Name: Kou Ji Hong
Affiliation: Wuhan University
Project title: Information Resource Management (信息资源管理 )/ Informatization of Higher Education in China
Dr. Kou is an Associate Professor from Wuhan University, Wuhan, PRC. Her main research interests include information and knowledge management, internet information mining and knowledge discovery, and information society. Sponsored by the Ministry of Education, PRC, Dr. Kou will be attached to SiRC for the period January- June 2007 to conduct a research project on "Informatization of Higher Education in China".
Name: Natalie Lee-San Pang
Affiliation: Monash University
Project title: Cultural Institutions in Singapore: Investigating Knowledge Commons, Communities, and the Design Interplay in Contemporary Media Environment
Natalie Pang is a PhD candidate in Monash University's Faculty of Information Technology. Her research is an interdisciplinary study of cultural institutions in the contemporary media environment, and investigates the effectiveness of participatory design approaches to guide stakeholder participation in communities. Her other research and teaching interests include user-centred design, information management, usability evaluations, digital libraries, and applying open content licenses such as the Creative Commons to communities and cultural institutions. A graduate of Melbourne University in Australia and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Natalie has worked in Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia. An active contributor and member of the P2P Foundation (http://blog.p2pfoundation.net), she is also an Honorary Research Associate of Museum Victoria and Research Fellow of the Centre for Community Networking and Research, Monash University in Australia.
Name: Andrade Gomes, Norberto Nuno
Affiliation: European University Institute (EUI)
Project title: Virtual Worlds – The Place of Law in New Digital Environments
Norberto Gomes de Andrade is a Portuguese Researcher pursuing a Doctoral degree at the Law Department of the European University Institute (EUI), in Florence, Italy. Norberto is currently studying the legal issues that emerge from new digital environments (popularly known as “Virtual Worlds”) and the implications deriving from the rise of this new social order for our understanding of law. His present work concerns the conceptualization of these social platforms, also designated as MMOGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Games), as legal orders. His areas of interest also cover legal informatics, telecommunications and computer law, in particular intellectual property and privacy issues. Within the EUI, Norberto is one of the co-founders and organizers of the “InfoSoc Working Group”, dealing with the legal, socio-political, historical and economic aspects of the Information Society. Norberto has worked previously as a legal expert at the External Relations Department of the Portuguese Regulatory Authority for Communications, in Lisbon, Portugal. A Law graduate of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, Norberto has also been awarded with a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations and European Studies by the Central European University, in Budapest, Hungary.