Thursday, December 16, 2010

Call for Papers for CHI Workshop on Bridging Practices, Theories, and Technologies to Support Reminiscence 2011

http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~danco/remchiwork/

CHI 2011 Workshop
www.chi2011.org

This one-day workshop explores how HCI-related practice and research can understand and support reminiscence. The workshop has two main goals. First, we hope to bring together academics and practitioners from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, levels of experience, and approaches to studying and supporting reminiscing. Second, we hope to explore a variety of topics around current and potential uses of technology to support reminiscence, including but not limited to:

  • understanding people's current practices around reminiscing,
  • exploring empirical studies and theories of memory that might inform technology designs,
  • presenting, critiquing, and evaluating existing technologies for reminiscence,
  • considering how technology might support new reminiscing practices, and
  • supporting social aspects of reminiscence.

We are particularly interested in participants from outside the CHI community to foster new perspectives and collaborations. Our plan is to conduct three short discussion-focused panels organized around participants' interests. Those discussions will ground small groups in articulating interesting directions, studies, designs, and outlines of potential grant and book proposals at the intersection of reminiscing and technology


SUBMISSION

Interested participants should mail position papers of up to 6 pages in .pdf versions of the CHI Extended Abstracts format to danco@cs.cornell.edu by January 14, 2011. Papers should clearly express how the authors' participation will further the goals of the workshop: what do authors offer and hope to gain by participating? They should also clearly, but briefly, present participating authors' backgrounds, in order to support our goals of creating a diverse group of participants.


We will notify accepted participants on or before February 11, 2001. A limited amount of funding will be available, primarily to support attendance for people from other disciplines who are not regular CHI attendees. The workshop will be held on Sunday May 8, 2011 in Vancouver, Canada. Please note that at least one author of an accepted position paper must register for the workshop and for one or more days of the CHI 2011 conference.


IMPORTANT DATES

- Jan 14, 2011: Position papers due
- Feb 11, 2011: Notifications of participation
- Apr 1, 2011: Final versions of position papers (to be shared with other participants)
- May 8, 2011: (Sunday) The workshop! (Here's the list of all workshops.)

- May 9-12 2011: CHI itself

ORGANIZERS

- Dan Cosley, Information Science, Cornell University danco@cs.cornell.edu

- Maurice Mulvenna, School of Computing and Mathematics, University of Ulster md.mulvenna@ulster.ac.uk

- Victoria Schwanda, Information Science, Cornell University vls48@cornell.edu
- S. Tejaswi Peesapati, Information Science, Cornell University stp53@cornell.edu

Call for Papers for Special Issue of Interacting with Computers on "Inclusive Design in the Context of Social Media and Emerging Technologies"

Guest Editors:
Jim Ang and Ania Bobrowicz, School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of Kent
Panayotis Zaphiris, Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology
Ben Schneiderman, Human Computer Interaction Laboratory, University of Maryland

Call Description:
Recently we have witnessed an increasing proliferation of new digital technologies such as online social networking sites, micro-blogging and virtual worlds which has changed the way we communicate and interact with each other. Studies are being conducted in order to investigate these interesting socio-technological phenomena.

To date, little research has been published on inclusive design in the context of social networking and emerging technologies. These technologies have the potential to impact positively on the lives of a wide range of people including older people, disabled people, and people from different social and cultural backgrounds. For example, it is claimed that the fastest growing demographic of the social networking sites is women over 55 years old (Facebook Global Monitor, 2009).

With this special issue, we aim to analyse existing and novel ways in which these audiences use social networks and emerging technologies. We ask questions such as: How can these technologies be designed to be more inclusive? What motivates people to engage with these new technologies? What are the effects on people’s behaviour, attitudes and social interactions? What methods can be used to analyse these interactions?

This special issue of Interacting with Computers invites contributions from the academic community, industry and design practitioners. We welcome research papers that trigger discussions based on investigations, case studies and overviews in this area.

Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):

  • Inclusive design issues related to social media and emerging technologies
  • Concepts, methods and frameworks aimed at motivating people to participate
  • Case studies of various social and cultural contexts
  • The impact of participation on society and culture
  • Different user groups’ engagement with social media
  • New technologies such as virtual worlds and augmented humans
  • The application of these technologies in a variety of settings (e-democracy, communities, sustainability and environment, etc.)

Submission Details:
Please submit a 300-500 word abstract to Dr Jim Ang (c.s.ang@kent.ac.uk) no later than 28th January 2011. Please include full contact information and a biographical note (up to 75 words) on each of the authors.

