Friday’s final session was a wrap-up, with anyone who wanted to suggest new projects or seek feedback being encouraged to pipe up.

Sharon and Leslie sketched a quick idea for a publication, a sort of “Open ISDT,” that could be based on the rapporteur notes from the past few years, and published online.

Someone suggested a mailing list for the group to continue discussions and to foster the emergence of working groups. Sharon and Chris noted that our email addresses are probably available on the wiki, or at least contact each other through the forum. There was some debate about web forum vs listserv. A “low-volume listserv” seemed to be the most popular option.

Summer gave a one-minute presentation (as Ademar had suggested yesterday) and said that, as a next step, she is thinking about her dissertation: she wants to find an NGO or activist group in Latin America and look at the evolution of their media strategy—so if anyone has any suggestions or feedback please let her know.

Chris said that he is soliciting feedback on potential collaborative platforms—he’s not a huge fan of Expressive Engine (which is I guess what we’re currently using?) so if anyone has any suggestions for that, please let him know.

Monica would also like feedback on her project (OpenScience), which is described on her website—rtvs.com—she showed some photos from the week, which will also be available on the site.

Smari said that he thought it would be interesting to see if an academic paper could be assembled in a very short period of time—say, an hour and a half. He notes that he has seen many big and complicated documents edited this way, but not an academic paper (yet). He suggests PiratePad.net for this purpose. More details will be added to the wiki.

Fiorella said that if we know of any students who are engaging their universities through the net, please let her know because she is looking for case studies. 

K.P. gave a short presentation on the issue of framing—he said that most of the policy failures he’ve seen come from problems of framing, and that he thinks activists can make things better by framing things more effectively, or make things worth by doing the opposite. He played a Peter Sellers clip from YouTube: “Does Your Dog Bite?” A man walks into a hotel and sees a puppy and asks the owner, “Does your dog bite?” and the owner says no. So the man pets the dog and the dog bites him. “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!” the man complains. “That’s not my dog,” says the owner. K.P. also argued for more attention to protracted, slowly unfolding issues, rather than just crises, and he argued that innovation should be assessed based on its effects rather than on its theoretical merits.

Isabel presented her project—she wants to build an online community to build connections between different disciplines, specifically between art and other disciplines. Her site is called Pele (e-pele) and it provides a kind of surface you can go through, or a frontier; if anyone wants to write about art and connect it to science or anything else, check out the site and contact her.

Sunil brought up an idea he’s been mulling for a while: an Islamic critique of the current intellectual property regime. According to Islam it is not lawful to charge interest on capital, but it is halal to charge rent on property; so the question is whether it is halal to profit on intangible property. If anyone knows anyone who would be a good collaborator here, Sunil would like to be in touch.

Sharon concluded with thanks and appreciation for Sonia, Rui, Artur, Karen, and Carol, and all of our speakers, and all of our participants—as she said, the week’s chemistry came from all of it. Artur agreed and added a word about the UT Austin/Portugal program, and explained that although some people in Portugal had criticized the government’s decision to fund the program, he thinks it has been a worthwhile collaboration, with many aspects and impacts that extend beyond the sessions themselves.

And with that, we all rushed off to the Casa da Música…