[Sigia-l] Call for Papers: International Workshop on Web-based Collaborator ies

[hanne.albrechtsen at risoe.dk]

[apologies for cross-posting]

International Workshop on Web-based Collaboratories - from Centres without
Walls to Virtual Community Centres
To be held 8 November 2003, Algarve, Portugal 

In connection with the IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet 2003,
from 5 to 8 November 2003
(http://www.iadis.org/icwi2003)

Call for Papers 

Collaboratories have been defined as 'centres without walls', where
scientists can work together while they are in distant locations. The
original vision of collaboratories saw cooperation amongst distributed
scientists as coordination of work and sharing of knowledge, through shared
affordances for collaboration, in the shape of shared tools, databases and
instruments. During the past decade, national and international research
foundations have funded a series of science collaboratory projects. The
results from these projects have shown that it is feasible to link teams of
scientists, data, tools and facilities through the World Wide Web and
thereby reduce the barriers of time and distance. Recent research on science
collaboratories indicates, however, that design and adoption of new
collaboratories are difficult and uncertain processes. This difficulty has
been ascribed to the lack of broader principles for collaboratory
development. So far, each collaboratory has been built as an independent
effort, with little coordination and exchange of design and usability
experience amongst projects on collaboratories.

Recently, collaboratories have also been defined as 'virtual community
centres' on the web. This concept of collaboratories broadens the previous
metaphor of a distributed science laboratory towards the notion of
collaboratories in use. 'Collaboratories in use' support interactive
knowledge production and integration amongst participants with initially
diverse disciplinary or cultural backgrounds. Examples are collaboratories
in rural telemedicine, cross-national film research and design of
information systems (design collaboratories). Such collaboratories bring
together professionals and laypersons in interactive and often
cross-disciplinary knowledge production and integration. Thereby, research
and design attention is directed to how participants in collaboratories form
social relationships with one another, how they build mutual trust and how
they build common conceptual grounds for their collaboration. Amongst the
challenges facing such collaboratories is that the requirements for common
technological and conceptual tools evolve throughout the use of the
collaboratory itself. This may mean that technologies and conceptual tools
may be developed and integrated in the collaboratory as add-on facilities,
which may result in substantial maintenance problems. On the other hand,
design of collaboratories in use may build on analysis and evaluation of the
growing collaborative practices, for instance of ongoing social processes of
community building and evolving uses of shared technologies and conceptual
tools. This, in turn, may open up to new methodological approaches for
design of collaboratories.

The objectives of this workshop is to direct cross-disciplinary attention to
research and development on web-based collaboratories, that is, to collect
and examine empirical evidence of existing research collaboratories on the
web, to share design methods and technological developments for
collaboratories, as well as to address fundamental research issues. The aim
is build up a cross-disciplinary network of professionals working with
research, design and evaluation of web-based collaboratories.

Papers, short papers and posters/demonstrations from academics,
practitioners and researchers, addressing web-based collaboratories from any
of the following interrelated perspectives are invited:

* Analysis of distributed collaborative work and community-building, e.g.,
how collaborative and individual work practices evolve in a collaboratory,
how common workspaces for cross-cultural or cross-disciplinary collaboration
develop, and how the participants negotiate and build mutual trust.

* Modelling and design, e.g., experience of particular methodological
frameworks for design and evaluation of collaboratories and their advantages
and disadvantages, how theory of social informatics may inspire the
development of conceptual frameworks for design and evaluation of
collaboratories, and how to evaluate the usability of a collaboratory. 

* Conceptual tools, e.g., development of common conceptual grounds through
shared ontologies, classification schemes and taxonomies, the problem of
resolution of conflict and translation of interests amongst participants
using joint conceptual tools, analysis of iterative and interactive joint
construction of conceptual tools, i.e. collaborative classification, and
presentation of shared conceptual tools in web-based collaboratories.

* Technologies, e.g. integration and evaluation of shared artifacts and
resources like instruments and data, annotation toolkit, eg. for web logs,
video-conferencing and document indexing, and toolkit for creating and
maintaining technical infrastructures in collaboratories.

The proposals should reflect the theme of the workshop and each should
indicate into which of the above categories it falls. The workshop will be
composed of the following kinds of contributions:

Full Papers - These include mainly accomplished research results and have 8
pages at the maximum (5,000 words). 
Short Papers - These are mostly composed of work in progress reports or
fresh developments and have 4 pages at maximum (2,500 words). 
Posters/demonstrations - These have one page at the maximum (625 words)
besides the poster itself (or demonstration) that will be exposed at the
workshop.

Papers and posters should be submitted as an e-mail attachment in Word or
RTF format to Hanne Albrechtsen, Workshop Chair, by 10 May 2003 (see contact
information below).

An international program committee will review the proposals, and authors
will be notified of decisions by 16 June 2003. The deadline for submission
of papers to the printed workshop proceedings will be 27 June 2003. 

Important dates:

Submission Deadline - 10 May 2003
Notification to Authors - 16 June 2003
Final Camera-Ready Submission and Early Registration - Until 27 June 2003
Late Registration - After 27 June 2003 

Contact information:
Hanne Albrechtsen, Workshop Chair
Centre for Cognitive Systems Engineering
Department of Systems Analysis
Risoe National Laboratory
DK-4000 Roskilde Denmark
e-mail: hanne.albrechtsen at risoe.dk