Archive for Info-scientific

Comparing schools

January 25, 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

I share the concern raised about the risks of cyber-bullying following the publication of school banding by the Welsh Government (“School banding raises fears over cyber-bullying”, January 23).

As an advocate of New Labour, before leaving the Labour Party when Ed Miliband said it was over, I am strongly in favour of parents being allowed to choose which school their child goes to. The rank and file of Old and Welsh Labour say this won’t work because every parent will want their child go to the best school – well that is the point!

A market in education, such as by removing the unfair catchment areas that partition this market and create geographical ghettos, would mean the best schools would stay open and expand, and the worst ones would close.

In such a market you would need a way for the parents to choose the best school. Government-sanctioned league tables or school banding does not help – parents need to be able to create their own league tables.

Even the “least able” people can go on to websites like GoCompare or MoneySupermarket and select what is important to them about their home or car insurance policy and what is not. If we as citizens can prioritise insurance why not other things? It is not grades that make a school a best school. It is factors such as whether they have special support for your child’s disability, whether they have after-school clubs or extended hours, and whether the school has strong pupil-satisfaction.

So if the Welsh Government is happy to have de facto league tables – why don’t they give parents the choice to have their children educated outside their area so they are not subject to the stigma that they can do little about without “upping sticks”?

Acquisition, Application, Articulation, Info-scientific, Information Technology, Law, Letters and other Op-Eds, Socio-legal

Great idea for internet safety

December 24, 2011 jonathanbishop One comment

I WAS pleased to read the article in the South Wales Echo about the launch of a scheme to raise awareness of young people in internet safety issues (“New child safety DVDs and website”, December 12).

As a prize-winning author on trolling, the practice of posting messages on the internet to provoke or entertain, I know initiatives such as School Beat are important to raise awareness.

As those who attend my Trolling Academy (www.trollingacademy.org) know, online safety is something that is multi-faceted and needs to be explored from various angles.

The School Beat programme which involves schools is important.

At the Centre for Research into Online Communities and E-Learning Systems in Swansea, I am researching new computer systems that could make discipline in schools easier.

This would involve each student in a class having a laptop and accessing a tailored computer program which monitors them and assigns rewards if they act within the class’s behaviour contract.

I envisage a time in the future where, far from child poverty being tackled by giving parents handouts, that young people will receive vouchers to spend themselves if they show they can be disciplined in the classroom.

I know this works because it is what happened at the specialist private school I attended, and discipline was achieved without resorting to violence, which in SEN pupils like I was would only make things worse.

Acquisition, Application, Articulation, Bestowal, Boundlessness, Consideration, Economic, Info-scientific, Letters and other Op-Eds, Socio-legal

Is Nick Robinson biased against Labour?

November 14, 2011 jonathanbishop No comments

In an almost thuggish way, Tom Watson said that Nick Robinson didn’t report the phone hacking scandal enough because he was ‘favouring the Conservatives’ to put it more delicately.

I know how he feels. It annoyed me that Ed Miliband was getting the headlines on the hacking scandal over true experts like myself who have published research on ‘data misuse’ laws. I made the BBC clear of this dissatisfaction when they basically ignored my expertise.

But let us look at the news articles since 1995 on claims of bias against Nick Robinson as evidence.

March 1995 – Claims of bias were made against Nick Robinson by Labour when he sent a memo, as they saw it, trying to cover up the preferential treatment where the BBC Panorama programme, which Robinson was deputy editor of, interviewed John Major as Prime Minister, but did not offer the same prominence to the other leaders.

August 1995 – The London Evening Standard publishes a story, titled, ‘Labour sees red over new BBC reporter’, which highlights the fact that since March 1995 the party felt that Nick Robinson’s presentation of facts on Panorama were biased in favour of the Tories.

March 2003 – In the Times Nick Robinson, who is currently the ITV political editor, notes in an article there might be a problem with Labour’s perception of him. Highlighting the times that Peter Mandelson would be complaining to the Director General of the BBC about his apparent bias.

