Who should attend? Significance Requirements Content Overview Fees Times & Venue To register Intranet site (registration required)

Post-graduate Seminar Series: Information and the Network Economy - Prof W H Melody,
Wednesdays from 25 September - 20 November 2002

Book now for this exciting series of seminars by world-renowned Professor W H Melody, Vodacom Visiting Professor in ICT Policy and Regulation....

Who should attend?

This seminar is intended primarily for post-graduate students preparing to enter the PhD program at PDM doing a thesis in the general area of ICT and Development.

Some people, who will not be preparing PhD proposals, may wish to audit the seminar. As auditors, they will attend all the seminar meetings, read the relevant literature and participate in the discussions as informed participants. They will participate fully, but will not prepare a PhD short proposal.

A limited number of observer spaces will made available to people from the regulator, industry, government, trade unions or other organisations interested in attending the programme for developmental purposes.

Significance

The seminar will review some of the fundamental issues associated with the evolving network economy and government policy and regulation relating to development of the information infrastructure - the foundation of the future network economy. It will provide a background of theory, methodology and literature to help shape and sharpen ideas for the thesis, so potential PhD applicants can develop the 5000 word "short proposal" required by PDM in order to register formally for the degree. Seminar participants who submit a detailed outline draft of their short proposal by 1 December will have it critically reviewed by Professor Melody and get the benefit of written and oral feedback.

Requirements

Each seminar participant will be expected to spend about 10 hours a week in preparation for each seminar, to come prepared to inform the group of the "gem" of literature or information found that week, and periodically to lead the discussion on a topic of interest.

Each participant is also required to have access to e-mail and the internet, as some interaction and content will take place via a course listserv on the WebCT site for the course.

Content Overview: Information and the Network Economy

A preliminary list of potential worthy topics for examination would include:

• The defining characteristics of an information or network economy and their significance;
• The theory and reality of markets, efficient resource allocation and equity;
• Networks and economic efficiency - theory; externalities, public goods;
• Allocating "commons" resources, e.g., radio spectrum;
• Institutional economics as a guide to understanding dynamic change and shaping reforms;
• Monopoly, different forms of competition and pricing on telecom/information networks;
• Telecom reform and information infrastructure development;
• "Independent" regulation as a driver of network development;
• Different approaches to stimulating investment in network infrastructure rollout;
• Internet economics - efficiency, policy and regulatory issues;
• Roles for the public sector in implementing information society and e-economy policies;
• Media and broadcast content regulation in an network / information / knowledge economy;
• Human Capital in industrial and "knowledge-based economies";
• Indicators of performance - sector and institutional.

This list of topics is too long, and participants in the seminar may have additional topics of high priority to them. During the first meeting, after learning more about the interests and priorities of seminar participants, Professor Melody will select the topics to be examined and issue the first assigments.

Fees

No university course fees are being charged for this course, but there is an administrative fee of:

Times & Venue

Every Wednesday from 25 September - 20 November 2002,
5:00 to 8:00 pm,
Classroom G, LINK Centre, Mwalimu House,
School of Public and Development Management, 2 St David's Place, Parktown.

To register

To register for the course, simply download and print the registration form provided. Then fill in the form in full, and fax it back to the LINK Centre on + 27 + 11 + 717-3910. Please ensure that the original is subsequently handed in on the first day of the seminar.

Click here to download the registration form
(Note: this requires Acrobat Reader - click here if you need to install Acrobat Reader.)

Contact the LINK Centre for more information.

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