[Siguse-l] IT&Society Journal: Special Issue on Web Navigation Skills (CFC)

[Melody Ivory]

Dear Colleagues,

The IT&Society Journal will publish a special issue on web navigation skills
in December 2002. Please help us to distribute this call for contributions.
We apologize for any cross-postings.

Melody Y. Ivory
Assistant Professor, Information School 
University of Washington

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Call for Contributions

IT&Society: An Online Journal 
http://itandsociety.org/

Special Issue Number 3: Web Navigation Skills
Planned release: December 20, 2002

Guest Editors:  Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland;
    Jonathan Lazar, Towson University;  Melody Ivory, University of
Washington

    We invite you to contribute your current research findings on user
issues in web navigation to the third issue of the online journal
IT&Society.  This journal's central mission is to study, analyze, and
recommend ways to improve the societal benefits of modern information and
communications technologies.

    This special issue we focuses on use of the World Wide Web.  We
anticipate studies showing successes or failures of diverse demographic
groups in accomplishing common tasks.  Papers that report experimental
results, research reviews, case studies, and theoretical frameworks are
welcome. We seek short summary reports (1000-2000 words) as well as longer
original research reports (up to 6000 words and 10 figures), with proper
references and links.  We anticipate publishing a total of 12-15 papers.
Broad themes for the Special Issue include: finding information on personal
health, family needs, community resources, job training, shopping,
professional purposes; sensemaking from sources for national politics,
international news; following threaded discussions in online communities,
understanding knowledge sources for health support, wayfinding in distance
education courses.

Some possible topics:
   - Information architectures and different structures for effective
navigation
   - Layout, color, and map design issues in navigation
   - Search engine design to support navigation
   - Digital Divide issues, accessibility and navigation
   - Navigational support in browsers
   - Navigation for special user populations: mature adults, low motivation
users, or poor readers
   - User alienation and frustration from disorientation
   - Navigational issues for intranets and extranets
   - Navigation in e-commerce and e-government services
   - Navigation of online help/tutorials,
   - Server log file analysis to understand user navigation patterns
   - Clickstream data analysis and visualization methods

Timeline:  
  September 30, 2002 - Submissions due   
  October 30, 2002   - Notification
  November 30, 2002  - Revised papers due  
  December 20, 2002  - Papers available on the web

Submission format:  Please post papers in HTML format and send the URL to
Jonathan Lazar at  jlazar at towson.edu  or send the paper as MS-Word or RTF
format to Jonathan Lazar. 

Reviewing: Each submitter agrees to review three other submissions and
provide comments by  October 24.  Editors will decide which papers are
accepted, and request  revisions to be made by November 30.  Further
revisions may be requested, with the goal of releasing the issue on December
20, 2002.

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Melody Y. Ivory                       
Assistant Professor, The Information School              
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering

University of Washington
Box 352840
330C Mary Gates Hall
Seattle, WA 98195-2840
ph:    206-616-6110
fax:   206-616-3152
email: myivory at u.washington.edu