[Sigiii-l] Global Plaza 3 Updates

[Nadia Caidi]

Dear All,

The ASIST annual conference is around the corner, and Michel and I would
like to take this opportunity to update you on the 3rd edition of the
Global Information Village Plaza session that will be held on Tuesday
Nov. 16th, from
1:30-3:00pm.

As you may remember, this year, we had asked for contributions to the
Plaza in the form of questions rather than statements. The questions
formulated in a “What If?” format were intended to elicit provocative
debates and open dialogue among participants. Enclosed, you will find
the contributed "What If" questions that came from all over the world.
To make it easier for you -and the Plaza audience, we have clustered the
questions into themes.

The following themes emerged:

1- Infrastructures in Times of Crisis
2- Language issues
3- Power and Control
4- Humans vs. Machines
5- Quality of Relationships
6- Cost, Access and Sustainability
7- Inclusion and Digital Divide
8- Information Literacy
9- Information Education and Training
10- Alternative Publishing Models (Open Source)
11- Scholarly Research and Social Responsibility

What will happen during the session at the ASIST Meeting is:

a) The contributed questions will be formatted into posters by the
moderators, and will be placed on the walls around the room.
Participants will be invited to move around the room and add their
comments on stickers. They will also be able to vote for the most
provocative questions (i.e., the ones they would like discussed).

b) After 30 minutes, individual discussions will stop. The moderators
will tally the votes for the five most provocative questions, and invite
the audience to gather around our guest panel selected from among the
conference participants.
This year, our panel of special guests includes: Samantha Hastings
(ASIST President), Ching-Chih Chen (Simmons College), Marcia Hlava
(Consultant, Innovations Inc.), and Shivanthi Weerasinghe (Winner of the
International Paper Contest, Sri Lanka). The special guests will stand
on a platform in the middle of the room, surrounded by the audience.

c) Each guest will be asked to select one question for which they would
like to lead the discussion. They may either present their position about
the issues raised by the question, or open the floor for a general
discussion with the audience on the issues raised by the question.

The idea is to engage a dialogue between the guest speakers; between the
speakers and the audience; and between audience members. This format has
been the Global Plaza's traditional interactive format, which aims at
giving ASIS&T members an opportunity to express their personal views
about the challenges and opportunities that they encounter in the so
called "information society" both at a  personal and professional level.

We look forward to having you at the event. If you have any questions
please free to contact Michel or myself. Also, if there is a particular
question (or set of questions) that
really triggers your interest, please send us mail and we will add these
to the vote counts.

A summary of the discussions will subsequently be posted to the SIG-III
website.

All the best,

Nadia Caidi


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