Open Access 2006

The network society has its roots in open academic environments. Open communication has proved to be extremely enabling for development of society, wherever available. Its spread, however, depends on open access to communication resources. A challenge is to bring open access to developing regions, to be regarded as an essential utility, like other infrastructure.

The purpose of the workshop is to discuss challenges and futures of academic networking and its impact on the wider Society.
Academic networking is changing, for technical and economical reasons. The availability of optical fibre and optical network components opens up new opportunities. The economics of academic networking is pushed closer to the individual universities forcing them to consider the best price/performance.

Questions asked include:

• What does open access to communication resources mean in an academic networking context?

• Is there need for 'deregulation' of academic networks? On a continental, national or regional level?
• Why are academic networks in some parts of the world going from national to regional?
• How should wider development goals be integrated in the research agendas?

The workshop provides an opportunity to exchange experiences from research and education networking organisations from different countries and continents.

You are invited to address these questions with presentations of experiences, plans or hypotheses under validation. We solicit focused abstracts, tutorial and survey contributions as well as research papers on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• The concept of Open Communication and Open Networks
• Effects of open access technologies in the context of academic networking
• Case studies illustrating how to provide access to international fiber backbone networks for universities
• Issues related to the deregulation of academic networks in a world of monopolistic backbone providers
• How academic networks may improve living conditions for people in developing regions

Submission
Authors are invited to submit extended abstracts and original papers (4-6 pages, IEEE transactions two-column style, 10pt). Articles should be tutorial in nature and should be written in a style comprehensible to readers outside the specialty of the article. Articles should be submitted here, and should be presented in PDF format.

Important dates
Submissions due: 1 November, 2006
Notification: 15 November, 2006
Final version: 6 December, 2006

Information regarding registration
Register here