Call for Papers

 

The Second International Conference on 

Communities & Technologies (C&T 2005)

Milan, Italy, 13-16 June, 2005

 

The relationship between communities and technology is an increasingly important research topic as the number of communities turning to technology for online and face-to-face support grows. The Second International Conference on Communities & Technologies (C&T 

2005) conference provides a forum for stimulating and disseminating research about all facets of community and technology support for communities. 

To be successful this field requires multidisciplinary research efforts involving researchers from different fields of applied computer science (Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Information Retrieval, Human Computer Interaction, Information Systems), the social sciences (Economics, Management Science, Psychology, Political Science, Sociology, Ethnography, Linguistics, Cultural Studies, Economics) and many application areas, such as Education, Business, Medicine and civic engagement.

Communities are social entities whose participants share common goals, needs, interests, and practices: they constitute the basic units of social experience. For a number of reasons, researchers are increasingly interested in the topic of communities. First, within a global knowledge-based society, communities play a pivotal role. Problems such as new forms of political participation and civic engagement, maintenance of cultural identity, or the integration of minorities need to be tackled on the community level. Second, communities also re-shape the processes of learning and sharing knowledge in and among organizations, formal and informal groups. The Internet and the Web make communication possible across national boundaries and between cultures in ways that could not happen before. Furthermore, mobile devices, particularly advanced phone technologies, promise to open the Internet to people who have been denied access for financial, technical and cultural reasons. 

For information technologies to support communities research is needed to understand the social, technical and usability needs of participants. Many topics need to be addressed including: trust-building, maintaining (awareness of) social relations, social capital, visualization of social relationships, matching (unknown) participants, bridging between physical and electronically-mediated interaction, cultural needs.

 

The conference offers an opportunity to present and discuss empirical and conceptual research. Topics covered include, but are not restricted to the following subjects:

Social scientific approaches of communities and technologies

* models and theories

* online communities and organization theory

* communities and social network analysis

* ethnographic studies of virtual communities

Social dimensions of community technologies

* privacy and security 

* empathy and trust

* participation and non-participation

* community learning

Local communities and social capital

* technologies and social capital development

* community informatics / digital cities

* case studies of community building and development

* cross-cultural communities

* communities and NGO's

* local, rural and regional communities

Communities in organizations and business

* communities and business models

* consumer communities and electronic commerce

* online consumer and brand communities

* communities and knowledge management

Communities and innovation

* communities of practice and communities of interest 

* communities and innovation

* open source communities

* epistemic communities and technology development

Technologies for community support

* virtual, networked and mobile community formation and development

* novel forms of technology support

* design and development methods 

* technical architectures 

* interoperability among community systems

* virtual community support for education, business, government, civic activities, et

* light-weight technologies

* visualization



Paper submission

Like C&T 2003 this will be a high-quality conference in which we expect a similar acceptance rate of approximately 1 in 6 papers. Full research papers of not more than 20 pages should be produced in the  conference publications format . Papers must be submitted electronically. The conference website will have a facility for this.

 

Workshop 

Proposals should be no longer than 4 pages in the conference publications format and should include a summary of no more than 150 words describing the theme(s) of the workshop, a longer description of the workshop activities and goals, the background of the organizer(s), the maximum number of participants, the means of soliciting participation, and the means of selecting participants. Submissions are due in PDF or Word format attached to an email sent to the following email address: [log in to unmask]; the sender's email address will be used for further contacts.

 

Proceedings

The proceedings will be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers

 

Important Dates:

November, 12, 2004: Submission deadline for papers proposals;

December, 03, 2004: Submission deadline for workshop proposals;

December, 23, 2004: Notification of acceptance for workshops;

January, 15, 2005: Notification of acceptance for papers;

February, 15, 2005: Submission of camera-ready papers;

May, 13, 2005: early registration;

June, 13 to 16, 2005: Conference held in Milano.

 

COMMITTEES

Conference Co-Chairs:

   Giorgio De Michelis        - University of Milano Bicocca

   Carla Simone  - University of Milano Bicocca

Programme Co-Chairs:

   Jennifer Preece             - University of Maryland Baltimore County

   Peter van den Besselaar - Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

Workshops Chair:

   Fiorella De Cindio - University of Milano

Organization Co-Chairs:

   Alessandra Agostini - University of Milano

   Marcello Sarini             - University of Milano Bicocca



Programme Committee  (to be completed)

Agostini  Alessandra, University of Milano, Italy

Andriessen Erik, TU Delft, The Netherlands 

Bandini  Stefania, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy

Becks  Andreas, Fraunhofer FIT, Aachen, Germany

Carroll  John, Virginia Tech,   USA

Clement  Andrew, University of Toronto, Canada 

Day  Peter, U. Brighton, UK

De Cindio Fiorella, University of Milano, Italy

De Michelis Giorgio, University of Milano Bicocca, Italy 

Frissen   Valerie, TNO-STB, Delft, The Netherlands

Heitor  Manuel, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal

Herrmann Thomas, University of Dortmund, Germany  

Huysman  Marleen, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands 

Toru Ishida, Kyoto University, Japan

Klamma  Ralf, RWTH Aachen, Germany

Krmar  Helmut, Technical University of Munich, Germany

Mambrey Peter, Fraunhofer-FIT, Germany

Maybury Mark, MITRE,  Bedford, USA  

Morch  Anders, University of Oslo, Norway

Nakata Keiichi, University of Tokio, Japan 

Nett Bernhard, University of Freiburg and Fraunhofer-FIT, Germany

Pipek Volkmar, University of Bonn, Germany

Preece Jenny, University of Maryland Baltimore County , USA

Prinz  Wolfgang, Fraunhofer-FIT, Sankt Augustin, Germany

Regan Shade Leslie, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada 

Rohde Markus, Int. Institute for Socio-Informatics, Bonn, Germany

Schwabe Gerhard, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Simone  Carla, University of Milano Bicocca,  Italy

Stillman Larry, Monash University,  Australia

van den Besselaar Peter, NIWI, The Netherlands

Weisband  Suzanne, University of Arizona, USA

Wellman Barry, University of Toronto, Canada

Wulf Volker, University of Siegen and Fraunhofer-FIT, Germany