This video is a 2-hour edited summary of the invited speakers from the first day of the conference. For viewers interested in an overview of the conference, this tape is recommended.

A cross-section of successes and disappointments experienced by K-12 educators, labor, disabled, and community organizations.

Public access television began 20 years ago, the result of hard work of activists concerned with some of the same issues being addressed at this conference: With the advent of emerging technologies, how do we ensure that those who do not have access to traditional, mainstream media and technologies are provided a forum to express themselves, their cultures, political and social beliefs, and to communicate and interact with others? We will seek to learn from participants how access television might work with computer professionals to ensure that the communities that we now serve will have comparable access to the emerging communications technologies.

For persons with disabilities, the online community represents an electronic bill of rights and a new found freedom. The workshop will focus on how to adapt personal computers for individuals with vision, hearing, and motor disabilities. Basic concepts of computer modifications that are common across hardware platforms will be highlighted.

How can digital computer networks could be used to improve the policy-making process in government? Thomas Kalil will review opportunities for public input into decisional processes. Then, John Mallery will discuss several technologies that might be applied to public access. Finally, Joshua Cohen will comment and guide the discussion, focusing on the need to ensure fair access to public discussion and to avoid the imposition of new barriers to entry.

The growth of the community computing center movement--low-income neighborhood centers which provide computer training, access and integration into community programs--is one response to the presuppositions of taking a democratic NII seriously.

This workshop is an excellent opportunity for the CWEIS Organizing Committee to help define the Boston community on-line service, gain suggestive feedback and insights, and make useful in-person contacts and connections.

This workshop will introduce participants to issues and techniques related to collecting data on NII use and impacts. Participants will also contribute to the development of appropriate measures and methods for assessing the effectiveness and equitability of NII implementation and outcomes.

The first workshop session will analyze global and national policy challenges to equitable information infrastructure development. The role of international institutions; intellectual property in a globally networked environment; the role of community networks, and National Information Infrastructure (NII) technology policies will be emphasized.

The second workshop session will present concrete examples of prototypical NII services along with future application areas. Through dialog and interaction with workshop participants, it is hoped that critical variables for NII public policies can be identified in their global context.

The immediate purpose of the workshop is to introduce participants to the economic concepts of public goods, privatization and externalities in the context of government information. The ultimate purpose of the workshop will be the definition of one or more testable hypothesis, recognition of policy option points, determination of potential policy impacts, identification of prospective survey participants or other data sources, and enumeration of possible evaluation criteria.

How is cyberspace to be governed? Commercial service providers require new members to agree to a set of "terms of service" which establishes standards for appropriate conduct. More democratic methods of governance are possible.

The purpose of the workshop will be to identify the possible future consequences of applying a postmodernist view to Information Technology practice as it relates to NII. The central focus of the workshop will be to consider how NII can contribute to or inhibit discourse.

We will consider the rhetoric used to knit together various constituencies that are needed to get behind the development of NII -- and then examine the extent to which these constituencies (which include the President, Congress, the military, big business, universities, and "ordinary folks") are likely to benefit from it.

Librarians have long supported the principles of intellectual freedom in defending library users' rights to have access to ideas and information from all points of view without restriction, including restrictions based upon the age of the library user. How should these principles guide the development of the national information infrastructure?

Less attention seems to have been raised about how to protect information from a growing populations of "new" computer criminals. In the Post-Hacker Era, they include competitors, inside traders, governments, journalists, and "crackers." While the Clipper controversy continues, this is only one of a number of information security policy issues that will arise and need informed resolution.

The focus of this workshop is on developing research proposals to the Ethics and Values Studies Program, National Science Foundation. EVS is interested in supporting research on ethical and value issues associated with high performance computing and the national information infrastructure. But what topics should have priority? And how should the research be done?

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