internet as a sort of ‘Yellow Pages’ which lists various sources of academic material in one site. For example, the site Political Science and Sociology On-line Publications (http://socsci.colorado.edu/POLSCI/RES/pubs.html). The usefulness of this is that on the internet everything can be updated quite easily so that things remain topical or relevant.
I have found the likes of the MIT Bookstore (http://mitpress.mit.edu/bookstore/index.html) to be very helpful for my research. It is possible to order books over the Net, using your bank-card or credit card, but I have not done that yet, since the question of security is not dealt with thoroughly yet, but this will most certainly be developed in the near future, it saves you the walk to the city-centre.
Continuing on this point, leading up to the third point I wanted to make. In my own research I have tended to use a method referred to as Events data. Used over a period of time it enables me to see patterns in a countries policy, such as foreign policy. In doing this I am in need of information regarding previous years, let us say that I am studying the development of Russian foreign policy from 1993 and onwards. I am therefore in need of news material dating three-four years back. It seems to me that there is a lack of this kind of information from such sources as RFE, etc. in “back-dating” material. An exception is the page and services provided by Reuters. I do not know whether this kind of service is extremely expensive to run and I am not sure on the amount of time needed to transfer information, but it undoubtedly leads me to the fourth and final point of my short presentation; subscription and fees.
Many organisations charge money and demand various pass-words when using their services, closing the gate to information for the user. I can see the logic of this and cannot really complain but it makes me wonder about the future of the Internet. If you want it further developed and with a higher standard when using Internet, you get what you pay for, you cannot just take the plums of the cake. What if a website like INCOREs were to start charging the users, particularly students with A lack of funding? But then again, this could be avoided if libraries, various departments and faculties started to subscribe/pay.
Webmasters must ensure that pages and selection of links, in particular the information on these websites, are updated and maintained, along with the issues of “ownership” and intentions. I cannot see how to regulate the latter, and regulation is perhaps too strong of a word, it is rather in the interest of the provider to present something “respectable”.
To conclude, I think that as a local user and provider, web masters and selection of links are updated and maintained along with information on ownership and intentions. I know that this is a struggle for many institutions. However, I do feel that although there is a certain amount of frustration involved in using the internet, it is also a source of joy. As a researcher in the 1990s I find it is unavoidable as a tool for the collection of information.
Discussion
There followed a brief discussion on the focus groups that are used; what policy decisions are taken as to the who are the potential users of sites before they are created; relevance of material after it is posted on the web; editorial control over work which is posted on particular sites; the issue of giving credit for academics for work published only on web sites rather than published in print form; how do people read material on the web? Do you print it out or read it on screen?
CAIN and its users
Martin Melaugh
This is an edited summary of this paper. The full text of the paper is available at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cainbgn/papers/fisce2mm.htm
Martin Melaugh began by providing the participants with a brief background to the CAIN Project (http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/cain/index.html) and the eLib Programme (http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/), one of the main funders of this internet project.
He then proceeded to discuss the issues surrounding the make-up of the users, both current and potential, of the CAIN site. The target audience of the CAIN project was those within the Higher Education Sector of the UK. However, significant other users have been identified who have used this freely accessible site, from all over the world. CAIN sees the potential audience as being quite broad, from academics, researchers, students and journalists.
Having visualised the anticipated users of the CAIN site, the content of the site was discussed. It was envisaged that as well as providing the user with Background Information on the Conflict a number of Key Events and Key Issues on the conflict would be identified. These decisions would be made in conjunction with a ‘Project Assurance Team on Academic Content’ which comprises of senior academics with a research interest in the Northern Ireland conflict.
The Project Manager of the CAIN project went on to explain a little about the design of the web pages and the tools which they provide the user with to make navigation through the site as efficient as possible. He also explained the usefulness of monitoring the usage of the site and how these statistics were compiled.
The various means by which feedback from the users was collected was also discussed. These included e-mail queries, a comments page and a more specific on-line questionnaire. Finally, the future of the CAIN project as an ongoing service, its funding and additional material to be provided was highlighted.