Important Dates:
28 January 2011: Deadline for abstract submission
25 February 2011: Announcement of results and full paper invitations
29 April 2011: Submission of full papers
24 June 2011: Response to authors
2 September 2011: Final submission

Monday, December 6, 2010

Workshop: Socialising Technology Among Seniors in Asia at CSCW 2011

The organisers say:
Although technological research involving seniors is not new, there is still a lack of use and adoption amongst the seniors. The issue is further confounded by a scarcity of discourse and research seeking in-depth understanding on why this is so. This is particularly problematic among some countries in the region like Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore whose ageing populations are among the fastest growing in the world.

https://sites.google.com/site/technologyamongseniors/

Friday, October 22, 2010

Special Issue on Inclusive Design in the Context of Social Media and Emerging Technologies

Call for papers for Special Issue of Interacting with Computers on Inclusive Design in the Context of Social Media and Emerging Technologies

Recently we have witnessed the increased proliferation of new digital technologies such as online social networking sites, micro-blogging and virtual worlds which has changed the way we communicate and interact with each other. Emerging studies are being conducted in order to investigate these interesting socio-technological phenomena.

To date, little has been done with respect to inclusive design in the context of social networking and emerging technologies. These technologies have the potential to have a positive impact on the lives of a wide range of people, for instance older people, disabled people, and people from different social and cultural backgrounds. For example, it has been reported that the fastest growing demographic of the social networking sites is women over 55 years old (Facebook Global Monitor, 2009).

With this special issue, we aim to analyse existing and novel ways in which social networks and emerging technologies are used by these user groups. We ask questions such as: In what ways can these technologies be designed to be more inclusive? What are people’s motivations for engaging with these new technologies? What is the effect on people’s behaviour, attitudes and social interactions? What methods can be used to analyse these interactions?

This special issue of Interacting with Computers is inviting contributions from both the academic community, industry and the design practitioners.  We welcome research papers which trigger discussions based on investigations, case studies and overviews in this area.

Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):

  • Inclusive design issues related to social media and emerging technologies
  • Concepts, methods and frameworks aimed at motivating people to participate
  • Case studies in various social and cultural contexts
  • The impact of participation on the society and culture
  • Different user groups’ engagement with social media
  • New technologies such as virtual worlds and
  • The application of these technologies in a variety of settings (e.g. e-government, communities, sustainability and environment, etc.)

Submission details

Please submit a 300-500 word abstract to Dr Jim Ang (c.s.ang@kent.ac.uk) no later than 28th January 2011.   Please include full contact information and a biographical note (up to 75 words) on each of the authors.

Important dates

28th January 2011:  Deadline for abstract submission

25th February 2011:  Announcement of results and full paper invitations

29th April 2011: Submission of full papers

24th June 2011: Response to authors

2nd September 2011: Final submission


Jim Ang, Ania Bobrowicz (c.s.ang@kent.ac.uk))
School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of Kent, UK

Panayotis Zaphiris
Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus

Ben Shneiderman
Human Computer Interaction Laboratory, University of Maryland, USA

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

BBC first click campaign

I just had a look at the 'First click' website - the video is ok (and not too patronizing), but I find the concept to create this website somewhat flawed. The person who accesses this website needs to have basic computer skills. Also I find the benefits to go online (or to learn how to use the Internet) not well explained... I expected to see benefits mentioned such as 'sent your digital photographs to family and friends', 'reduce cost by choosing online billing', 'read up on medical information from trusted websites', 'find your ancestors' etc

About First Click:

First Click is a BBC Learning campaign to encourage those aged 55 and over, who currently do not use the internet, to understand and enjoy its benefits. The BBC has created the First Click Beginners’ Computer Course to take participants through the first and essential steps of using computers, also linking with BBC WebWise. To find out more, have a look here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/connect/campaigns/first_click.shtml

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Ofcom research: Next Generation Services for Older and Disabled People

Ofcom’s Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People has published research into the benefits that next generation super-fast broadband could bring to older and disabled people. The publication’s findings are based on desk research and in-depth interviews with senior representatives from across a range of industries, government, academia and the third sector.
The research gives examples of a range of services already being piloted or in development. The research also identifies some of the challenges and barriers which might hinder this potential including usability, accessibility and cost.
A copy of the full research Next Generation Services for Older and Disabled People can be found here.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

2010 ONS Internet usage report

The Office for National Statistics report on Internet usage in the UK for 2010 is out.

Internet Access Households and Individuals: links to reports and one-page summary.

UK Adults using the Internet every day.
From ONS website.