18.717 conferences

From: Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk> Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 09:02:35 +0100 · This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Tue Apr 19 2005 - 04:27:35 EDT

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When Content Is No Longer King: Social Networking, Community, and
Collaboration
David Reed explains that in the early stages of a network's formation
and growth, that "content is king," that there are a "a small number of
sources (publishers or makers) of content that every user selects from"
(qtd in Rheingold Smart Mobs 61). As the network scales, "group-forming
networks" occur, and the value of the network increases exponentially in
relationship of the number of users, otherwise known as Reed's Law,
privileging the social interaction over content.
We can see this change in network valuation in today's Internet. The
increased valuing of social interaction in large scale networks is
reflected in the new technologies that place emphasis on social
communication and community over content. These technologies, often
dubbed "social software" are applications that, as Clay Shirky explains,
"support group interaction."
We invite proposals from scholars, graduate students and others who have
an interest in computers and writing and social interactions and are
working on projects in gestation, in progress, near completion, or at
any stage in between, whether a thesis or dissertation, article, book
project, or just want to preview and fine-tune your conference
presentation for Computers and Writing Conference hosted by Stanford
University. This is a unique opportunity for extended discussion of your
ideas before heading to Palo Alto. Conference organizers are
particularly interested in presentations that address, but are not
limited to, the following concerns:
--Internet "social software" technologies such as blogs, wikis, RSS,
social networks (orkut and friendster), and social bookmarking
(del.icio.us).
--Mobile technologies such as wi-fi and smart phones.
--More traditional social, community communication spaces of email,
discussion forums, newsgroups, listservs, and MOO's.
As an acknowledgment of the value of social networks in creating
discourse of and about scholarly work, CWOnline 2005 will follow a
submission process using weblogs whereby participants will submit
abstract proposals for public review and feedback within the Kairosnews
site. Final versions of presentations will be made available online on
Kairosnews (http://kairosnews.org).
Interested presenters should present a 150-250 word abstract by midnight
April 30. Abstracts must be submitted to CW Online 2005 at
http://kairosnews.org/cwonline05/home. Not only will presentations
receive feedback from conference organizers, but presenters are
encouraged to invite colleagues to provide feedback and to expect
feedback from people who are responding out of the goodness of their
hearts. Presenters are expected to respond to the feedback provided by
organizers and "informal" reviewers as a condition of being accepted as
presenters. Final presentations should either be posted to the CW Online
blog space, or a link to the presentation should be posted in the blog
with a brief explanation of what the materials covers.
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 08:55:41 +0100
         From: Maja van der Velden <maja_at_xs4all.nl>
         Subject: Incommunicado 05 - Amsterdam 15-17 June
Hi,
This is a call for contributions and presentations - and of course
participation!
Incommunicado
(<http://www.incommunicado.info>http://www.incommunicado.info) is a network
that focuses on the spread, reappropriation, and reinvention of ICT across
the so-called 'Global South', exploring the shift toward south-south
alliances and a new global info-politics.
The first Incommunicado event will take place in Amsterdam on June (15)
16-17. There are several ways you can participate:
- you can attend the meeting
- present your work or case study (in a workshop or in the Open Session)
and/or
- contribute to one of the publications (see call below).
Please find information on the programme, participants, venue, etc. at the
conference website:
<http://www.incommunicado.info/conference>http://www.incommunicado.info/conference
If you have any questions on the call below, don't hesitate to contact me.
Greetings, Maja
P.S. Even if you can't attend, you can still contribute to the publications!
Incommunicado 05:
Call for Contributions to Publications and Open Sessions
Date: June 15 (Public Event), June 16-17 (Working Conference)
Location: De Balie, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Organization: Institute of Network Cultures (INC), Waag Society, Sarai.
Concept: Geert Lovink & Soenke Zehle
For your submissions, or more information on program, participants, and
registration, contact the INC.
This is a call for contributions for TWO publications, a pre-conference
reader with short texts (ca. 2,000 words) to be published in June 2005 and
a post-conference publication with longer texts (up to ca. 5,000 words) to
be presented in cooperation with HIVOS at the WSIS PrepCom3 in September 2005.
Deliberately broad, the call intends to encourage contributions that
critically engage the overarching conference theme of accountability and
representation in an emerging global info-politics. For detailed
descriptions of specific issue areas, see below. On all topics listed, we
welcome case studies and original research as well as analysis and commentary.
