Sunday, November 20

CFP: Communities & Technologies 2007

Conference Website: http://ebusiness.tc.msu.edu/cct2007

Following the success of two prior conferences, we cordially invite
submissions to the third International Conference on Communities and
Technologies (C&T 2007), hosted by Michigan State University. This
biennial meeting serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating
research on the complex connections between communities - both
physical and virtual - and information and communication technologies.

C&T 2007 welcomes contributions from researchers in many fields,
given the multidisciplinary and collaborative nature of inquiries
into the interaction between community and technology. Past meetings
have involved researchers working in such areas as computer supported
cooperative work, computer supported collaborative learning,
artificial intelligence, information retrieval, human computer
interaction, information systems, community informatics, knowledge
management, and Internet studies; across such fields as anthropology,
communication, computer science, economics, geography, information
studies, information systems, management science, political science,
psychology, sociology, and telecommunication. The conference program
includes competitively selected, peer-reviewed papers, as well as
workshops, tutorials, and a small number of invited speakers.

Important Dates:
November 13, 2006: Paper submission deadline
December 4, 2006: Deadline for submission of workshop proposals

Conference Themes:
There are many definitions of community. We focus on the notion of
communities as social entities comprised of actors who share
something in common: this common element may be geography, needs,
interests, practices, organizations, or other bases for social
connection. Communities are considered to be a basic unit of social
experience. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can
interact with communities in many complex ways. For example, ICTs
can support community formation and development by facilitating
communication and coordination among members. Conversely, the lack
of attention to the surrounding community context may inhibit the
design and effective use of ICT innovations. Hence, new research
into the creation, use, and evaluation of ICTs aimed at community
support is appearing at an increasing rate. New phenomena such as
blogs, podcasting, smart mobs, and the popularity of social network
software illustrate some of the new areas for research into the
powerful and changing connections between community and technology.

Empirical, conceptual, and design contributions are invited,
involving a range of methodologies and approaches. These might
include application designs, innovative frameworks, case studies,
ethnographies, experiments, survey research, network analyses or
economic studies.

Topics appropriate for submission to this conference are manifold.
Examples of some of the vibrant areas of communities and technology
research include, but are not limited to:

* virtual community formation and development
* communities of interest and practice, knowledge sharing and
organizational learning
* communities and innovation
* community informatics
* technical support for communities
* innovative applications of communityware
* ad hoc communities and ICTs
* innovations in community technology design
* system platforms for e-community research
* design methods for communityware
* ICTs and geographical business communities (e.g. clusters and/or
regional development)
* ICTs and virtual business communities
* community e-commerce business models
* interactions between online and offline communities
* social capital, communities, and technology
* communities and e-government
* ethnographic and case studies of virtual communities
* trust, privacy and security issues in virtual communities
* communities, technology and social movements
* interaction in large scale online communities
* persistent conversation in technology-facilitated communities
* supporting collaboration in local and distributed communities
* economics of technology-facilitated communities
* inter-organizational communities and technology
* communities, technology, learning and education

Submitting Papers and Workshop Proposals
Completed and original research papers of not more 20 pages must be
submitted electronically to the conference website, and will undergo
a peer review process. We are preparing submission guidelines and a
conference management facility to enable online submission. In the
meantime, general information about C&T 2007 is available at the
conference web site.

We also invite the submission of proposals for workshops, which will
be held on June 28, the first day of the conference. Workshops can
be either half or full day in length and built around specific themes
relevant to the conference. Workshop proposals should be 4 pages in
length, and should define the theme(s) of the workshop, the main
activities and goals, the background and contact information of the
organizer(s), the maximum number of participants in the workshop, the
means of soliciting participants, and the method of selecting
participants. Proposals should also include a brief summary of no
more than 150 words suitable for describing the workshop in the
conference program.

Proceedings
As with prior meetings, the Conference on Communities and
Technologies Proceedings will be published by Kluwer Academic
Publishers.

Conference Organizers and Contact Information
The 2007 meeting is being co-organized by Charles Steinfield and
Brian Pentland of Michigan State University, Mark Ackerman of the
University of Michigan, and Noshir Contractor of the University of
Illinois. Questions regarding C&T 2007 should be sent to the
conference email address, which is cct2007@msu.edu.

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andrea[dot]handl[at]gmail[dot]com

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