May 2003 – For the first time on record ‘anti-Tory bias’ and ‘Nick Robinson’ come together. This time in it is in The Times, with him commenting on the pressure being on Greg Dyke at the BBC and not himself, as Robinson is still working for ITV.

This all builds up to a shock confession:

October 2003 – The Independent runs an article, ‘I do not regret my Tory past, Nick Robinson, ITV’s News’s Political Editor’ which shows that Robinson was once significantly involved with the Conservative movement. The article says he has received claims of bias from both sides, which I might expect having spoken with the editor of my local paper who received the same, but unless the Conservatives have a different word for ‘bias’ I see little evidence of this in my brief search!

I will not look further into the articles, as I became politically active around 2002 in the Labour Party, even speaking to Nick on the Radio 5 Live about how a speech by Tony Blair hit a cord with me, just before he went to ITV I think – On Radio 5 Live he and Brian Hayes were my favourite presenters of that era. On his move to ITV I did start to think he was biased against the Labour Government, but then I would expect no different, as the ITV News programmes that he was reporting for have always seemed to me to be the Tabloid Newspaper of Evening TV, changing the tone of the programme to try to capture the public mood regardless of accuracy.

As I am now a Professional, it is this revelation in October 2003 that strikes me the most salient, even above all the past claims of bias. It is unethical for any professional to take up any form of employment where there can be a ‘perception of bias’, whether they are a former government minister taking up a position in a publicly funded body in the same area afterwards, or a sports official who is refereeing a match where a first-line relative is of the same nationality as one of the competitors.

So, in essence, however much I like him, as someone who famously got insulted for holding an apparently undesirable physical characteristic, by George W Bush of all people, I think he should seriously consider his position.

Even if he is perfectly capable of, on most days, creating a perception of impartiality in line with BBC guidance, is it worth the constant claims of bias against him, and this the questioning of his professionalism, to be in an environment where he can be easily perceived to be biased?

Concluding the issue on the assumption of ‘good faith’ on the part of Robinson, I would say that the reason this perceived bias is so persistent is that Nick is likely to draw on the same social networks that took him into the Conservative Party in the first place, so therefore he is more likely to represent a ‘Tory perspective’ than a Labour one.

So I’d like the BBC and other media outlets to take steps to ensure that it is not the same people from the Old Boys’ Networks that get represented in the media, but many others who have expertise but might not normally make it into public life. If they were to do this then the perceptions of bias, whether ‘left-wing’, ‘liberal’, ‘all-White’, or whatever, would start to disappear.

 

 

 

 

 

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie, Articulation, Boundlessness, Socio-legal, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

Policy on cannabis and other recreational drugs

November 14, 2011 jonathanbishop 3 comments

My position on the manufacture and supply of cannabis and other unregulated ‘street drugs’ is now pretty simple. If we are going to allow them to be lawfully used, then regulation and not decriminalisation is the only course of action I’m willing to support.

Decriminalisation of cannabis is, in my opinion, a charter for legalising organised crime, including forced prostitution, organised paedophilia, human trafficking, etc.

Regulation would be the only realistic option, as the manufacture and distribution could be ensured to be made up of lawful activity only and could have the benefit of driving the organised criminals out of the market.

But my fourth way question is – why legalise a millennia old drug like cannabis, which has well documented risks from long-term use, when there is potential profit to be made by the pharmaceuticals designing and patenting new and safe recreational drugs? This could drive up innovation in the economy, and mean that the checks and balances in place for medical drugs could be in place for recreational drugs.

So my policy on recreational drugs is that their design, manufacture and distribution should regulated and they should only be available for sale if they pass what I call the ‘safe sex pill test’. That is, if the risks to the person using them are easily as understandable as the contraceptive pill, and pose no more harm to them than that potentially can do, then it should be available in licenced premises  for recreational use.

 

Application, Auto-Wiki, Bestowal, Consciousness, Economic, Info-scientific, Law, Notices and Announcements

The Ethics of Lying

October 26, 2011 jonathanbishop No comments

Is it ethical to lie? I get very uncomfortable if I think I have lied or been dishonest, even when I did not realise that I was being so at the time, if you understand what I mean.

