About this Issue

Introduction

This issue comes out at a remarkably busy time of the year, as our student staff has been beset with mid-term exams. In addition, many of them are new to their positions as the departure of several graduates into jobs in industry has been the occasion for a series of promotions. It is therefore remarkable that we have gotten so much done. While it is certainly (and fortunately!) not a typical one, this last week has included:

  • A Roundtable presentation by Portland hip-hop artist Mic Crenshaw, who is sending computers to schools in Rwanda. We very much enjoyed meeting Mic Crenshaw (Watch the space at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/roundtables/media/2007/crenshaw/) and learned a great deal about the impact of the Internet on hip-hop music, which is truly a global, internet-enabled phenomenon. This event required that we put three full camera crews on the floor, each shooting hi-definition video. Sound too was, of course, critical.

  • A Town Hall-style presentation jointly sponsored by three institutes from Pacific University, including The Berglund Center, the Center for Gender Equity, and the Pacific Institute for Ethics and Social Policy. This lasted two hours but was led by four groups composed of senior citizens, 7th and 8th graders (thank you Samantha Cherrington), a "geek" panel of faculty and staff from Pacific, and a possibly even more geekish one of students from Pacific. Some of these groups met for a total of one hour on three different occasions. This meant that we had a total of 5 hi-definition shoots going on, for a total of close to 8 hours of filming. And of course, once shooting is done, the real work of editing, crunching and formatting for the WWW begins.

  • We also did our weekly, on-line class in American Business with a sophomore class at Wenzhou Medical College. This class is completely internet-enable and supported with off-the-shelf applications and computers. See an explanation of this project at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/nwacc/ This year, the class is taught remotely by business professor Kathleen Janicki from her home off campus. This has offered new technical challenges to both Kathleen and her students, but we have worked it out so that it is now both effective and routine.

  • In addition, we posted Interface, and worked on the myriad ongoing and future events in the Center, including finalizing the new design for Interface, which you see here, completed by Maria Walters and Willi Hyde. Part of the speed with which we could prepare and post content has been due to the work of our proof-reader and content editor, Jackie Olson.

We hope that we have given the impression here that the new 2007-08 crew in the Berglund Center has come together very quickly this fall to be an extremely confident, efficient and talented group. That this is true is due in no small part to our Program Coordinator, Tara Fechter, who calmly orchestrated the entire week, ably-assisted by our ace publicist/ designer/ arranger, Haley Fritz.

The week also reminded us of the cumulative impact of the Berglund Center. Going up for either tenure or periodic review evaluations at the University are four faculty members who have been Berglund Center Research Fellows. We wish them good luck, but, having seen their writing and research and having worked closely with them, we know that they do not need it.

At the Town Hall held at the courthouse in Hillsboro, of the five panelists, two, Jacqui Zarka and myself, work at the Berglund Center. Of the other three, psychologist Jerald Block (http://bcis.pacificu.edu/roundtables/media/2007/block/) and FBI agent Jane Brillhart (http://bcis.pacificu.edu/roundtables/media/2006/brillhart/) have done Roundtables for the Center. At the event, we met for the first time the computer forensics specialist Barb Frederiksen who will be our guest at the February 2008 Roundtable (http://bcis.pacificu.edu/roundtables/media/2008/frederiksen/).

But while we are congratulating ourselves on a great month, we must acknowledge the loss of our able Webmaster, Matt Rose, who has moved onto a job in industry. (WebMD) We know that such transitions are inevitable, indeed we plan for them, trying to give our students at Pacific University the education they will need to succeed; and at the Berglund Center, giving them the experience and credentials they will need to move smoothly into telecom or IT work. So we are happy for Matthew, but will also miss his tireless energy and boundless good humor.

Contents

The October-November issue of Interface, the e-journal of the Berglund Center for Internet Studies at Pacific University, is live on the WWW and found at http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2007/06/.

Our feature article, "Differentiating Two Types of Human Repetitive Experiences on the Internet" by Alexander E. Voiskounsky of the Psychology Department at Moscow Lomonosov State University, Russia, is found at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2007/06/voiskounsky.php. Dr. Voiskounsky takes a fascinatingly different approach to the question of "Internet Addiction" rooted largely in Russian science. We welcome him to Interface.

Our Canadian Optometrist/ IT entrepreneur editor, Charles Boulet, offers "Internet Distance Education: An Introduction" found at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2007/06/boulet.php. Charles is familiar to our readers as a broadly educated, much-traveled, frequent contributor to Interface. In his article he takes a skeptical look at internet-based education.

Legal Editor Leonard D. Duboff gives us a valuable basic lesson in one of the most troublesome areas facing those producing content for the internet—copyright—in "What Everyone Should Know About Copyright," found at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2007/06/duboff.php.

Leonard's theme of legalities and illegalities is carried further by Shawn Davis in "Advantages, Disadvantages, and Legal Issues Associated with Online Pharmacies" found at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2007/06/davis.php.

Our book reviews this issue include two very different works. The first is by the very inventor of the term "cyberspace" William Gibson. His new book, Spook Country, takes a look at the post-9/11 world and finds it, well, mixed in its livability. Gibson's views of the near future are always insightful and influential. This work, however, is as much about the impact of the past as it is about the impact of computing on the future. See the review at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2007/06/gibson.php.

Our second review is Martin Fransman's edited work, Global Broadband Battles: Why the U.S. and Europe Lag While Asia Leads. We think it a primer for an eventual full understanding of broadband issues within a comparative international perspective. See the review at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2007/06/fransman.php.

Our editorial, "Broadband in the United States: A Failure of National Policy," found here: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2007/06/edit.php, is based in part on our experience as an observer at the August 2007 Aspen Conference, Focus on Communication and Society (FOCAS), where we heard this issue repeatedly discussed by a wide range of participants, including two FCC commissioners and numerous scholars, politicians, and industry figures. It is also informed by our personal experiences in Asia, and by repeated readings of Fransman's work, reviewed in this issue.

As always, we hope you will find this issue of Interface informative and entertaining. See our next issue in December, and please check in frequently for updates to our Roundtables sites where we offer video downloads of experts discussing the impact of the Internet.

Jeffrey Barlow
Editor, Interface