The INCORE ethnic conflict research database on the web
Pat Curran
Pat Curran provided a presentation and explanation of INCORE’s experience of linking a relational database to the web using the Oracle software. In practical terms INCORE has used the Oracle software to create a relational database ‘INCORE’s Ethnic Conflict Research Database’. The full presentation is not available, however, the practical application can be viewed and used on the INCORE site at INCORE’s Ethnic Conflict Research Database’ (http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/cds/metadata/researcher.html)
Session Two: ‘Getting The Message Out’: Aiming at a clearly-defined user community
Chair: Niall O Dochartaigh, Conflict Data Service, INCORE
Speakers:
Susan Allen Nan, ICAR, George Mason University ‘Action Evaluation—using the web for a conflict resolution project.’
Patricia Donald, Women’s Resource and Development Agency, Belfast ‘Working directly with users’
Robin Percival, Pat Finucane Centre for Human Rights, Derry ‘Providing a Human Rights information service on the internet’
Action Evaluation—using the web for a conflict resolution project.
Susan Allen Nan
Susan Allen-Nan briefed the participants on the use of the internet by those involved in the Action Evaluation Initiative based at Haverford College. Briefly, this project is headed by Jay Rothman and funded by Pew Charitable Trusts to study how best to effectively evaluate conflict resolution initiatives, during the actual implementation of the initiatives, rather than after they have finished.
The speaker briefly brought the participants through the website (http://www.ARIAssociates.haverford.edu/) for the project. She then proceeded to describe how those associated with the projects can use the internet as a means of internal communication, in a secure environment. A database was also created for the project, using FileMakerPro. Each researcher was given a copy of FileMakerPro to which they inputted their own data. The end result of this work is to share they data that had been collected between the different projects (for example, what were the goals of specific initiatives? how had those goals changed?) in order to do some sort of systematic comparison of data. This system is fully searchable for those involved in the project, although not to the general web user, as a username and password is required to access the information.
Working directly with users
Patricia Donald
Patricia Donald spoke about a very practical project which is based in Northern Ireland that deals with users at a level that many involved in computing do not.
The Women’s Resource and Development Agency is a Belfast based organisation, with a regional remit throughout the north of Ireland. Their work is informed by an awareness of the relative poverty of women in Northern Ireland, the exclusion of women from public life and marginalisation of women in social and economic development. They work as a development agency for women’s groups, of which there are over 200 community based women’s groups. They work to bring women together to work on issues of common concern within local communities, on an area basis and throughout Northern Ireland and believe that women’s education is a key factor in addressing women’s social and economic marginalisation.
One of the main projects the organisation is involved in is the IT Project which is funded using National Lottery money. The speaker referred briefly to a piece of research which was done by Dublin City University. In 1996 they held a conference entitled ‘Harnessing the Internet’. The use of the internet by the voluntary sector in Northern Ireland was monitored. The findings suggested a huge disparity of use—with bigger organisations having access to the internet while the smaller ones were not on-line. Another piece of research was undertaken recently entitled ‘The Voluntary Sector and the Internet’ which found that those least likely to use the internet are women’s groups and those concerned with women’s issues. Of the over 70 women’s organisations which the Women’s Resource and Development Agency are involved with, they found that not one of the organisations had access to either e-mail or the internet.
As a result of this research and findings the IT project began. The work involves basic dissemination of information of how to require hardware and software for their organisations. They also hold workshops regarding the specific training that is required by women’s groups themselves. At the moment, the money appears to be available to groups to purchase the hardware needed, yet the specific training is not available. The organisation also tries to provide women’s groups with as much technical support over the phone as they can, in order to support their work on the computer. The importance that these groups become producers of information, rather than consumers was also highlighted by Ms Donald in areas such as databases of statistics in, for example, health matters which be shared between different women’s groups.
In summary, it appears that women’s groups in Northern Ireland are only now beginning to explore the possibilities of information technology and there is a steep learning curve yet to be tackled. The creation of national and international links between women is an important step which can be facilitated by use of information technology.
Discussion
Following these presentations some discussions began regarding security issues and the trust that users have that any information which is posted in an apparently ‘secure’ site would remain secure. Following on from this, the question of addressing the equality of access to the internet was raised, as was the need to look at the implications of IT on certain sections of society.
Providing a Human Rights information service on the internet
Robin Percival
Mr Percival provided a presentation and explanation of the Pat Finucane Centres work in the field of human rights in Northern Ireland and their experience of creating a website to disseminate information that they have gathered. The full presentation is not available, however, their site can be viewed at http://www.serve.com/pfc/
Session Three: Prospects for Co-operation and Funding
Identification of a Specific User
Session Four: Catering to an International User Group
Chair: John Kennedy, Educational Services, University of Ulster
Speakers:
Jennifer Pournelle, Institute for Global Conflict and Co-operation (via video link)
Gerd Hagmeyer-Gaverus, Swedish International Peace Research Institute (via video link)
Jennifer Pournelle (via video link)
Ms Pournelle began by explaining a little about the organisation with which she is involved, the Institute on Global Conflict and Co-operation and the background to a new North East Asia project they have undertaken which aims to be a positive documentation for researchers with a high standard of quality and readability.