Please email complete submissions to  (pre-conference essays by May 30
2005, post-conference essays by July 15). We also encourage participants
interested in presenting case studies etc. in one of the open sessions to
contact the INC to register specifically for such a session (see online
conference program for details).
Incommunicado 05: From Info-Development to Info-Politics
Incommunicado 05 is a two-day working conference that will attempt to offer
a critical survey of the current state of 'info-development', most recently
known by its catchy acronym 'ICT4D'. Not too long ago, most computer
networks and ICT expertise were located in the North, and info-development
seemed to be a rather technical matter of knowledge and technology transfer
from North to South. While still popular, the assumption of a 'digital
divide' that follows this familiar cartography of development has turned
out to be too simple. Instead, a more complex map of actors, networked in a
global info-politics, is emerging.
Different actors continue to promote different - and competing - visions of
'info-development'. States with emerging info-economies like Brazil, China,
and India form south-south alliances that challenge our sense of what
'development' is all about. New grassroot efforts are calling into question
the entire regime of intellectual property rights (IPR) and access
restrictions on which commercial info-development is based. Commons- or
open-source-oriented organizations across the world are more likely to
receive support from southern than from northern states, and these
coalitions are already challenging northern states on their self-serving
commitment to IPR and their dominance of key info-political organizations.
Actors no longer follow the simple schema of state, market, or civil
society, but engage in cross-sectoral alliances. Following the crisis of
older top-down approaches to development, corporations and aid donors are
increasingly bypassing states and international agencies to work directly
with smaller non-governmental actors. While national and international
development agencies now have to defend their activity against their
neoliberal critics, info-NGOs participating in public-private partnerships
and info-capitalist ventures suddenly find themselves in the midst of a
heated controversy over their new role as junior partner of states and
corporations.
Long considered a marginal policy field dominated by technology experts,
info-development is embroiled in a full-fledged info-politics, negotiated
in terms of corporate accountability, state transformation, and the role of
an international civil society in the creation of a new world information
order.
NGOs in Info-Development
We have become used to thinking of NGOs as 'natural' development actors.
But their presence is itself indicative of a fundamental transformation of
an originally state-centered development regime, and their growing
influence raises difficult issues regarding their relationship to state and
corporate actors, but also regarding their self-perception as
representatives of civic and grassroots interests. Why should they sit at a
table with governments and international agencies, and who is marginalized
by such a (multistakeholder) dynamic of 'inclusion' dominated by NGOs?
After WSIS: Exploring Multistakeholderism
For some, the 2003-5 UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is
just another moment in an ongoing series of inter-governmental jamborees,
glamorizing disciplinary visions of global ICT governance to distract from
other info-political struggles. For others, WSIS revives
'tricontinentalist' hopes for a New International Information and
Communication Order whose emphasis on 'civil society actors' may even
signal the transformation of a system of inter-governmental organizations.
Either way, WSIS continues to encourage the articulation of agendas,
positions, and stakes in a new politics of communication and information.
Following the effort to actively involve civil society actors in WSIS
activities, the idea of an emergent 'multistakeholderism' is already
considered one of the key WSIS outcomes, yet many are sobered by what
appears to be the consensualist minimalism of incorporating critical
positions in ever more encompassing final statements and action plans.
Info-Corporations at the United Nations
The controversial agreement between Microsoft and the UNDP, issued at a
time when open source software is emerging as serious non-proprietary
alternative within ICT4D, is just one in a series of public-private
partnerships (PPP) between corporations and the UN. As the UN reaches out
to Cisco, HP, or Microsoft, many argue that these cooperations are simply
an expansion of the PPP approach to international organizations, and should
be assessed on their respective terms. Others suggest, however, that these
developments are indicative of a much more fundamental transformation of
the UN and its member organizations, and point to the sobering outcome of
the almost-no-strings-attached Global Compact, widely criticized as
multilateral collusion in corporate 'bluewashing', the Cardoso Panel on
UN-Civil Society Relations and its controversial definition of civil
society, or the ongoing controversy over a new set of international
standards for corporate accountability.
WIPO and the Friends of Development
As the international info-economy has come to revolve around intellectual
property rights, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has
asserted its status as a key player in matters of info-development.
Overseeing the implementation of international IPR regulations, the
little-known agency has been calling for an expansion of the dominant IPR
regime and generally supports euro-american strategies of bypassing
multilateral negotiations through an aggressive 'TRIPS-Plus' bilateralism.
But recently, the agency has been targeted by a global campaign, lead by a
group of southern states, to change its limited agenda.
