Examples of topics to be explored by the workshop include, but are not restricted to, those listed below. Workshop participants will also be given a chance to add their own issues to this agenda.
In modern computing infrastructures, user interfaces occur at various levels (e.g., individual, group, network) but research has, to date, concentrated more on structural or software issues. As remote accessing, software agents, and the like allow more users to participate easily in radical connectivity, what type of research will be needed to understand the behavioral, cognitive, and psychological aspects of user interfaces?
What mechanisms could assist the socialization, community building, and inculcation of such values as privacy, respect for property, and sharing across many fields, disciplines, and institutional contexts which are crucial to a successful knowledge networking environment?
Knowledge networking creates not only the potential for broadscale integration of information and coordinated decisionmaking but also for a synergistic ethical context in which debates and actions relating to ethical problems (e.g., privacy, censorship, theft of ideas) in one domain spill over into other domains, often with unintended negative consequences (e.g., the debate over labeling of web sites and content intended for public audiences has provoked legislation and policies that would also apply to sites and content intended for professional or scientific use). How might cross-disciplinary and synergistic ethical dilemmas be addressed effectively and efficiently but without establishment of additional regulatory mechanisms?
Problems relating to non-realtime traces of human-machine interaction-- archiving, recordkeeping, information management, communications administration--are transformed and made much more complex in a knowledge networking environment which envisions radical connectivity. Because the ability to construct linked and traceable histories (e.g., of actions, ideas, or communications) is so crucial to most modern organizations and institutions, from medicine (e.g., patient medical records) and the law, to science and government, these problems must be addressed in ways that are sensitive to variations in the ethical, legal, and social norms for how data are collected, managed, and kept as well as to organizational goals. The potential for mutability, reproducibility, and verifiability of knowledge in a networked environment, coupled with its complexity and expansion beyond normal boundaries of institutional or political control, makes this an issue which requires a cross-disciplinary approach.
Internet governance depends to some degree on community consensus and order, and may be, in turn, eroded by differences in participants' attitudes and perceptions. Defining the "borders" to (or in) cyberspace, for example, which is essential for determining property rights and for privatization, is perceived by some users as an act of censorship and control, and by others as an articulation of expected conduct in furtherance of organizational or community goals. Compiling extensive data on users' attitudes toward such issues, however, may intrude upon individual rights to privacy or may imply a threat to freedom of expression.
Are there nonstructural solutions to the problems of interoperability and heterogeneity in large databases? Do structural solutions such as standardization, imposition of common nomenclature, establishment of structural links, or "wrapping" in a common language, in fact, encourage separation of communities or disciplines?
How can research on such issues be strengthened, and the development of new methodological approaches be encouraged? For example, how feasible would it be to create a research consortium focusing on the methodological challenges for research on knowledge networking, as well as on the ethical and social issues surrounding it?