Geo-Physical + Virtual Communities = (Virtual) Community Informatics Call for Participation: Workshop on (Virtual) Community Informatics DIAC 2002 Seattle May 16-19, 2002 http://ccsweb.njit.edu/~bieber/vci-diac2002.html "(Virtual) Community Informatics" lies at two cross-roads: bringing together people concerned with Geo-Physical and Virtual or On-Line Communities, and bringing together the researchers and practitioners (developers, leaders and participants) in these two domains. Community Informatics is the study of information technology to support communities and their processes. Virtual Community Informatics promotes the cross-fertilization found at this cross-roads, bringing together researchers and practitioners from such varied disciplines as Sociology, Social Services, Planning, Computer Sciences, Information and Library Sciences, (Management) Information Systems, among others. (Virtual) Community Informatics is a new concept. We are conducting a 1/2 day workshop as part of the DIAC 2002 program. The workshop has the following goals: - developing a fuller understanding of (virtual) community informatics - developing approaches for bringing together the fields of Virtual Communities and Community Informatics - developing approaches for bringing together researchers and practitioners in these domains - determining a research agenda for (virtual) community informatics as field of study and practice - identifying and synthesizing the "patterns" that may be common to virtual and geo-physical community informatics as for example in such areas as training, boundary identification and maintenance, decision making, problem solving The workshop will include short presentations by invited speakers, a panel discussion with a lot of audience participation, and a lot of time for brainstorming and collectively developing the goals above. Position statements are strongly encouraged but not mandatory. They will be distributed at the workshop. Please email a position statement to both Michael Bieber (bieber@homer.njit.edu) and Michael Gurstein (gurstein@adm.njit.edu) by Tuesday April 30, 2002. We will email people who have expressed an interest more information soon. Stay Informed on (Virtual) Community Informatics If you would be interested in further developments concerning (Virtual) Community Informatics, please email Michael Bieber (bieber@homer.njit.edu) or Michael Gurstein (gurstein@adm.njit.edu). About DIAC 2002 & Patterns CPSR's 8th biannual "Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing" (DIAC) symposium: Shaping the Network Society: Patterns for Participation, Action, and Change Seattle, May 16-19, 2002 http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/diac02 A variety of events are planned ranging from invited speakers, panel discussions, and pattern presentations to informal working sessions -- both planned and spontaneous. Symposium topics include the digital divide, human rights and privacy, cyberspace and economic development, open content research, pattern language development, community networks, wireless community networking, developing a civil society charter for the UN Summit on the Network Society, virtual communities, online activism, cross-border collaborations, and MORE! Join 500 researchers, practitioners, activists, journalists, educators, artists, policy-makers and citizens from around the world to address critical questions and develop action plans. Based on the insights of architect Christopher Alexander, DIAC-02 is soliciting "patterns" that people use to create communication and information technology that affirms human values. We will use these patterns to craft a "pattern language" - a useful and compelling "knowledge structure" based on the collective wisdom of our community. Ideally our pattern language will help articulate -- and promote interest in -- engaged and effective research and activism. All patterns entered by May 1st will be reviewed at the symposium for possible inclusion in the final pattern language. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Bieber, Associate Professor - Collaborative Hypermedia Research Lab (Co-Director) Email: bieber@homer.njit.edu URL: http://ccsweb.njit.edu/~bieber Phone: (973) 596-2681 FAX: (973) 596-5777 Information Systems Department (http://is.njit.edu/) College of Computing Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology 5500 Information Technology Center University Heights, Newark, New Jersey 07102-1982 USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------