Dear friends and colleagues,

We had a reception recently to announce and celebrate the release of the OxIS 2007 Report at the House of Commons. The report looks great, all the arrangements went well, a strong network of networks came to the event, and we gained excellent media coverage. So, let me add to the thanks of our sponsors (The British Library, Cisco, Hefce, Ofcom and Talisma), and personally convey my thanks to the entire OII team that produced the report and the reception. We now move on to a series of workshops around the OxIS data to be held in September.

Of course, many more projects are unfolding at the OII, such as our gambling survey and other events listed below. Finally my thanks to the Berkman Center (Harvard Law School) and to all the faculty, staff and students who ensured that the Summer Doctoral Programme 2007 achieved its objective of helping the students advance their dissertation research.

Bill Dutton, Director

Photos and presentations from the OxIS launch:

http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/oxis/events/launch2007.cfm

1. Online Gambling Survey

2. Civil Society Practitioners Programme (CSPP)

3. Events Diary

4. Summer Doctoral Programme 2007

1. Online Gambling Survey

The OII in collaboration with researchers at the Department of Psychiatry has just launched a web-based survey of users of online gambling sites. We are collecting information from a large number of respondents who are able to access our survey directly through links placed on gambling sites run by cooperating online gambling companies. However, we also hope to widen the range of survey respondents from those who gamble frequently online to those who never or only occasionally gamble on or off-line. We would therefore welcome your participation in this survey effort, whether or not you gamble online.

Online survey:

http://www.oxfordgamblingsurvey.org

About the study:

Online gambling has increased substantially in the last few years. Little is known about the effects of the Internet on people's gambling behaviour and its impact on people who use these sites a little and those who use these sites a lot: the survey is intended to fill this gap. The results will be used to build an empirically anchored picture of the implications of various patterns of online gambling. Better understanding of these issues, and the health experiences of people who use online gambling sites, will allow us to find ways to help those people who experience problems controlling their gambling online.

Background to the research:

http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/project.cfm?id=40

The project has been jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Responsibility in Gambling Trust (RIGT). It has the support of the Remote Gambling Association (RGA) and the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), which represent British and European remote gambling operators.

2. Civil Society Practitioners Programme (CSPP)

We are inviting applications from the global South to fill two places on our Civil Society Practitioners Programme (CSPP). This visitor programme is intended for Civil Society Practitioners of distinction or outstanding promise who wish to visit the OII for a period of six weeks between February and December 2008, to undertake research concerning the social impact of the Internet and related ICTs. The successful applicants will receive:

A subsistence allowance of 3800 GBP (7500 USD) to cover research expenses and living costs during their stay in Oxford

A travel grant of up to 1000 GBP (2000 USD) for travel to and from the UK

Applications will ideally be submitted by Civil Society Practitioners in or from the global South, active in the areas of freedom of expression, media reform, media justice, and communications and information policy in the globalized context of the Internet.

Deadlines:

The deadline for completed applications to reach us is 26 September 2007. Final notification of an award will occur in November 2007. Successful candidates will be expected to take up their six week residency in Oxford at any time between February and December 2008.

Application and contact details:

http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/cspp/

This programme has been made possible through funding by the media policy portfolio in the Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom Program of the Ford Foundation.

3. Events Diary

Political Blogging in Campaign and Political Communication: Campaigning for Political Leadership 2.0?

Date: Wed 8 August 12:00 - 13:30

Speaker: J. Ignacio Criado (OII Visiting Fellow)

Focus: The introduction and strengthening of the blogging practice into the political game attaches new links to the large chain of unsolved questions that ties up the democratic political leadership issue. Does political blogging give a new meaning to the communicative dimension of the democratic political leadership? Does it introduce a transformation into the classical relational dynamics between political leaders and followers?

http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/events/details.cfm?id=154

Solutions for eGovernment

Date: Wed 31 Oct 09:30 - 17:30

Speakers: Prof Bill Dutton (OII), Dr Christine Leitner (Danube University Krems), Prof Helen Margetts (OII) and Prof Giovanni Sartor (European University Institute)

