Call for Paper Proposals *(extended to July 25, 2012)*

Is it working? Evaluating and assessing broadband policy

A by-invitation experts’ workshop

New America Foundation

September 19-21, 2012

With broadband becoming the central means for providing information services in the 21st century, policymakers struggle with choosing the best model to ensure universal access, adoption and usage. Broadband policy choices range from massive government investment to total deregulation and everything in between including various combinations of regulatory regimes, limited government investment and public-private partnerships. Debates regarding the right path to follow often tend to reflect ideological convictions or stakeholder interests. It is thus requisite to provide analytic scholarly input into the debate, delivered through the evaluation and assessment of broadband deployment policies that have been adopted in recent years.

The Institute for Information Policy at Penn State University and the New America Foundation are pleased to announce this call for paper proposals discussing the assessment and evaluation of broadband policies and their implementation. Proposals based on new research data and analysis are especially welcome.

Authors of the selected papers will be invited to present and discuss them during a three day by-invitation-only experts workshop designed to bring together up to a dozen American and international experts to be held at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC between September 19 - 21, 2012. This workshop is part of a series of events focused on “Making Policy Research Accessible,” organized by the IIP, with the support of the Ford Foundation and the Media Democracy Fund. For programs of previous workshops see: https://blogs.comm.psu.edu/iip/?page_id=24). Presenters at the workshop will be invited to submit their completed papers for review by the Journal of Information Policy(www.jip-online.org ).

Topics of papers may include, but are not limited to issues such as:

• Methodologies for the assessment of broadband projects
• Case studies of assessment of broadband policy implementation
• Assessment and evaluation of specific BTOP projects and of the BTOP process
• Assessment and evaluation of state-level broadband policy implementations
• Case studies of other public and private broadband initiatives
• Theory of policy evaluation and its application to broadband
• The opportunity costs of delayed reforms and regulations
• Impacts of the rate of progress of broadband policy
• Comparative studies of broadband policies and their implementation
• Proposals for a meaningful set of metrics for broadband evaluation
• Identification of a uniform set of indicators for successful broadband policies
• Evaluation of broadband training and capacity-building programs and activities
• Evaluation of broadband programs for historically unserved or underserved communities
• Assessment of broadband initiatives directed at community and civil society institutions

Abstracts of up to 500 words and a short bio of the author(s) should be submitted to pennstateiip@psu.edu by July 25, 2012. Please write IIPNAFIIWWS: YOUR NAME in the subject line. Accepted presenters will be notified by July 31, 2012. @psu.edu>

--

Lassana Magassa
http://www.lassanamagassa.com