Berkman Center Fall 2013 Open House

Berkman Center For Internet & Society Fall 2013 Open House

Monday, September 9, 4p.m. on

Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West Rooms, 2nd Floor (Map)

Free and Open to the Public

RSVP at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2013/09/openhouse#RSVP

Join the Berkman Center for Internet & Society for the Fall 2013 Open House to meet our faculty, fellows, and staff, and to learn about the many ways you can get involved in our dynamic, exciting environment.

As a University-wide research center at Harvard University, our interdisciplinary efforts in the exploration of cyberspace address a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences. If you're interested in the Internet’s impact on society and are looking to engage a community of world-class fellows and faculty through events, conversations, research, and more please join us to hear more about our upcoming academic year.

Join us for the: Talk and Tinker Session from 4-6p.m.: Description Plenary from 6-7p.m.: (6pm): Description Reception: 7p.m. on

People from all disciplines, universities, and backgrounds are encouraged to attend the Open House to familiarize yourself with the Berkman Center and explore opportunities to join us in our research. We look forward to seeing you there!

Select Berkman Research

The Berkman Center enjoys a global reputation for cutting-edge work centered on the relationships between the Internet, law, and society. Our mode — entrepreneurial nonprofit — embraces our pursuit of scholarly research in the manner and spirit of an academic think tank, anchored by the diverse collaborative and individual work of our faculty and fellows.

Our efforts are concentrated in three areas of inquiry, united by the question of how the Internet can elicit the best from its users: Law, Technology, Innovation, and Knowledge; The Relationship between Internet and Civic Activity; and Technology, Law, and Development.

Talk and Tinker with Select Berkman Projects from 4-6p.m.

Each of the below selected Berkman projects will have a table at the 4-6p.m. session. The staff working with each of these projects are eager to share information about the projects' big questions, meet potential future collaborators, and solicit ideas.

The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse

Open House Point of Contact: Adam Holland

The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse is a comprehensive and wholly transparent online database of cease and desist notices related to online content. The project aims both to educate the public about the different kinds of cease and desist letters—both legitimate and questionable—that are being sent to Internet publishers, and to provide as much transparency as possible about the ecosystem in which such notices are issued. The Chilling Effects database allows researchers to investigate the extent to which complaints are being made within the boundaries of existing law. For more information, visit: http://chillingeffects.org/

CopyrightX

Open House Point of Contact: Ana Enriquez

Taught by Director Terry Fisher and offered during Spring 2013 on the edX platform, CopyrightX was also emblematic of creative approaches to online learning and teaching. A twelve-week networked distance-learning course, the course explored the current law of copyright and the ongoing debates concerning how that law should be reformed through a combination of pre-recorded lectures, live webcasts, and weekly online seminars led by Harvard Law School teaching fellows. When designing the course, Prof. Fisher and the course team considered ways of improving upon the dominant design features of many emerging MOOCs. In particular, their model utilized innovative features including limited enrollment and small discussion sections; experimental combinations of materials and technologies; live events that were attended by both the HLS students and the CopyrightX TFs, along with the edX students, who viewed and discussed the presentations in real-time. The course team is still analyzing the rich body of data generated by the course, but early indicators suggest that the course was a success in terms of the utility of small group discussions (which seem to have enhanced learning and retention), and the development of knowledge of both the teaching fellows and the students about the copyright system. Going forward, CopyrightX will act as an important model from which to build and experiment with additional Center-supported online courses, including the second iteration of the course in Spring 2014. Lectures and reading materials may be found online: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/CopyrightX_Homepage.htm

Cyberlaw Clinic

Open House Points of Contact: Chris Bavitz, Dalia Topelson, and Kit Walsh

Harvard Law School‘s Cyberlaw Clinic, based at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, provides high-quality, pro-bono legal services to appropriate clients on issues relating to the Internet, new technology, and intellectual property. Students enhance their preparation for high-tech practice and earn course credit by working on real-world litigation, client counseling, advocacy, and transactional / licensing projects and cases. The Clinic strives to help clients achieve success in their activities online, mindful of (and in response to) existing law. The Clinic also works with clients to shape the law’s development through policy and advocacy efforts. The Cyberlaw Clinic was the first of its kind, and it continues its tradition of innovation in its areas of practice. The Clinic works independently, with law students supervised by experienced and licensed attorneys. In some cases, the Clinic collaborates with counsel throughout the country (including lawyers at Cooley LLP) to take advantage of regional or substantive legal expertise. For more information, visit: http://cyberlawclinic.berkman.harvard.edu/.