She spoke briefly about the main problems associated with virtual diplomacy, such as they are working on with this particular project. Technology is progressing so much so that now travelling is seen as a quite primitive form of communicating with others Now we can meet ‘virtually’, like we was achieved for this link up. However, this is not without its own problems. There are some general problems of virtual meetings related to different times and different regional settings
Workgroups have specific needs:
Funding for the project The awareness that the US government has of the project has not yet been fully appreciated. However, their knowledge is increasing. IGCC are awaiting Washington’s decision on whether they will get their approval on funding in September 1997. IGCC has already submitted proposals for site webs for graduate schools in areas of commerce and industry.
Discussion
The participants were then free to ask Ms Pournelle questions, using a ‘chat window’
Q. Your presentation detailed issues regarding hard and software developments and the need to secure funding, could you please explain more about costs and developments and alternative arrangements as this factor can be prohibitive if funding is not secured via normal channels.
A. IGCC plan to develop the system and attract other participants and organisations e.g. Colombia University and INCORE. If successful, this level of integration increases IGCCs chances of funding. One must also remember that a lot of work can be achieved with relatively little expenditure. The actual cost for graduates to complete the software is in the region of $30-50,000. This includes:-
The whole North East Asia project will cost approximately $350,000. An individual user would need a lot of time to participate in the test e.g. time required for installation.
Gerd Hagmeyer-Gaverus (via video link)
Gerd has been involved in a number of projects gearing towards academic institutions.
Hagmeyer-Gaverus detailed how the user should be involved in design and manipulation of the interface and format of information provided by organisations e.g. bibliographical information often has to be processed before being used
He detailed how there is two types of formula: Input formula: which allows users to compute data and make calculations. Output formula: which can then be sent out, and the page designed by the user.
When obtaining information about data and the Intrix Structure e.g. out-put design—the user chooses the design. This allows for further processing if necessary, as the provider will want the user to obtain more information on a regular basis. Since institutions have little interest in developing these projects, co-operation is essential from external organisations.
Discussion
The participants were then free to ask Mr Hagmeyer-Gaverus questions, using a ‘chat window’
Lincoln Ellis reflected on his own experience when he was developing Columbia Affairs on-line last Autumn. A request was made to SIPRI for further information, but this request was nx ot granted. Due to publication restrictions SIPRI were unable to co-operate. Obtaining information and the co-operation of organisations is seen as a major hurdle to overcome. In addition, SIPRI also has a contract to Oxford University Press, and are therefore unable to publish this information. It is difficult to clarify between illegal / legal information, and which regulations should apply. In general, institutions do not like to give away information as ownership belongs to them.
Niall O Dochartaigh outlined that it was the first time the audio workshop had occurred, and should therefore be viewed as an experiment, the technical difficulties should not normally arise. Niall reminded the group that the audio link-up was free and accessed via the Internet, however the reception may be affected if the highways are busy.
Niall explained that there are two types of equipment that can be used either reflector lights or a Mac, in this particular session a Mac was used. The reflector that was used in the workshop was borrowed from Queens University, once Gerd heard about this he set up his own reflector very quickly and easily. The system operates by Gerd, Jenny and Niall all logging onto the same reflector. There is also a facility to use slides on the Audio Internet.
Chair: Tony Gallagher, Queen’s University, Belfast
Speakers:
Grainne Kelly, INCORE Conflict Data Service ‘The politics of hyperlinks: Albania, Sri Lanka and Kashmir’
Peter Doran, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Ulster ‘The United Nations, the Environment and the Internet’
Niall O Dochartaigh, INCORE Conflict Data Service ‘The INCORE pilot project on South Asia: lessons learnt from an internet project on ethnic conflict’
The politics of hyperlinks: Albania, Sri Lanka and Kashmir
Grainne Kelly
The first example of the ‘politics of hyperlinks’ is when the work the Conflict Data Service did seemingly having a direct effect on the pages of another provider was the interesting case of the Albania country guide.
