[kids online: new publication]

"Kids Online: Opportunities and Risks for Children", edited by Sonia Livingstone and Leslie Haddon (Bristol: Policy Press). 

The book provides an up to date account of how children use the internet in Europe, including such topical issues as social networking, risky contacts, parental mediation, media literacy and many more.


Ordering information is available here: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/EUKidsOnline/KidsOnlineflyer.pdf

As Professor Tanya Byron, author of the influential Byron Review into Safer Children in a Digital World says, "Professor Livingstone and colleagues provide extensive evidence-based findings which enable academics, educationalists, policy makers, parents and young people to think beyond anxieties generated by new technologies and make informed decisions about maximizing digital opportunities while managing risks. An impressive and essential book, central to the child digital safety debate."


Expected Results:

• Core findings regarding children’s and parents’ experiences of online technologies, focused on comparisons of children’s and parents’ perceptions of and practices regarding online risk and safety.
  
• Patterns of risk and safety online to be identified following top-down hypothesis testing and bottom-up exploration of relationships among different variables, conducted on a cross-national basis.
  
• Evidence-based policy and research recommendations.
  

Read more here.






Note: top image from Kids Online book site and second image from Teenagers Today site.

[facebook and canadian privacy laws]

Time is up for Facebook to find a way to live up to Canada's privacy law after this country's privacy watchdog gave the social-networking website one month to close its "serious privacy gaps."

And if Jennifer Stoddart, Canada's privacy commissioner, isn't satisfied with Facebook's final response Monday, she has two weeks to take the California-based company to Federal Court in Ottawa to try and get a court order requiring it to change its business practices to comply with Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the country's private-sector privacy law.

[...]

The privacy probe began last year when the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa filed an 11-part complaint, alleging Facebook violated key provisions of Canada's private-sector privacy law.

In addition to an "overarching" concern relating to the "confusing" or "incomplete" way in which Facebook provides information to users about its privacy practices, Stoddart concluded Facebook's policy to indefinitely keep the personal information of people who have deactivated their accounts is contrary to the act.

[...]

But the bigger dispute over Facebook sharing personal information to companies that operate third-party applications on its site is another matter, he said.

In order to download popular games and quizzes, Facebook users must consent to share all their personal information, except their contact details. These companies, totalling nearly one million, operate in 180 countries.

Read more here: http://www.canada.com/technology/Facebook%20must%20satisfy%20Canada%20privacy%20commissioner%20Monday/1899277/story.html

[journal of virtual worlds research]

An interesting edition considering the role of virtual worlds in health research:

Vol 2, No 2: 3D Virtual Worlds for Health and Healthcare

Table of Contents

Editor's Corner

Musings on the State of '3-D Virtual Worlds for Health and Healthcare' in 2009

Maria Toro-Troconis, Maged N. Kamel Boulos

Abstract | PDF

Invited Articles

Virtual Worlds in Health Care Higher Education

Constance M Johnson, Allison A Vorderstrasse, Ryan Shaw

Abstract | PDF

Peer Reviewed Research Papers

The Growth and Direction of Healthcare Support Groups in Virtual Worlds

John Robert Norris

Abstract | PDF

Development of a Virtual Reality Coping Skills Game to Prevent Post-Hospitalization Smoking Relapse in Tobacco Dependent Cancer Patients

Paul Krebs, Jack Burkhalter, Shireen Lewis, Tinesha Hendrickson, Ophelia Chiu, Paul Fearn, Wendy Perchick, Jamie Ostroff

Abstract | PDF

Does this Avatar Make Me Look Fat? Obesity and Interviewing in Second Life

Elizabeth Dean, Sarah Cook, Michael Keating, Joe Murphy

Abstract | PDF

Research Papers

Development and Evaluation of Health and Wellness Exhibits at the Jefferson Occupational Therapy Education Center in Second Life

Susan Toth-Cohen, Therese Gallagher

Abstract | PDF

Research-in-Brief Papers

Development of Virtual Patient Simulations for Medical Education

Douglas R Danforth, Mike Procter, Richard Chen, Mary Johnson, Robert Heller

Abstract | PDF

"Think Pieces"

Virtual Worlds, Collective Responses and Responsibilities in Health

Rashid M Kashani, Anne Roberts, Ray Jones, Maged N. Kamel Boulos

Abstract | PDF

Pitfalls in 3-D Virtual Worlds Health Project Evaluations: The Trap of Drug-trial-style Media Comparative Studies

Maged N. Kamel Boulos, Inocencio Maramba

Abstract | PDF

Towards a virtual doctor-patient relationship: Understanding virtual patients.

