Preface

Abstract

The special issue of the Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technologies (JTIT) contains selected papers from the conference organized in the frames of the Sixth Framework RTD Project “Academic Internet Television Network Showcases the Best of Good Practice Activities” (ATVN-EU-GP). A consortium of eight partners: the National Institute of Telecommunications, (Poland), the ICM Warsaw University (Poland), Sofia University (Bulgaria), the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences  (Poland), the Centre for Administration and Operations, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Czech Republic), Starptautiska Lietiskas Optikas Biedriba (Latvia), the Technical University of Kosice (Slovakia) and Lviv Center for Scientific, Technical and Economic Information (Ukraine), initiated the implementation of this project. The main goal of the project was to stimulate, encourage and facilitate the participation of teams from the New Member States (NMS), Associated Candidate Countries (ACC) and the Newly Independent States (NIS) in research projects and activities in the areas of Information Society Technologies (IST), such as: e-business, e-government, e-learning and e-health. The project aimed at identifying, exploiting and further improving the good IST practices in order to use them as showcases for strengthening the IST RTD activities in these countries. Its strategic objectives were also to stimulate, encourage and facilitate the participation of organization from these countries in future IST research and good practice projects and to increase their innovations and competitiveness in the European business and industry. (...)