Digital Problem-Solving Initiative

Open House Points of Contact: Nathaniel Levy

The Digital Problem-Solving Initiative (DPSI) at Harvard University is an innovative and collaborative project piloted in Fall 2013 that brings together interested students, faculty, fellows, and staff and enables participants to work in teams on practicable and concrete digital use cases – problems and opportunities – across the university. The pilot offers students and other participants a novel opportunity to enhance and cultivate competency with digital tools and online activity as teams engage with research, creative production, and policies governing the digital world. Incubated at the Berkman Center in collaboration with partners around the University, this applied problem-solving initiative is a complement to traditional courses of study. The pilot program provides an exciting opportunity to work with experienced mentors and engage with real use cases in a range of sectors, build something tangible and useful, and inform the development of the program. Admitted students will be invited to join the Berkman Center’s inaugural class of DPSI pioneers and offered the opportunity to expand digital competencies and networks in a fast-paced and highly collaborative entrepreneurial environment. Teams will benefit from interdisciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration, in addition to peer-to-peer learning and mentorship; participants will develop skills that are useful for solving complex problems – both in the university and professional context – through practical training and experimentation. In addition to a rich, networked learning environment and an emerging community of practice, the program will offer students and mentors a unique opportunity to invent, build, and shape the increasingly digital environment in which they live, learn, work, and create. For more information, visit: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/dpsi

We are currently accepting applications from Harvard students who wish to be a part of the DPSI pilot and become a “Berkman DPSI Pioneer”. Applications will be accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis through Monday, September 9 at 11:59 PM ET. To learn more, visit: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/dpsi/getinvolvedharvardstudents

DMLP

Open House Points of Contact: Jeff Hermes and Andy Sellars

Founded in 2007 as the "Citizen Media Law Project," the Digital Media Law Project (DMLP) works to ensure that individuals and organizations involved in online journalism and digital media have access to the legal resources, education, tools, and representation that they need to thrive. The DMLP carries out its mission through five core initiatives: (1) its detailed Legal Guide on media and business law topics for non-lawyers; (2) its searchable Database of Legal Threats directed at online publishers; (3) its nationwide attorney referral service, the Online Media Legal Network; (4) its Research & Response initiative to address breaking issues and trends in digital media law; and (5) its regularly-updated Blog and Newsletter on current issues in media law, technology law and journalism. For more information, visit: http://www.dmlp.org/

H2O

Open House Point of Contact: Dustin Lewis

H2O is a suite of online classroom tools developed and provided by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society in collaboration with the Harvard Law School Library. H2O allows professors to freely develop, remix, and share online textbooks under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License (per the Terms of Service). H2O is based on the open-source model: instead of locking down materials in formalized textbooks, we believe that course books can be free (as in “free speech”) for everyone to access and, just as important, build upon. Currently, H2O is geared primarily toward law professors, though the platform can be used across intellectual domains. For more information, visit: http://h2o.law.harvard.edu/