Focus: Progress towards realizing the full potential of eGovernment has been slower and less effective than the technologies' take-up in spheres such as eCommerce. This open workshop of the Breaking Barriers to eGovernment project will focus on specific legal and organisational solutions to overcome obstacles to eGovernment progression.

http://www.egovbarriers.org/?view=events

4. Summer Doctoral Programme 2007

The fifth of our Summer Doctoral Programmes took place this summer (in partnership with The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School) for two weeks of lectures, presentations, and discussions that ran the gamut of Internet and technology related research, and brought together individuals and perspectives from around the world.

Colin Maclay (Managing Director, Berkman Center) sums up: 'It was an amazing experience to gather the largest ever group of SDP students at our humble home in Cambridge, MA. While the setting was different, their energy, knowledge, curiosity, camaraderie and commitment were unchanged -- and inspirational. Their eager, open and able engagement gives me great hope for meaningful scholarship, at least in our area of study, in the years to come.'

The aggregator of participant - both students and faculty - blogs, photos, and more, provides a great timeline of activities throughout the programme, while the 2007 SDP wiki offers the schedule of events, syllabus and readings, presentations, and other materials accumulated. The students themselves also compiled a H2O playlist of suggested materials. And finally, for a quick glance at the conversations through blogposts, you can see a special edition of the 'Berkman Buzz', which highlights a number of the student and professor's posts on various events.

What they all got up to:

Aggregate:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/planet/sdp2007/

Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/oiisdp/

Wiki:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sdp2007/Main_Page

H2O:

http://h2obeta.law.harvard.edu/159956

Berkman Buzz:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/home?wid=10&func=viewSubmission&sid=2837

And there is more:

'I'd say that it was eye-opening to see so many different topics taken up in so many different ways by thoughtful and brilliant people from around the world. I learned a ton.'

Jonathan Zittrain, OII (SDP faculty)

'The OII SDP 2007 marks a highlight in my graduate studies experience to date. Rarely does one have the opportunity to interact with the caliber of graduate student or of irreparably generous faculty as gathered by the SDP--and for two weeks no less! I left the program with a room full of friends, a refreshed vision of my own dissertation project, and several collaborative projects in the make. What else could a doctoral student hope for?'

Ben Peters, Columbia University

'The programme consisted of a rich mixture of plenary sessions, student presentations, personal contributions, social activities, and plans for the future. I think it can be described most accurately as a storm, which slowly took hold of me and the other participants, and hopefully will have shaken some things up for good. The plenary sessions were the foundation on which further thinking, collaboration and discussion could be grounded. The tutoring was superior and magnificently diverse.'

Joris van Hoboken, University of Amsterdam

'My experience at SDP was superb. The syllabus was very informative and the resource persons were well prepared to challenge the students making it the most interactive and informal forum I have ever attended despite the high profiles of the leaders involved. The topics discussed especially on blogspheres, IP and digital natives were new to me and generally gray particularly to East African researchers. As my plane touched Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi I felt like a single seed crystal holding new knowledge on Internet and Society that must share and encourage the growth of that crystal so that next time there will be more to be shared from Africa at the next SDP. Above all, I was able to make links and my idea improved and now I am writing a proposal for funding with one of the SDP resource persons. I am very grateful to SDP for my exposure.'

Joseph Wafula, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology

'I appreciated the opportunity to learn in an interdisciplinary environment, to view issues from other perspectives and welcomed the invitations/challenges to think outside the box. An unexpected part of the course was the informal mentoring offered by the staff who shared their experiences and offered excellent advice on academic skills and career progression in a constructive way. I'd highly recommend the SDP to future applicants.'

Karen Mc Cullagh, University of Manchester

'The Faculty leading the seminars is one of those treasures you'd like to keep forever, specially when knowing that they came just for the pleasure of it � and how accessible, willing to share and how good listeners they were.'

Ismael Pena-Lopez, Open University of Catalonia