Albania
It was decided by myself and Niall that a country guide on Albania , which could be quickly produced, in response to the crisis in mid-March of this year would be of great benefit for those looking into the conflict—be they academics, journalists etc. Within two working days we produced a thoroughly researched annotated, academic guide to internet resources on theconflict in Albania in response to the recent crisis.
We identified a ‘news site’ called crisis 97, as a site provided by the Democratic Party of Albania (the ruling party at the time) and annotated it as such within our country guide. The webserver hosts a small number of items, among them Crisis97, which purported to be an independent news service, as well as the ‘Official Home Page’ of the ruling Democratic Party of Albania.
In truth everything on the site is interwoven—it is not really a number of separate services. When we originally visited the crisis97 news site we noted that nobody acknowledged responsibility for it. By tracking back to the server front page we found the Democratic Party of Albania and discovered that they pointed to the crisis97 site as though it was their own news site. Unfortunately we do not have a copy of the exact page which existed at that point but suffice to say the news site nowhere acknowledged that is was supplied by the Democratic Party this on their main page. The fact that they were on the same server and that there was precious little else on this server suggested that it was indeed their news site but that on the news site itself they made no mention of this because they were concerned to present the news site as ‘neutral’.
However, the Democratic party of Albania site pointed to crisis 97 as ‘news’ on their main menu bar, as though it was their own news service—in fact it was pretty much the only substantive item on their menu bar. They both originate from the same web address—www.albania.co.uk . Therefore, we listed the crisis97 site as being ‘provided by’ the DPA.
We then received an email from the maintainer of the crisis97 site stating that it was an independent news service (he said that he alone ran everything on www.albania.co.uk -which is very curious as this server hosts the ‘official homepage’ of the Democratic Party). As a result of the e-mail we revisited the site to discover they had done a ‘cover-up’ of the connections between the two sites, albeit an imperfect one. The surprising thing about this affair was not that a ruling party should set up a news site and pretend it was independent but that once this was uncovered by a research agency, they tried to do a cover-up and cover their tracks on the web.
When we revisited the site a disclaimer had been added to the front page of the www.albania.co.uk server. The ‘News’ bar on the DPA menu no longer pointed directly to crisis97. As far as we were concerned a cover up had taken place. However, it was a poor cover-up. The new disclaimer claims that the whole site www.albania.co.uk is solely the responsibility of one person. However, since it also hosts the DPA official home pages this amounts to an admission that the crisis97 ‘independent’ news site and the Democratic Party of Albania ‘Official Home Page’ are both the responsibility of this individual. It totally undermines the claim that the news service is independent.
The DPA ‘news’ item on the menu bar now points to www.albania.co.uk/dp/news.html which claims ‘all news items for the DP have been suspended. Please view Crisis 97 News Centre for the latest situation in Albania’ However this very page, clearly still a DPA page, has a crisis97 header on it suggesting it is also part of the crisis97 news centre. We can’t be sure if this page has been altered because we put up our guide but we suspect it has been—just not altered enough.
The interesting thing is that this example illuminates the uncertainty of source or authorship on the web leading to the appearance of such ‘dishonest’ web sites. We can expect that in the future more and more Governments and political parties will set up ‘independent’ web sites which the casual user will take at face value as ‘objective’ sources. However they are probably likely to do a much more professional job.
Sri Lanka
The first version of the Sri Lanka guide was created early in the life of the conflict data service—in late 1995 or early 1996. We decided to do a second version of the guide, firstly, as the first guide had deteriorated significantly (in that many of the links no longer worked) and secondly, as we were increasingly aware that much more information was now available in the net regarding conflict and ethnicity in Sri Lanka. The first guide had got a good deal of usage and we felt, with our increasingly emphasis on publicity it would be a well used site.
Sri Lanka is host to an extremely polarised conflict and it is obviously not INCORE’s policy to endorse either side of the conflict. Our country guides are just that—GUIDES—to what is available of relevance, with substantial amounts of information on the conflict.