Herdict

Open House Point of Contact: Ryan Budish

Herdict collects and disseminates real-­time, crowdsourced information about Internet filtering, denial of service attacks, and other blockages. Based at the Berkman Center at Harvard University, it is the first and only large-­scale project of its kind. When individuals can’t access a site, they can report that experience to Herdict through browser toolbars, e-­mail, Twitter, or Herdict.org. Herdict aggregates this data to create a real-­time map of global Internet health. This data can be sorted and visualized by country, URL, and date, creating a picture of changes as they are happening. As more of peoples’ lives move online, tools like Herdict will become increasingly important. The brainchild of Harvard Professor Jonathan Zittrain, Herdict is a natural progression from the OpenNet Initiative. Whereas OpenNet views Internet filtering through an academic lens, Herdict uses crowdsourcing to present a rougher, but more timely analysis. Herdict’s name is a portmanteau of 'herd' and 'verdict.’ We seek to gain insight into what users around the world are experiencing in terms of web accessibility; or in other words, determine the herdict. For more information, visit: http://www.herdict.org and http://www.herdict.org/HerdictQueryAPI.pdf

Internet Monitor

Open House Point of Contact: Rebekah Heacock

Internet Monitor studies the means, mechanisms, and extent of Internet content controls and Internet activity around the world by compiling, curating, and analyzing quantitative data on the state of the global Internet. Internet Monitor also conducts research on key events and new developments in Internet freedom, incorporating technical, legal, social, and political analyses. For more information, visit: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/internetmonitor/

Media Cloud

Open House Point of Contact: Amar Ashar, Hal Roberts, and David Larochelle

Media Cloud, a joint project between Berkman and the Center for Civic Media at MIT, is an open source, open data platform that allows researchers to answer complex quantitative and qualitative questions about the content of online media. Using Media Cloud, academic researchers, journalism critics, and interested citizens can examine what media sources cover which stories, what language different media outlets use in conjunction with different stories, and how stories spread from one media outlet to another. For more information, visit: http://mediacloud.org

metaLAB (at) Harvard

Open House Point of Contact: Matthew Battles

metaLAB is a research and teaching unit at Harvard University dedicated to exploring and expanding the frontiers of networked culture in the arts and humanities. metaLAB is founded on the belief that many of the key research challenges and opportunities of our era — fundamental questions regarding experience in a connected world, democracy and social justice, the boundaries between nature and culture— transcend divisions between the arts, humanities and sciences; between the academy, industry, and the public sphere; between theoretical and applied knowledge. metaLAB’s home on the 4th floor of 42 Kirkland Street at the Graduate School of Design metaLAB serves as an institutional hub for Harvard’s digital art, design, and humanities communities while actively collaborating with partners both locally and worldwide. For more information, visit: http://metalab.harvard.edu/

Perma

Open House Point of Contact: Shailin Thomas

Perma is a service that creates citation links that will never break. When a user creates a Perma link, Perma archives a copy of the referenced content, and generates a link to this irrevocable, unalterable hosted instance of the site. Regardless of what may happen to the original source, if the link is in a published citation, the archived version will always be available through the Perma link. Readers who click on a Perma link are taken to a page that lets them choose to go to the original site (which may have changed since the link was created) or see the archived copy of the site in its original state. Perma is an online preservation instrument developed by the Harvard Law School Library in conjunction with university law libraries across the country and other organizations in the “forever” business.

Privacy Tools for Sharing Research Data

Open House Point of Contact: David O'Brien and Alexandra Wood

In Fall 2012, with support from the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace program at the National Science Foundation, the Berkman Center kicked off a four-year collaboration with the Center for Research on Computation and Society (CRCS) at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) called the Privacy Tools for Sharing Research Data Project. Leveraging the expertise that each participating institution brings from the fields of law, policy, applied mathematics, computer science, statistical analysis, and social science, the project seeks to develop tools, methods, and policies to further the tremendous value that can come from collecting, analyzing, and sharing research data while more fully protecting the privacy of individuals involved in such studies. Prof. Phil Malone leads the Berkman Center’s role in this project, drawing on the Center’s legal expertise and practical experience to distill key definitional issues, explore new regulatory frameworks, and contribute to the larger project customized legal instruments that take into account the specific needs of researchers while enabling reliable mechanisms for protecting research subjects’ privacy, transparency, and accountability. For more information, visit: http://privacytools.seas.harvard.edu/

