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National Science Foundation |
Friday September 19, 2003
(Half-Day Workshop)
Workshop CFP: http://is.njit.edu/ci-workshop-ct2003/ (this page)
Workshop URL: http://is.njit.edu/vci/ci-ct2003/
Please note: Submission of a paper for a workshop is directly to the workshop. When accepted for a workshop, registration to the conference and the workshop is through the conference website only. Early registration fee deadline is August 15th.
We cordially invite you to participate in the (Virtual) Community Informatics Workshop, held the first day of C&T 2003 in Amsterdam. Researchers, students and practitioners interested in the areas of community informatics and virtual communities are welcome to submit either a position statement or a full paper for presentation.
We expect the discussion during the workshop to address the following questions, among others:
In general we are concerned with what researchers and practitioners in Virtual and Local communities can learn from the other regarding community technology. We shall look for collaboration opportunities that exist for both to come together regarding community technological support.
Community Informatics is the design and application of information and communications technologies to enable community processes and the achievement of community objectives, such as overcoming "digital divides", "wiring (and ensuring connectivity for) the farthest reaches of a far-flung nation", creating on-line "communities of interest" and "communities of practice", and others. Even more important, Community Informatics involves working to find ways of making the enormous opportunities of Internet connectivity of real value to various communities --- local and virtual, in achieving their economic, social and cultural objectives. Community Informatics traditionally has been applied to "geo-physical" or "local" communities, which address the needs and interests of particular (local) geographical areas.
Virtual communities on the other hand have no geographical limits. Virtual communities serve a diversity of groups, including people with common interests; groups fostered by particular organizations, industries or marketplaces; those who face similar life circumstances (such as a medical problem); as well as those who simply wish to socialize, play games or participate in fantasy experiences together on-line. Virtual communities, by definition, depend on technology, but often are only using limited tool sets to support specific types of interaction.
Communities of Practice are groups which form among peers for sharing knowledge and information about the tasks they perform or other aspects of their professional activities and interests.
Currently there is little formal interaction between the Community Informatics, Virtual Communities and Communities of Practice research communities or practitioners (and little evident informal contact either). We believe that all three could benefit from the concepts, techniques, practices and suites of tools, being developed separately for each.
Typically practitioners working to support local communities, virtual communities and communities of practice are working with only limited theories. Often they are not taking full advantage of rapidly developing technology opportunities, and have little systematic contact with or feedback into on-going organizational or technology design, or emerging business models.
Without systematization there is the need to continuously reinvent concepts and approaches. It is difficult to propagate and disseminate findings and lessons learned. Neither research nor practice is able to achieve economies of scale. Overall they have little opportunity to make input into or to influence technology design.
In the Community Informatics area, as in others, academics can introduce intellectual rigor and provide support to research, design and testing. Practitioners, communities and industry can link with researchers to collaborate on technology design and testing; develop strategies; and provide assessment and feedback.
(Virtual) Community Informatics lies at these dual cross-roads: bringing together people concerned with Local, Virtual and Communities of Practice; and structuring collaborations between researchers and practitioners, including industry, in these three domains. (Virtual) Community Informatics promotes the cross-fertilization of ideas and experience found at this cross-roads, including among those with backgrounds in Sociology, Social Services, Planning, Computer Sciences, Information and Library Sciences, (Management) Information Systems, among others.
We plan to include the following events at the workshop:
The workshop's focus will be on opportunities for technological support of both virtual and local communities.
Anyone with an interest in virtual communities or local communities. We welcome both researchers and community practitioners. We especially welcome students interested in these areas.
All workshops are being held at De Rode Hoed in Keizersgracht, Amsterdam. Directions will be posted here closer to the workshop date.
Everyone is welcome to attend the workshop, with or without submitting a paper. However, we strongly encourage people to submit a 1-2 page position paper. We also invite people to submit a 6-12 page full paper. Full papers will be reviewed and a selected number of authors invited to make longer presentations. Feedback from the refereeing process will be returned to authors so they may improve their papers.
We shall distribute a proceedings containing both position papers and full papers.
If you find that you need more time to submit, please email us to check whether this would be possible.
Please send papers to all workshop coordinators: Michael Bieber (bieber@oak.njit.edu), Michael Gurstein (gurstein@njit.edu) and Michel Menou (Michel.Menou@wanadoo.fr)
We are currently coordinating to edit a special journal issue or book on Community Informatics, and excellent full papers would be invited for inclusion.
Registration will be through the main C&T 2003 registration site.
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Michael Bieber is Associate Professor in the Information Systems Department of the College of Computing Sciences at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he co-directs the Collaborative Hypermedia Research Lab and teaches in the distance learning program. He is active in hypermedia, relationship management, WWW, virtual community and asynchronous learning networks research. He also is active in several of these research communities, co-organizing conference minitracks and co-editing special journal issues. He holds a Ph.D. in Decision Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania. He is PI on an NSF grant, together with Michael Gurstein as Co-PI, on Virtual Community Informatics.
Michael Gurstein has worked in the area of Community Informatics for many years, publishing journal articles and books on the Internet and community access issues. He has conducted research in the field for several years. From 1996 to 1999 he was Director of the Centre for Community Enterprise Networking in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Michael holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Previously he was Associate Professor of Management and Technology and Director of the Centre for Community Informatics at the Technical University of British Columbia. He currently is a visiting Full Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he is establishing a program in community informatics.
Michel Menou is a Visiting Professor at the University of the City of London and a well known researcher and consultant in the development and use of ICTs for Community applications in Less Developed Countries.
If you are interested in Community Informatics, and would like to be notified of future events and on-going research, please send an email message to Michael Bieber (bieber@oak.njit.edu) and Mike Gurstein (gurstein@njit.edu).
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This page: http://is.njit.edu/ci-workshop-ct2003/
To comment on this page, please email bieber@oak.njit.edu