I’m going to look at common situations prone to lying and look at the ethics of the situation.

Does my bum look big in this?

If a woman can get her partner to clothes shop with her it is stereotypical she asks, ‘Does my bum look big in this?’. If their partner answers ‘yes’ they have scorned, or if they answer ‘no’ and she thinks ‘yes’ they have scorned.

So is honesty the best policy? If she does actually look big it in, then to not say so could lead to her to experience harmful comments from others if she actually accepts her partner’s word. So which is the bigger hurt, the immediate telling of the truth, or the long-term consequences of withholding the truth?

The Boogie Man

Parents will often use specific characters to attempt to control their children’s behavior. For example, near Easter they may say that the Easter Bunny won’t bring their chocolate eggs if they don’t comply. They’ll say some mythical creature will come and get them near Halloween. They may even claim that they are on first person terms with Santa Clause, who won’t bring their child presents if they don’t comply.

Whether this lying is ethical might depend on the interests of the child. If they say it to the child so they get ‘out of their hair’ while they are watching TV for instance, then it might be unethical. If they use it to keep the child out of danger such as avoiding them harming themselves or others then it might be considered ethical.

But would overuse of these techniques amount to the parent offering ‘improper disincentives’ when it may be more appropriate they develop more truthful strategies?

The Public Interest

Sometimes the politicians withhold or misrepresent the best truth for their own gain. They might at other times do so because it is in the public interest, such as the times in World War II that Churchill did not intervene to prevent a bombing strike as it would have let the Germans know their code had been cracked. I would argue that the politicians who lie about or misrepresent their personal or their party’s true opinion in order to get elected or gain some other advantage should face severe penalties.

Acquisition, An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie, Articulation, Bestowal, Socio-legal, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

Is it time to call time on the London-based BBC?

September 15, 2011 jonathanbishop No comments

If ever there was a time Wales needed its own public service broadcaster it is now. While the BBC News Channel was talking about mining in Libya we wanted to know about what was happening in Gleision colliery. BBC Radio Wales cut off the live comments of Shadow Secretary of State for Wales to play a pre-recorded message from a journalist. After a brief token gesture they went on to talk about banking in London! The BBC are no better today than the media and Parliament were in Keir Hardie’s day when in 1894 the birth of the future Edward VIII was put in the headlines above the tragic deaths of 251 miners in Pontypridd.

It was not until nearly 8pm that say that David Cameron made a comment, being too busy patting him and Nicholas Sarkozy on the back in Libya. If it were not for Sky News knowing their profits depended on covering the only story people in Wales cared about that some people were lucky to get up-to-date information and expert not journalistic commentary.

What should have happened is there should be Sky News’s wall-to-wall coverage on a dedicated Welsh terrestrial channel which would have interrupted its programming. A program, perhaps called, ‘Nos Newyddion’ should have been debating with political leaders whether we should open up more greenfield sites to open cast mining or whether closing the mines in the 1980s was right – My grandfather who served in the mines for 5 decades agreed with the latter, knowing many people who fell victim to deep pit mining’s clutches.

As sad is it will be, maybe the Davy lamp, like the one I inherited from my grandfather Ted, should be a thing of the past, as the deaths from underground mining may be a price too high to preserve the many greenfield sites which bury black gold beneath their pastures. Co-operative open cast mining of these is the only option – We should shove the grass and save lives.

Application, Articulation, Boundlessness, Consciousness, Socio-legal

The role of the BCS in regulating and encouraging entry to IT

September 7, 2011 jonathanbishop No comments

The IT industry is under-regulated in my opinion, and I think BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT have a big role to play in this.

I would like it so that a certificate of competence from the BCS for each area in The skills framwork for the information age (including from certification like CompTIA for tech support or ECDL for DBAs or other administrator) will be as required to practice in IT as FRCS is in surgery or CIMA etc. is in accountancy. I don’t think someone should be allowed to be an IT director or CIO/CTO of a Plc without FBCS or equivalent from IET or CILIP – Maybe they’d need CITP as well which IET and CILIP would have to sign up for.