Student Privacy

A key element of our growing suite of privacy efforts, the Student Privacy Initiative is designed to prompt and sustain a multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder conversation on student privacy. The project began this spring with a closed-door conversation with representatives from industry, academia, policy, and the non-profit world who are engaging with key questions regarding how privacy issues intersect with existing policy regimes, as well as with emerging developments in educational theory and institutional practices. Emerging from the conversation were important ideas for next steps, including data-driven and research-based analyses of emerging business models and pressures tied to data collection and “big data.” The Initiative plans to consider student privacy and “the cloud” in a holistic way that ultimately hones a shared set of practices designed to support the many potential benefits of cloud-based technologies in educational settings.

More information about Student Privacy initiatives may be found at the Youth and Media table.

Youth and Media

Open House Points of Contact: Sandra Cortesi and Paulina Haduong

Youth and Media encompasses an array of research, advocacy, and development initiatives around youth and technology. By understanding young people’s interactions with digital media such as the Internet, cell phones and video games, we seek to address the issues their practices raise, learn how to harness the opportunities their digital fluency presents, and shape our regulatory and educational frameworks in a way that advances the public interest. For curent and past projects see: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/youthandmedia

Other Select Projects

Many other research initiatives are underway at the Berkman Center. The below selection of projects will not have full representation via a table, but people on the Berkman staff will be happy to tell you more about these efforts.

Broadband

The Broadband Project, led by Yochai Benkler and Rob Faris, conducts policy-relevant research in three areas: spectrum policy, wireline competition, and municipal broadband provision. The spectrum research was punctuated by the Fall 2012 publication of Benkler's paper “Open Wireless vs. Licensed Spectrum: Evidence from Market Adoption” in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, which describes the critical and increasing role of open wireless in the United States communication infrastructure. The Broadband team’s municipal broadband provision research has completed in-depth interviews with project planners and operators of municipal fiber-to-the-home projects in the US, which will be incorporated in a paper that describes the current state of play in this dynamic area. The wireline competition research effort, conducted along with HLS Library statisticians Travis Coan and Constantine Boussalis, is drawing upon data from the national broadband map and census data to evaluate the current state of competition in US wireline markets. For more information, visit: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/broadband

Blogging Common

Blogging Common seeks to capture and present the spirit and wisdom of the blogosphere by surveying bloggers around the globe.By asking a variety of questions—about Internet usage patterns, opinions on Internet filtering and regulatory policy, the impact of Internet surveillance and soft content control, perceptions of risk associated with online publishing, the incidence of legal and extra-legal threats to bloggers, and the impact of filtering on access to information—Blogging Common hopes to tap into the knowledge and experience of some of the world’s most active Internet users, to compare Internet practices around the world, and to study the impact of different Internet environments on online behavior, including in countries where the free exchange of opinions can be risky. For more information, visit: http://bloggingcommon.org/

Cloud Computing

Under the leadership of Urs Gasser, the Cloud Computing Initiative focuses on developing research on emerging issues, law, policy, and current trends related to cloud computing. This year, the team has been working on the third phase of the project, which commenced in Spring 2012, and which aims to comparatively analyze the role of governments across the globe in the development of cloud computing industries and technologies. With the support of collaborating international partners and researchers, this research track focuses on how governments are using, regulating, promoting, and engaging with the cloud computing industry as a whole and the technologies and services that the industry offers to consumers and businesses in particular. The team ultimately aims to develop analytical and educational papers and practice guides for policymakers, industry participants, civil society members, and others on specific areas of interest. For more information, visit: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/6082

Cybersecurity

Since spring 2010, under the guidance of Professor Jack Goldsmith, the Berkman Center team has been developing and maintaining the Cybersecurity wiki, which houses an evolving set of more than 350 foundational articles, annotations, literature, and other resources on cybersecurity, broadly-defined. The wiki is intended to be a resource for researchers, technologists, students, policy-makers and others who are interested in cybersecurity issues more broadly. As a starting point, resources were chosen based on the recommendations from select researchers, academics, and other experts. We have continued to build upon and grow this collection. Most recently, we added an evolving Case Studies page and a collection of suggested syllabi on the open H2O online textbook platform for teaching topics related to Cybersecurity. We look forward to adding more recent publications, based on feedback and recommendations from external reviewers, community members, students, and others. For more information, visit: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cybersecurity/Main_Page