Vanessa Gamboa González

Abstract | PDF

Editor-in-Chief's Corner

Cultural Identity in Virtual Reality (VR): A Case Study of a Muslim Woman with hijab in Second Life(SL)

Methal Mohammed

Abstract | PDF

Shaping the ‘Public Sphere’ in Second Life: Architectures of the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

Annabel Jane Wharton

Abstract | PDF

[cfp: democracy and communication]

Call for Papers: Canadian Journal of Communication

Special Issue: Democratizing Communication Policy in the Americas: Why It Matters

Deadline for full papers December 15, 2009; publication date Fall 2010.

Communication policy is an often important but overlooked topic ­ a blind spot - in much social policy research and public discourse. Media and telecommunications systems have become so fundamental, ubiquitous and pervasive that we often take them for granted as enablers, and nothing more, of many other freedoms, rights, and capabilities. Many do not realize the extent to which policies concerning communication resources are quite vulnerable to fluctuating corporate and government interests.

This "knowledge gap" is what this special issue of the CJC seeks to address:

how do communication policies affect economic, social justice and human rights, and what are civil society organizations in the Americas doing about this? For example, how do the supposed decline of traditional news media such as newspapers, struggles over copyright, the emergence of new ways of communicating online, questions about who owns or controls the internet, or access to the information we need, relate to social policy concerns such as sustainable development, immigration, environmental degradation, labor rights, gender equity, and other concerns across the Americas? What do any of these struggles have in common related to media, communication, and internet policies?

With these ideas in mind, we seek two types of submissions from concerned experts working either in academic or non-academic settings in the Americas:

• Policy Contexts (i.e., Enabling/Disabling Legal and Regulatory Environments): Short syntheses of the current state of play re communication policy that includes attention to the full spectrum of convergent policy issues such as broadcasting, telecommunications, information (i.e., intellectual property rights and access to information laws), and internet governance policies in each of the following regions: North America (Canada and the U.S.); Mexico and Central America; the Caribbean; Spanish-speaking Latin America; and Brazil.
  

• Civil Society Responses: Research illuminating either failed (and why) or successful (and how) civil society engagement related any of the previously listed communication and social policy areas in terms of making policy making actors, processes or institutions more transparent, representative, and accountable to public vs. corporate interests. Simply put, we seek to know why and how communication policies matter to a variety of social policy concerns and how civil society actors are working to effect communication policy change in a variety of contexts.
  

For this special issue, and given our interest in linking media and communications with social policy more generally, we are also interested primarily in research that is informed by critical theory, social justice and/or human rights frameworks and that features praxis-oriented research capturing the various challenges and/or opportunities for public-interest oriented interventions in policy making processes across the Americas.

Full-length papers (7,000-9,000 words) in English or French should be submitted electronically following the guidelines laid out on the CJC submissions website (http://www.cjc-online.ca/submissions.php). Make sure to write in all caps "COMM POLICY" in the Comments to the Editor field, and also to include it on the cover page of your article as well. Please do
not include your name on the cover page.

Comments and queries can be sent to one or both of the special issue editors:

Dr. Leslie Regan Shade, Concordia University, leslieshade@gmail.com
Dr. Becky Lentz, McGill University, becky.lentz@mcgill.ca

[recession for academic quality]

Usually, when facing a financial crunch, businesses need to make cuts and borrow money to keep afloat. Arizona State University has come up with a rather different method; force staff to take up to 15 days unpaid from work:

"All 12,000 Arizona State University employees will be required to take 10 to 15 days off without pay before July to meet budget cuts required by the state Legislature, the university announced Wednesday.

The mandate includes top administrators, varsity coaches, faculty, office and maintenance workers, but the unpaid leave, or furloughs, will be staggered. ASU will remain open and classes will meet.

"I want to assure all of you that ASU is committed to continuing to deliver all our academic programs to our students, to not reducing academic quality and to maintaining our university student financial aid programs," Crow said.

Top University officials, including President Michael Crow, vice presidents and deans, will take 15 days without pay.

• Faculty and other academic professionals will take up to 12 days off, excluding any day they are expected to teach.

• Other employees, including clerical and maintenance workers, will be required to take 10 days unpaid leave.

Employees were encouraged to stagger their days off to soften the blow. Salary loss for these employees will be equivalent to 8 to 12 percent of the pay they would have received until June 30, the end of the fiscal year.

ASU expects to save $24 million from the furloughs. Lawmakers are still debating the size of budget cuts that ASU and other state universities will be expected to make."

Via Scott Rettberg's facebook post.