So this creates a problem, how are people from my generation going to get the experience in order to operate at this level to get FBCS? This is nearly already out of their reach as they are already working for nothing as graduate interns just to get administrative experience.

The Baby Boomers can’t retire because their pension pots have swelled. Generation X are holding all the middle management jobs ready to jump into the Baby Boomers shoes, so my generation faces becoming the lost generation.

Geneartion Next will be youthful and energetic, when they are 36 at the optimal age in IT when the Baby Boomers have gone, we will be around 56 and not have had the life either the Baby Boomers had or Generation Next will have who will easily cruise to FBCS based on actual experience not synthetic.

So I’d like a career in the IT industry to be based on merit, not age or social networks as it is now. I see FBCS as the gold standard for this. Why should public sector job ads for IT be designed with a specific candidate in mind to get around the procurement rules? They should be based on SFIA so the criteria is objective, accepted and regulated. If the job ad is for a director position it should be based on SFIA Level 7 (FBCS).

SFIA along with CITP and FBCS are the route to equality in IT I feel. Jobs for the boys is rife in IT, but if everything had to be based objectively on SFIA and everyone had to be a member of BCS/IET/CILIP to work in IT, whose codes of conduct state one must not claim a competency one doesn’t possess, then a job in IT would be based on merit and not other criteria.

As the BCS code of conduct says one was not do work for which one does not have competency, and the problems I raise with my generation (The Net Generation) not being able to get experience, then there needs to be a training scheme to get them to the standard where they can be treated equally.

I think doctoral programmes are the route to getting FBCS without being held back by not getting opportunity as my generation are facing. Research councils already accredit doctorate (as ESRC) and newly trained educational psychologists can’t practice without a relevant doctorate. Equally I think no one should be allowed to offer any lower IT qualifications like the ones advertised on TV unless they were approved by BCS as meeting the standard for the training of the competency claimed.

So while my generation are waiting for the Baby Boomers to retire, and the Generation Next are getting ready to be the next best thing in town, my generation could be doing doctorates accreted by BCS to Level 7, and providing BCS convince public authorities to use SFIA to draft job ads objectively rather than on the basis of jobs for the boys, then maybe my generation will stand a better chance of getting the opportunity to realise our potential where we otherwise be denied in the current climate.

Acquisition, Boundlessness, Fourth Way Society Foundations, Humanities and Principles, Information Technology, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

Sexy and dishonest – Politics is not how the media want people to believe

August 31, 2011 jonathanbishop One comment

I recently made a complaint to the BBC after watching their HardTalk programme. This programme, like Piers Morgan’s programme with celebrities aims to ask tough questions to authoritative public figures. As someone who likes to learn by reading case studies and listening to biographies of the greats so I can try to improve my own performance, you would think this would be a great programme for me. However I’m all too often left wanting.

About a year ago I became a Fellow of BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT. In that time I have been bringing myself up-to-standard to try and be as professional as I can by slowly changing my attitudes to meet the BCS’s code of conduct to the letter. If you ask my friends for something I have said a lot since then they would tell you I’ve been saying, ‘Don’t question my honesty and integrity’.

Since becoming a professional fellow having honesty and integrity has been more important than ever. Whereas once I may have brushed off Cllr Allen Bevan suggesting other people are acting in bad faith, now I find it offensive. And I equally find this about nearly every broadcast with the BBC interviewing someone of substance.

On the HardTalk programme I watched on 31 August 2011 I was offended by the fact that when the interviewee made a statement in response to a question, instead of the interviewer questioning whether that response was best practice they questioned whether the interviewee was telling the truth about what they said. As a professional this disgusts me the way the media are treating public figures with such disrespect so it is no wonder there is so much distrust among the public towards public figures.

I think the BBC should have an ‘Assume Good Faith Policy‘. If a politician or professional governed by a code of practice or ethics gives an answer to a question it should be assumed they are being honest and answering within their competencies and as accurately as possible. Clearly this policy should be careful not to prevent debate such as whether a scientific claim is supported by scientific evidence. However, the honesty or integrity of interviewees or other participants should be assumed and not questioned. Even if what someone says is ‘wrong’ it should be assumed they honestly hold that opinion and have no malice intended.