E-Publishing Models

With the generous support of the Revson Foundation, the E-Publishing Models Project is focused on exploring current issues associated with digital publishing business models and access to electronically published materials in libraries. Working collaboratively with publishers and librarians and led by Urs Gasser and John Palfrey, the goal of this initiative is to identify key problems and potential solutions and to lay the groundwork for a suite of activities aimed at developing new models of e-book lending for use in libraries that are acceptable to libraries and publishers alike. After assembling a multi-disciplinary working group of experts and stakeholders in Fall 2011 and conducting an initial literature review and market analysis, the project team convened a meeting with approximately 35 stakeholders from leading publishers, libraries, and academia to discuss key issues and potential solutions relating to access to e-books in libraries. The Berkman team is currently developing follow-up collaborations with these stakeholders based on the potential next steps identified at the meeting. The takeaways from this workshop, related research, and subsequent conversations have resulted in a Briefing Document, which provides an overview of the state of e-book lending in libraries, e-publishing models currently in use, and selected problems; it may be found at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2111396

Global Network Initiative

The Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder coalition comprised of technology companies, investors, academics, and rights groups focused on advancing and protecting online free expression and privacy in the ICT sector. GNI has achieved greater organizational stability, including the addition of new participants ranging from academics such as NEXA Centre and Georgetown Law School to companies like Facebook, and a novel collaboration with twelve European telecommunications companies known as the Industry Dialogue. Further, GNI solidified its methods for outside assessment and established itself as a relevant and credible voice in the global debate,. GNI’s efforts, led by Colin Maclay and Caroline Nolan, have turned to related topics around research and policy change, including developing a primer for tech start-ups on privacy and free expression practices. creating an India-specific case study, exploring the growing practices around company transparency reporting, understanding relevant legal regimes around technology export controls, and responding to the NSA/Prism revelations.

HOAP

The Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP) fosters the growth of open access to research, within Harvard and beyond, using a combination of consultation, collaboration, community-building, and direct assistance. Open access makes knowledge accessible and reusable, accelerates the pace of discovery and discussion, maximizes the return on our investment in research, and speeds the development of all the benefits that depend on research, from new medicines and useful technologies to informed decisions, solved problems, and improved public policies. More information may be found at the HOAP wiki: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Main_Page

Information Quality

The Information Quality Research Initiative (IQRI) builds upon numerous Berkman Center publications and aims to develop a theory of information quality that reflects fundamental shifts in the information ecosystem in the age of digital media. Led by Executive Director Urs Gasser, this research examines the history, contexts, perspectives, intervention tools, coping mechanisms, challenges, and implications of this fundamental shift, paying special attention to the complex interplay of law, norms, technology, and markets. Over the past year, the IQRI has focused on research and theory development. Expanding on work conducted by the Youth and Media Project, Project Manager Alicia Solow-Niederman has helped the team to compile a set of multi-disciplinary academic works about information and data quality issues across many disciplines, as well as a compendium of news articles that involve information quality issues that may serve as case studies for the project. Drawing from this research, the team is developing an academic article to establish the core principles of the IQRI framework. This theoretical piece may also serve as the opening chapter of a university press book, on which Urs Gasser held a brainstorming workshop in Spring 2013. In the year to come, the team looks forward to continuing this research, honing information quality theory, and developing the works currently in progress.