Aid & Info-Development after 9-11
What is the status of aid in the promotion of ICT4D, and how have ICT4D
actors responded to the politicization and securitization of aid, including
the sale of security and surveillance technologies in the name of
info-development? To what extent does info-development overlap with new
info-infrastructures in the field of humanitarian aid (ICT4Peace)? Are
global trade justice campaigns a response to classic development schemes?
ICT4D and the Critique of Development
The critique of development and its institutional arrangements - of its
conceptual apparatus as well as the economic and social policies
implemented in its name - has always been both a theoretical project and
the agenda of a multitude of 'subaltern' social movements. Yet much work in
ICT4D shows little awareness of or interest in the history of such
development critique.
Instead, techno-determinist perspectives have become hegemonic, and even
many activists believe that ICT will lead to progress and eventually
contribute to poverty reduction. Have development scepticism and the
multiplicity of alternative visions it created simply been forgotten? Or
have they been actively muted to disconnect current struggles in the area
of communication and information from this history, adding legitimacy to
new strategies of 'pre-emptive' development that are based on an
ever-closer alliance between the politics of aid, development, and security?
Are analyses based on the assumption that the internet and its promise of
connectivity are 'inherently good' already transcending existing power
analyses of global media and communication structures? How can we reflect
on the booming ICT-for-Development industry beyond best practice suggestions?
New Axes of Info-Capitalism
We are witnessing a shift from in the techno-cultural development of the
web, from an essentially post-industrialist euro-american affair to a more
complexly mapped post-third-worldist network, where new south-south
alliances are already upsetting our commonsensical definitions of
info-development. Examples include the surprising extent to which a
'multilateral' version of internet governance has been able to muster
support, the 'tropicalization' (Gilberto Gil) of open source approaches,
and new alliances on the politics of ipr (WIPO Development Agenda).
Info-development, that is, has ceased to be a matter of technology transfer
and has become a major terrain for the renegotiation of some of the
faultlines of geopolitical conflict - with a new set of actors. While the
question remains whether such a 'tricontinentalist' shift really affects
established dependencies on 'northern' donors, it's certainly time for a
first assessment of the agenda and impact of some of the new players and
their alliances.
FLOSS in ICT4D
Pushed by a growing transnational coalition of NGOs and a few allies inside
the multilateral system, open source software has moved from margin to
center in ICT4D visions of peer-to-peer networks and open knowledge
initiatives. But while OSS and its apparent promise of an alternative
non-proprietary concept of collaborative creation continues to have much
counter-cultural cachet, its idiom can easily be used to support the
'liberalization' of telco markets and cuts in educational subsidies. What
is the current status of OSS as idiom and infrastructural alternative
within ICT4D?
Accountability and the Critique of Representation
The decade-long controversy inside the 'NGO community' on issues of
accountabilty is also affecting actors in ICT4D. The singularity of network
environments and the particular brand of info-politics it has facilitated
suggest, however, that common approaches to 'accountability' cannot simply
be transferred into the context of the post-representative politics of
network(ed) cultures. So beyond embracing stakeholder consultation and
participation, what is ICT4D's original contribution to one of the core
concepts in the renewal of development as a project?
The New Info-Politics of Rights
After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the bilateral order, the
discourse of human rights has become an important 'placeholder' for agendas
of social change and transformation that are no longer articulated in
'third worldist' or 'tricontinentalist' terms. In the field of
communication and information, major NGOs and their network 'campaigns'
have also decided to approach WSIS-related issues by calling for 'new
rights', paralleling other trends toward a juridification of info-politics
more generally.
Nuts and Bolts of Internet Governance
One of the few areas where WSIS is likely to produce concrete results is
internet governance (IG). The IG controversy revolves around the limits of
the current regime of root server control (ICANN/US) and possible
alternatives, but it is also significant because it signals the
repoliticization of a key domain of a technocratic internet culture that
long considered itself to be above the fray of ordinary info-politics.
Media & Migration
Some of the organizations active in the WSIS process lost their
accreditation because participants used their visa to say goodby to Africa.
Widely reported, the anecdote suggests that media and migration form a
nexus that is nevertheless rarely explored in the context of ICT4D.
_______________________________________________
Catac mailing list
Catac_at_philo.at
http://philo.at/mailman/listinfo/catac
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 08:56:40 +0100
         From: "Ray Siemens" <siemensr_at_MALA.BC.CA>
         Subject: CFP: Renaissance Studies and New Technologies 3/06
CFP: Renaissance Studies and New Technologies (RSA, San Francisco, 23-25
March 2006)
For the past five years, the RSA program has featured a number of sessions
that document innovative ways in which computing technology is being
incorporated into the scholarly activity of our community. At the 2006 RSA
meeting (San Francisco, March 23-25), several sessions will continue to
follow this interest across several key projects, through a number of
thematic touchstones, and in several emerging areas.