I have 4 degrees, I don’t want soundbites, I want detail so I can learn from heavy weights like many public figures are and have confidence in them, not the suspicion the media want to create in order to get a good story from a boring occupation. With the media questioning a public figures honesty all the time, or pursuing a line of questioning to attempt to damage their reputation is denying me as a member of the public my human rights.

The Human Rights Act gives public figures the right to express themselves without being made to damage their reputation. I think the BBC, by constantly interrupting politicians when they are trying to give a complete answer on their terms and not the agenda of the media who want to sex up politics are denying the public the right to hold public figures to account.

Politicians are supposed to act in accordance with the Nolan Principles and Standards in Public Life – each Labour Party candidate is asked whether they are aware of this. I think this document should to be the standard code of conduct for all politicians.
If someone thinks a particular politician falls short on these standards then they should make a complaint to the appropriate official public authority, such as the Parliamentary Standards Authority for MPs, or Standards Committee for councillors. Then whenever a lay journalist is interviewing a politician they should at all times assume that a politician is following this code, and if they were to question that public figures performance of this code in an interview on this, such as by suggesting a politician or other public figure lacks honesty or integrity then they should be made accountable to the Press Complaints Commission or Ofcom, or in the case of the BBC, the BBC Trust.

These lay journalists, who often having no substance beyond having a humanities degree and journalism training, want politics to be sexed up like a Mills and Boon novel, when really most of it would make people’s eyes glaze over. I want the truth even if the BBC can’t handle the truth. The truth is not the sexy fantasy land of conflict and intrigue the media want. The truth is often boring, but politics is not entertainment – it is about making the world a better place, not funding lay journalists who can’t get a decent job in something like engineering, law or science. Instead these lay journalists are wannabe novelists trying to make a story out of very boring life that most elected representatives have, which if the public knew the truth of would put B&Q’s profits up as they all rush out to get paint for their homes and watch it dry. In truth they have often studied nothing outside the humanities and their subsequent journalism training – I suspect they have never done a module in ethics or made an application to an ethics committee like learned scientists like myself have.
Politics is so boring that I can’t wait to hang up my spurs next year and set up a charity so I can change my community on my terms, without having to sit on boring committees that last hours and only produce minutes.

Info-scientific, Law, Socio-legal, The Arts, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

Intellectual Property Law – What does the EU Treaty actually say?

February 22, 2010 jonathanbishop 3 comments

I was once told this joke about how a Catholic priest was asked by his junior to relook at the ancient manuscripts, where he found the word celibate was actually celebrate! My EU law tutor always said primary legislation overrules secondary legislation, so I will look at the primary legislation on intellectual property.
Article 36 of the EU Treaty states that there can be restrictions the protect property of an industrial and commercial character in individual Member States. This is used as a legal base for laws on intellectual property, such as copyright.

Considering this for a moment would suggest for something to be considered intellectual property it would have to be for commercial or industrial purposes. Therefore it could be argued that photographs taken by family members of relatives for personal use are not of a commercial or industrial character so cannot be copyrighted.

Also, consider the term, ‘intellectual property’ itself. The term would seem to suggest that an element of creativity and craftsmanship went into the creation of such property. This would again suggest that a photograph taken with an amateur camera where the person taking the photograph had no special commercial or industrial training also does not carry any copyright. Perhaps if the creator was to combine the photograph with text, it would then become an intellectual/creative work and would carry copyright if it was for commercial or industrial purposes, but not on its own.

At some point I will look at the EU Treaty article that gives rise to Data Protection, to see whether it is possible for those featured in photographs taken commercially to have the rights to use them, but that is for another day.

Application, Law, The Arts

The Internet for educating indviduals with social impairments

March 19, 2003 jonathanbishop No comments

Investigates the social and practical implications of using Internet technology to deliver information relating to participation in a social situation.

Download from: This Link.

Cite as: Bishop, J. (2003). The Internet for educating individuals with social impairments. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 19 (4), 546-556.

Info-scientific, Information Technology, Publications
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