Internet Robustness

The Internet Robustness project will develop, test and pilot technologies to deliver on the promise of the URL, or "Uniform Resource Locator": that information placed online can remain there, even amidst network or endpoint disruptions. The project's approach is to enable operators of Web servers to enter easily into mutual aid arrangements, such as mirroring other participants' content and having the deed reciprocated, so that the failure of any one participant to remain online allows others to preserve what was there. This project is designed to improve the resiliency and robustness of the Web in a wide variety of Internet contexts around the world, offering an alternative route to Web content in the event of intentional blocking, hacking or denial of service attacks, or unintentional hosting or server failures. The project's ultimate aim is to make for a more robust and stable Web, from Silicon Valley to London to Beijing to Tehran. For more information, visit: https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/internetrobustness

Jamaica Project

Led by Berkman Founder and Faculty Co-Director Charles Nesson, the Jamaica Project was established in 1998 and has expanded with each successive year through a series of interconnected initiatives. The Project focuses on the problems caused by globalization, exploring the thesis that networks based on communication and exchange of social and intellectual capital can help in rehabilitation of developing countries hurt by globalization. True to the Berkman Center's core focus on Internet & Society, the Jamaica project's mission centers on the use of the internet to shape, define and change society and the world around us -- and empowering others to do the same. We are exploring the potential of cyberspace as a means for development, both personal and economic. As such, the Jamaica project seeks to bridge the technological, economic and social disparities between nations, building on reform work already in progress, enriching existing initiatives with a new internet dimension.

Mindsport Research Network

The Mindsport Research Network aims to build multiple experimental frameworks for understanding human strategic thinking in mind sports. Research will extend not only to understanding the intuitive thinking process of outstanding competitors, but also to the potential educational, emotional, intellectual and economic benefits for students in mind sport cooperation and competition. For more information, visit: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/mindsport

Network of Interdisciplinary Internet & Society Research Centers

Working closely with international partners, the Berkman Center has been incubating a global Network of interdisciplinary Internet & Society research centers (NoC) that builds upon years of smaller-scale collaborations among researchers, practitioners, technologists, policy makers, activists, and other thought leaders. NoC aspires to support and foster cross-national, cross-disciplinary conversation, research, and policy engagement around the most pressing questions and challenges involving digital technologies, social change, and law, policy, and regulation. NoC seeks to leverage shared expertise, experience, and reach by stimulating the creation of new debate, teaching, learning, and engagement, with an immodest ambition to create meaningful impact locally, nationally, regionally, and globally. For more information, visit: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/network_of_centers

New Media Nollywood

New Media Nollywood. Extending past efforts at the intersection of storytelling, intellectual property, economic development, entrepreneurship and development priorities with digitally networked technologies in Nigeria (one of the world's top film producers), New Media Nollywood (NMN) endeavors to help understand the dynamics and embrace the opportunities presented by the emerging media ecosystem. Coordinated by Colin Maclay with Michael Best, Ethan Zuckerman, and various US and Nigeria-based partners, NMN aims to help improve new media’s capacity for storytelling, to make the industry financially viable, and to explore its potential for social impact, while ensuring the values, character and mode of the industry remain Nigerian and true to their core audience.

Open House RSVP List - Connect and Collaborate

The Open House is open to the public, and we invite you to join us for any portion of the evening. RSVP at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2013/09/openhouse#RSVP.

Click here to find a list of those who have RSVPed to the Open House and have opted in to having their information shared in order to facilitate connections. Names, contact information, links to relevant projects, and tags representing research interests and activities may be found, and you may sort by tags in order to identify others who may be working in common cause.

Please note that the system in which this lives, Hei, is a new development project of the Berkman Center. If you identify any bugs, or have any ideas or thoughts about it, please let us know at:

Location, Directions, and Logistical Information

• Location: Harvard Law School (Map: http://map.harvard.edu/level3.cfm?mapname=camb_allston&tile=F6&quadrant=C&series=N)
• Driving Directions
• Subway Directions
• Bus Directions
• Wireless internet access will be available
• Parking is not available through Harvard Law School, but there are several parking garages in Harvard Square

• Questions? Contact Rebecca Tabasky at rtabasky@cyber.law.harvard.edu.