It actually took quite a long time to create the guide and to write the brief, hopefully impartial descriptions of the links we supplied. On putting the guide on the web we mail shot quite a number of people—many e-mails are from lists we have created over time—but, I also collected e-mails from web sites as I came across them on Sri Lanka pages. Therefore, we created a good deal of publicity regarding the guides. Within days of this, we received a number of e-mails regarding the content of the country guides. Some were just helpful suggestions of other sites we did not come across before, that they felt would be of interest, others were more accusing in nature—a number accusing us of being pro-Government and one deliberately implying we were leaving out material on the Tamil Tigers
I quote from one (the English is not great) I found your site about Sri Lanka conflict is with only the information provided by Sri Lanka government sources or by individuals supported financially by the government of Sri Lanka for an international publicity effort. Since this conflict is Sri Lanka—Tamil Eelam war, and for any researcher, obtaining the information from Sri Lanka side is very easy—a call to the nearest embassy—but the information from Tamil Eelam side is hard to obtain, one would expect INCORE to provide more credible links to Tamil Eelam.
Another wrote I appreciated your attempt at thoroughness in the materials available. As in all these situations, much more information is provided by the government side. Have you considered the consequences of this? I will send you as much information as I can from the other side as it becomes available.
Interestingly, none of the e-mails we received were from Sri Lanka itself—which it what we talked a little about yesterday—the importance of country’s diaspora and their role in the conflict now—through the internet.
Kashmir
What I wish to point out in the case of the Kashmir country guide is the problems which face us in deciding whether to include certain web sites in our service and how much right do we have to exclude sites which DO have a relevance to the conflict but are blatantly fanatical.
This country guide posed problems because of the fact that the situation is so polarised between those are pro-Indian and those who are pro-Pakistan. Although the majority of people using the country guides should be aware that the service we are providing is merely a pointer for the user to information regarding the region and we hope our descriptions are both brief and impartial, we are concerned, partially as a result of experiences such as the one regarding the Sri Lanka guide, that we will be accused of taking sides in the conflict.
Grainne Kelly went on to show the participants of the workshop some of the sights which she found when creating the Kashmir country guide. Many of these were obviously partial sites, many being particularly graphic in their use of pictures and images of the conflict. Should we make it clearer within the guides (like a strong disclaimer) that we take NO responsibility for the information posted by other site owners?
The United Nations, the Environment and the Internet
Peter Doran
Unfortunately, Peter Doran’s paper is not available.
The INCORE pilot project on South Asia: lessons learnt from an internet project on ethnic conflict
Niall O Dochartaigh
Eighteen months ago, INCORE initiated a pilot project on South Asia, the project would take advantage of the Internet and the use of information to develop a new document. The report would be based upon conflict and ethnicity with the help of S. Asian academics.
Advantages of the S. Asia Project
Collation of Data
The pilot project rejects the idea of creating a large statistical database due to the reasons listed below:-
Benefits of the Internet
Problems
It is very difficult to ensure that people meet their deadlines due to:-
From the 10 people who are involved in the project not one of them have met their deadlines.
Lessons Learnt
The irony of the project would be that it was developed on the Internet, but a paper document would also be necessary.
Comments from the Seminar Group
To expect delays when liaising with academics, i.e. meeting deadlines. There appears to be less respect when material is electronically transmitted than when material is printed.
Before expanding the project need to review the objectives of the project and the institution. To answer questions such as:
Is it meaningful for INCORE to specialise?
What are INCORE’s goals?
What is the function of INCORE?
Do they wish to become global specialists?
What is INCORE’s role?
Editing Referees carry out most of the editing, the S. E. Asia project consisted of 3 referees based in Sri-Lanka, New York and N. Ireland, each specialising in the politics of Sri-Lanka. Two of the referees are currently reviewing the format of the reports.
Consideration of Establishing an Electronic Journal (International)
Quality Material
Summary of the Session 3 discussion
Who is the User?
Problems
Pat Curran, INCORE Conflict Data Service
Patricia Donald, Women’s Resource and Development Agency, Belfast
Peter Doran, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Ulster
Lincoln Ellis, Columbia International Affairs Online
Tony Gallagher, Queen’s University, Belfast
Gerd Hagmeyer-Gaverus, Swedish International Peace Research Institute
Ulf Hansson, Dept. of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Ulster
Grainne Kelly, INCORE Conflict Data Service
John Kennedy, Educational Services, University of Ulster
Martin Melaugh, Conflict Archive on the Internet
Susan Allen Nan, ICAR, George Mason University
Niall O Dochartaigh, Research Officer, Conflict Data Service, INCORE
David Officer, Ulster People’s College, Belfast
Robin Percival, Pat Finucane Centre for Human Rights, Derry
Jennifer Pournelle, Institute for Global Conflict and Co-operation
Email this citation