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| The 4th Social Informatics SIG Research Symposium: People, Information and Technology: The Social Analysis of Computing |
Half Day Workshop, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008, 8:30am-12:30pm (separate fee)
Sponsor: SIG SI
Co-sponsor: SIGs: SIG USE, SIG Digital Library, SIG CRIT, with support from the Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, Indiana University
The symposium will have three objectives:
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To disseminate state of the art research-in-progress between and among the various ASIST SIGs whose work touches on social aspects of information and communication technologies (ICT).
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To help each other develop and strengthen this research in a friendly symposium environment.
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To continue the successful social networking among symposium participants from previous workshops, and to draw in new colleagues.
While information and communication technologies (ICT) were once seen as a discrete sub-interest within the our field, theoretical and empirical studies of ICT, people, and information, particularly in the worlds of work and sociality, now pervade most interest groups within ASIST. ICT are increasingly a part of the core goals, stubborn problems, and research streams across the subfields of Library and Information Science. In keeping with the theme of the conference, the relationships of mutual shaping between people and information, as mediated by technology, have been objects of study within social informatics for years; the assumption of the fundamental importance of mutual shaping is well accepted among social informatics researchers. According to Horton, Davenport, and Wood-Harper (2005; 52) “the impetus for researchers to consider both social and technical aspects as mutually constitutive as a means of understanding technology introduction and use had a growing audience.”
Starting with a broad conceptualization of ICT that emphasizes technologies in tandem with the data, information or cultural resources they store, transport and display, this symposium will highlight research focusing on the social realities of ICT based information systems (broadly defined) and their roles in the transformative relationships between people and information in order to better understand the following types of questions:
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How are the design, implementation, use, disuse, and ongoing reconfiguration of information and ICTs influenced by social groups, organizations, politics, and culture? How do information and ICTs shape those creating, implementing and using them?
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What are the roles of information and information systems in ongoing social change at various levels of social analysis such as groups, organizational units, political entities or cultural systems?
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What are the complex reciprocal relationships among information, information systems and the people, social groups and environments that surround and pervade them?
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What are the variations in meanings or interpretations of information systems across social groups?
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What are the moral or ethnical consequences of ICT system development and use?
The symposium organizers encourage all scholars, both beginning and established, interested in social aspects of information systems (broadly defined) to share their research in progress by submitting an extended abstract of their work and attending the symposium.
iii) Proposed program: The symposium participation call for abstracts will be sent to all SIG chairs in order to maximize cross SIG participation. In addition, officers of SIG-SI, SIG-USE and SIG-CRIT have already made commitments to encourage participation, submit work, organize the abstract submission process, and help manage the actual event.
Submissions will be in the form of short papers of no more than 2,000 words including sources and appendixes. All submissions will be peer reviewed. This year, the symposium will accept fewer submissions but provide a longer period of time for each participant to present his or her work. All accepted papers will be posted on the dLIST institutional repository for library and information science.
The symposium will involve the presentation of a series of papers, two discussants who will comment on the papers, and a keynote address by a senior scholar who will discuss the main theme of the symposium, a critical appraisal of the transformative relationships between people and information, as mediated by technology.
Organizers:
Howard
Rosenbaum, Indiana University (hrosenba@indiana.edu)
Elisabeth Davenport, Napier University (e.davenport@napier.ac.uk)
Fees
Members $60, non-members $70, before Sept. 12, 2008
Members $70, non-members $80, after Sept. 12, 2008
Receive a $10 discount, if you take this SIG SI course and Future Directions: Information Behavior in Design & the Making of Relevant Research (1:00-6:00pm)