The University of Central Florida Department of Philosophy, the Quality Enhancement Plan for Information Fluency and the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities present the third in a series of conferences centered on information fluency.  Information fluency, broadly construed, is the ability to acquire, evaluate, and use information in morally appropriate ways.

In 2007, we hosted the first conference on “Heresy, Blasphemy, and Freedom of Expression.”  The theme of the conference originated from the controversy surrounding the publication of cartoon depictions of the prophet Muhammad in Denmark.  In 2008, our second conference, on “Knowledge Rights and Knowledge Sharing in the 21st Century,” had its origin in Lessig’s model of information exchange and knowledge rights as well as the importance of information sharing (rather than simple information ownership) to contribute to the growth and development of human knowledge.  In 2009, UCF will host the third conference on “Evolution, the Environment, and Responsible Knowledge.”

We are hopeful that those who see this blog, and who are interested in any of the individual topics or some combination of them, will contribute their ideas to this open forum that is designed to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas on the subject of our third conference.

Information on the call for papers, conference dates, registration fees, featured keynote speakers, and other items of relevance to the conference will be posted in separate pages at this site.