For these sessions, we seek proposals in the following general areas, and
beyond:
      a) new technology and research (individual or group projects)
      b) new technology and teaching (individual or group projects)
      c) new technology and publication (e.g. from the vantage point
         of authors, traditional and non-traditional publishers)
Proposals for workshop presentations or papers which focus on these issues
and others are welcome. Please send proposals before May 15 to
siemens_at_uvic.ca.
     Ray Siemens
        English, CRC Humanities Computing, University of Victoria
        and
     William R. Bowen
        Director, CRRS, University of Toronto
__________
R.G. Siemens
English, University of Victoria, PO Box 3070 STN CSC,
       Victoria, BC, Canada. V8W 3W1
Phone: (250) 721-7272 Fax: (250) 721-6498
<mailto:siemens@uvic.ca>siemens@uvic.ca     http://web.uvic.ca/~siemens/
--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 08:57:36 +0100
         From: Yoad Winter <winter_at_cs.Technion.AC.IL>
         Subject: ISCOL-2005 deadline is April 30
***      ISCOL-2005 CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS       ***
***                                              ***
*** Israeli Seminar on Computational Linguistics ***
***             Wednesday, 22 June 2005          ***
***             Technion, Haifa, Israel          ***
***                                              ***
***   Deadline for submissions: 30 April 2005   ***
***                                              ***
***  http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~bagilad/iscol ***
***                                              ***
****************************************************
****************************************************
The next Israeli Seminar on Computational Linguistics will take place at
the Technion on Wednesday, June 22, 2005. The invited speaker will be
Khalil Sima'an (ILLC, Amsterdam University).
This time ISCOL will be in conjunction with the annual meeting of the
Israel Association for Theoretical Linguistics (IATL). We hope
that this will create a special opportunity for theoretical and
computational linguists to exchange ideas and learn about each other's work.
ISCOL this year will include a special session on morphological
analysis and disambiguation of Semitic languages, especially Hebrew
and Arabic.
[...]
--[5]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 08:58:28 +0100
         From: Sofia Pinto <sofia_at_vinci.inesc-id.pt>
         Subject: CFP: BAOSW - Building and Applying Ontologies for the
Semantic Web
Building and Applying Ontologies for the Semantic Web
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D
December 2005
Covilh=E3 =AD Portugal
http://baosw.epia05.di.ubi.pt
held in conjunction with
12th Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence
sponsored by APPIA, the Portuguese Association of AI
http://epia05.di.ubi.pt
Ontologies promise a shared and common understanding of a domain that can be
communicated between people and application systems. Therefore, they have
emerged as an important research area since the 1990=92s. Ontologies are=
  used for
different purposes (natural language processing, e-commerce, e-learning,
knowledge management, semantic web, information retrieval, etc) by different
research communities (knowledge engineering, database, software engineering,
etc).
The emergence of the Semantic Web has marked another stage in the evolution=
  of
the ontology field. According to Berners-Lee, the Semantic Web is an=
  extension
of the current Web in which information is given well-defined meaning,=
  better
enabling computers and people to work in cooperation. This cooperation can=
  be
achieved by using shared knowledge-components. Therefore ontologies have=
  become
a key instrument in developing the Semantic Web. They interweave human
understanding of symbols with their machine processability.
This workshop addresses the problems of building and applying ontologies in=
  the
Semantic Web and other areas listed below, as well as the theoretical and
practical challenges arising from these applications. We invite=
  contributions
to enhance the state-of-the-art of creating, managing and using ontologies.
Topics of Interest:
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
Ontology Engineering:
=95 methodologies
=95 capture and learning
=95 evaluation
=95 management
=95 evolution
=95 ontology learning
Semantic Interoperability
=95 composition and modularity
=95 combining, merging, mapping and alignment
=95 translating and transforming
=95 ontology language interoperability
Ontologies for Information Sharing
=95 ontology-based Information integration
=95 mediators and brokers
=95 agents and ontologies
Ontology Applications
=95 semantic web
=95 knowledge management
=95 e-commerce, e-government, e-learning and e-science
=95 information retrieval
=95 p2p networks
=95 web services
=95 annotation
[...]=20