This is the WWW site of the thematic Working Group (WG) dealing with Scientific Information, within the framework of the Civil Society contribution to the World Summit On the Information Society (WSIS) organized by the United Nations. Some practical explanations are given. The WSIS process is not easy to grasp unless you have been at the PrepComs of Phase I, or you are a seasoned UN diplomat. The various Civil Society WGs are presented as well as this specific SI WG.

This WWW site has been set up for coordination purposes. Only official documents at official WSIS sites have legal values. Depending on the context, we offer both framed links and hyperlinks that open new windows. Sometimes both types of links are available for convenience. In order to offer a multilingual environment, the reader may use two machine translation tools. One tool (top of each page), by Google, is relatively fast and provides a translated page that stays in the overall frame of this site. The other tool (bottom of each page), by AltaVista, features three more languages : Chinese,Japanese and Korean, but it is a little slower and provides a translated page in a new window (More about this site features).

It is not always easy to find information in the WSIS sites. Therefore some links are provided for documentation purpose. A list of links to a few advocacy groups is also provided. This does not imply that those advocacy groups are represented at WSIS, and that we endorse their views. Some related news are also listed.

After several preliminary versions, this site was opened, on Monday 16 June 2003, on the first day of the International Symposium on Sensor Science (I3S) held in Paris ( 16 - 20 June 2003). As such the I3S meeting constituted, in part, a side event of the Scientific Information working group