NetAcademy Universe

HOW CAN I BECOME MEMBER OF THE NETACADEMY?
Access:
You can access the NetAcademy without registering.
Download:
If you want to download documents, you are requested to register. The registry button is at your right in each NetAcademy instance homepage. You will get a password for the accessed NetAcademy community instantly by e-mail. This passwort is valid for downloading in the accessed NetAcademy instantly. This passwort is also valid for downloading in each other NetAcademy community, but only after 24 hours time (when the exchange server has been active).
Expert:
If you submit an academic working paper to an editor of one NetAcademy and it is, after double peer review, accepted and subsequently published in the Netacademy, you will get an author’s / expert homepage which you can edit yourself, with browser access.

I COULD NOT DOWNLOAD DOCUMENTS
If you want to download documents from the NetAcademy, you are requested to register. The registry button is at your right in each NetAcademy instance homepage.
After a few moments, you get your password to the E-Mail address you inserted. Now you are able to login and download attachments from the NetAcademy.

Your registration means no obligation
It does not cost anything
Your data will be treated strictly confidentally
No spam or additional mails due to the registration
Consult our legal issues about the NetAcademy’s privacy policy

Please note that for each different NetAcademy instance you are requested to register separatly.
There is no registry option for NetAcademy home (NA Universe).

If the problem persists although you are registered for min. 24 hours:

Maybe your browser does not accept cookies - in this case please change your internet options (if you are using Internet Explorer 6.0 you can find the relevant option at: Tools, Internet Options, Security) to allow your browser to accept cookies.
Your Institution's firewall settings may be configured to prevent any downloads from the Internet. If this is the case, you will need to contact our webmaster or the respective editor and request a copy of the article you wish to download via e-mail.

I COULD NOT FIND THE EXPERT WHEN TYPING HIS NAME IN THE SEARCH BAR
The registration as an „expert“ requires that this expert has successfully published at least one document (publication, glossary definition, editorial...) in the NetAcademy which can be linked to the name. If you did not publish with the Netacademy, your name will cannot be included as author or expert.
Note that the search functions in the NetAcademy are built up on the triangle, consisting of (1) Author’s name, (2) Author’s document, (3) Keyword / term definition for the glossary which matches to characterize the document.

I HAVE AN EXPERT HOMEPAGE BUT CANNOT EDIT IT
Note that you need to contact the editor of your NetAcademy community to obtain admin rights.

Identify which NetAcademy has launched your expert page. HOW? Open your expert page: The browser menue bar discloses the according NetAcademy, e.g. Electronic Markets, or Knowledge Media.
Identify your editor. HOW? Open your NetAcademy: Scroll down to the bottom, on your right there's the link: Contact which opens the address, e.g. media.editors@netacademy.org
Write the editor that you want administrative access (editorial rights) to your homepage. Don't forget to disclose the editor your login name, i.e. the name you used as last name when you registered. - Please note that you must address the editor of the very NetAcademy which registered your homepage. Other editors cannot grant access to your homepage.
The editor will grant you the access to administer your homepage, and send you notice by return email.
Access is granted after max. 24 hours , when the exchange server of the Netacademy Universe was active.
Handling your access: After your login, the NA welcomes you personally. In addition to the usual choice of activities (edit your profile - submit a news - configure your newsletters - submit a link) there is NOW an additonal link: Edit your expert homepage. When opening you can access and edit the template.

COPYRIGHT: I WANT TO USE DOWNLOADED DOCUMENTS FOR A THIRD PARTY
The NetAcademy instances offer lots of free downloadable documents. Please note that each NetAcademy instance may have its own policy about downloadas and property rights. Therefore, contact the respective editor. If a NetAcademy instance does not clearly state otherwise, default policy is as follows:

Making use of NetAcadem documents in a private, strictly scholarly way, is free. You may use it in the traditional academic way - by citing the source (author, title of document, web adress) and date of download. No trading allowed.
Making use of a NetAcademy document at large, i.e. copying and distributing it, and have third parties reward you in any way for your accumulation, is subject to asking permission of the author(s) of the documents in question and is also subject to asking permission of the editor of the Netacademy which offers the document.
Please note that your project which includes distributing NetAcademy documents may be of interest to the NetAcademy instance or to the authors of said documents. Therfore, consider contacting editor and the community also in this respect.

