How to Go to GikII : a Beginner's Guide!

For any out there wondering how you start preparing to give a GIkII talk, here's a recent story that sums up the entire ethos I feel..

Printer Is Coming: Game of Thrones Fan Fashions 3-D Model of Winterfell 

 

This story has everything: cutting edge technology, 3d printing, so hot it blisters, tick; cutting edge IT law topic of the IP implications - is it an infringement of copyright? of registered design? of trademark?  does it matter if it is produced at home as a one off rather than commercially? what about the liability of Thingiverse where 3D blueprints are shared? tick; and the zinger, a great pop culture tie in.

As a clue, beginners could start with looking at the just passed Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act and the much debated s  74 repealing s 52 of the CDPA..

Summer is coming! Get your GIkII abstract in!

GIKII 2013 Goes to the Beach!!

GikII 2013 – Call for Papers

Sun, Sand and GikII VIII
When robots, drones, autonomous agents, Facebook stalking, teleportation, 3D printing, MMORPGS, science fiction, computer games and superhero justice are discussed within the realms of the law and LOL cats, you know the time for the annual GikII workshop has arrived!  Yes it’s time for GikII VIII – and a time to immerse ourselves in debates about cutting-edge technology, popular culture and the law.


When and Where?
GikII which has traversed through the exotic cities of Edinburgh, Oxford, London, Amsterdam and Göteborg in years gone by will arrive in sunny, golden-sandy Southern city of Bournemouth with its sparkling sea and almost California-like-but-not-quite atmosphere. It will be held on 16-17 September 2013 at the Executive Business Centre (EBC), Landsdowne Campus, Bournemouth University (EBC is a 5-minute walk from the Bournemouth train station). GikII is being hosted with the kind assistance of the Law Department and the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management (CIPPM) at Bournemouth University. The dates provide you the opportunity to combine GikII VIII with the Society for Computers and Law Workshop (12-13^th September in London) and make it a ‘Geek Week’ with a beach week-end in-between!  We point out however that buckets and spades are not provided.

Registration
In keeping with tradition, there is no registration fee to attend GikII and priority is always given to speakers, but, there are some limited spaces available for students and non-speakers.  To guarantee your place, please make sure you submit your paper early and register for the event.  Registration will open on Eventbrite when acceptance of abstracts has been notified.

Submission of abstracts and deadline
Please send an abstract not exceeding 500 words to Professor Lilian Edwards (Lilian.Edwards@strath.ac.uk) and Dr Dinusha Mendis (dmendis@bournemouth.ac.uk). The deadline for submissions is 2 August 2013. We will be in touch shortly after the deadline to let you know about acceptance of your papers.

Main contacts
The Chair of the event will be Dr. Dinusha Mendis, Senior Lecturer in Law and Co-Director, CIPPM, Bournemouth University with assistance from Professor Lilian Edwards, Professor of Internet Law, University of Strathclyde and Deputy Director of CREATe
If required, Dinusha will be happy to provide information about accommodation, ranging from those with sea views (expensive) to those without (cheap).  The information will also be available on the Eventbrite page at the time of registration.

REF and other dangerous animals

Excellent comments , among many such, in piece on the harmful effects of REF in the Grauniad:

"For my money, the real issue is managerialism. Senior administrators decide everything now - not academics. And, unsurprisingly, they favour simple metrics (journal ranking lists and student satisfaction surveys) because they have neither the time, knowledge nor desire to actually engage with the content of research or teaching.

The ABS List used in business schools is an example here, it hasn't been updated since 2010 (prior to that it was updated pretty much every year). Why? Not because there's been no change in journal rankings but because research administrators couldn't plan effectively with a changing list. The result is that people are being rewarded for publishing in top journals which - possibly are no longer top journals - but this doesn't matter because administration is the name of the game. Likewise, in my experience as a lecturer "good teaching" means no complaints and a decent score on student evaluation forms. Everyone knows that these forms are stupid and any real feedback isn't contained in an average score out of five but is in the qualitative feedback to open questions. Because these are too hard to quantify the get thrown in the bin unread.

So the question is why have academics given universities over to "managers"?"

For the whole  article, with interesting quotes from some universities which made Pangloss actually LOL, see here.