OverviewComparative informatics is the study of design, development, evaluation, use, and impact of information technologies across a diverse set of domains, organizations, contexts, cohorts, cultures, and countries. The scientific focus of the 2nd International Workshop on Comparative Informatics (IWCI 2010) is on the following core questions: · How can we better understand the mutual relations between information and communication technologies and cultures? · To what extent is the appropriation of technologies culturally relative? · To what extent do technologies exert their own agency regardless of local practices and cultural accommodations? · To what extent do people shape, alter, bend, adapt, adjust, align, configure, reconfigure, and re-imagine technologies? Layered into the inherent complexities of technologies themselves as artifact whose qualities we do not fully understand are the technologies’ uptake and appropriation in multiple cultural contexts. Temporality will be a key discussion point at the workshop and we will discuss methodological and epistemological aspects of time and its relation to technologically mediated activity. Methodological discussion will also examine the applicability of the comparative method to informatics and will proceed to identify a range of appropriate research methods. The workshop will have five themes: online gaming, e-government, collaboration, usability, and design Outcomes of the workshopGiven globalization and the multicultural social reality of the 21st century, it is clear that the core questions outlined about culture and technology cannot be approached without a coordinated global effort. A federation of researchers is required, for both practical and intellectual reasons, to shape and inform such investigations. IWCI 2010 aims to create such a research federation and a socio-technical environment to help sustain it. A collective research proposal is the targetted outcome of the 2-day workshop. Position Papers (in the order of filenames)Exploring Culture Factors in HCI Design: A Perspective from SEUC Culture and (i)literacy as challenges to Scandinavian cooperative design Comparison as a process of translation Explaining Culture: An Outline of a Theory of Socio-Technical Interactions Regional Styles of Human-Computer Interaction A Proposed Culture by ICT-Development Matrix for Digital Government Network Technologies, Culture, and New Organizational Forms Workshop Program
Coffee, tea, fruit, cookies, water and soda will be
available througout the workshop /em>:-)
Workshop Participants
Last Updated: 11-August-2010 |
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