WHAT ARE THE UNIQUE PROPOSITIONS OF THE NA?
In contrast to other internet based research platforms, the NetAcademy disposes of two main added values:
One is the professional organization (editorial boards, executive editors, professional technical support), the other is the encompassing shared logic, i.e. a semantic coherence (in the terminology, verifiable in the glossaries) as well as an quality standard (reviews, reasoning standards).

Additionally, the Netacademy favors cooperation and community building: Its modular architecture enables any interested scientific organization to establish its own NetAcademy by assorting its profile out of a wide range of ready made components. Its federated structure assigns each NA instance its own, browser based management.

WHAT IS MY PERSONAL BENEFIT IF I PARTICIPATE IN THE NA?
Free information, contacts and academic papers from today's research in the wide field of the new media!
For visitors:
Free download of academic information. Acquisition of knowledge in specific research fields (publications, discussions). - The NetAcademy and its instances can be accessed by any interested individual, and most of its content is downloadable for free. To download pdf-files, a password, i.e. online registering, is requested. Registering entails no obligations.

For researchers:
Update your knowledge (conference calendar, calls for papers, new publications) in good quality,i.e. by retrieval of academic reviewed and reliable, coherent data. - The NetAcademy furnishes day-by-day new content about the on-goings in different research fields. Be it working papers by academicians and practitioners, be it term definitions by experts, book reviews or upcoming conferences and call for papers for international journals, be it reports about the goals and state of the art of research projects and teaching programs, be it international experts’ research resumes and contact data – it’s all retrievable and displayed for free. The data are interrelated, thus e.g. author, publication, keyword and research instance are edited in semantic coherence.

For authors:
Find quotable references for a given research field, and / or submit your research for publication in a thriving community, and get your own academic homepage - for free!
- The NetAcademy invites researchers to submit papers, either to be published in the online libraries (contact the respective editor; evidence of double peer review must be provided), or to be published with the academic online journals which also appear quarterly in print (contact the respective submission pages; the journals install their own double blind peer review procedure). Has a document passed the quality test installed by the appointed editor, it is being published and accessible across the entire NetAcademy universe. Subsequently, the author automatically appears on a personal homepage which he may edit and update himself, with direct browser access. The homepage may show the author’s portrait, his curriculum, research field, special interest, his contacts and all his papers he is publishing with the NetAcademy. A special service indicates daily how many times each of his publications was viewed respectively downloaded. For larger publications, the NetAcademy also offers a print publishing service with the NetAcademy Press, including marketing and online sale with amazon, etc. The NetAcademy Press is affiliated with the University of St. Gallen.

For critics / journalists:
Assess the appearance (technical and content management, design) of a successful scientific online community with a history back to March 1997.

For pastime browsers:
Inform yourself about what's going on in scientific communities (what's new...).

WHO SUPPORTS MANAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE NETACADEMY?
The NetAcademy was founded as a basically non-profit organization - a scientific project. The NetAcademy is sponsored with money and with human resources

by the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
by the Institute for Media and Communications Management at the University of St. Gallen
by the Bertelsmann foundation and the Heinz Nixdorf foundation (1997-2002)
by a range of industrial partners and research partners of each of the NetAcademy instances which use the platform for their project management and knowledge exchange,
by subscribers to the Journals,
by a large community of participants around the world who contribute and review the contents of the NetAcademy

Who wrote this text? For questions and comments please submit an e-mail to please submit an e-mail to The NetAcademy Project (=mcminstitute - University of St. Gallen)