[ ARCHIVE ] International Workshop on Community Informatics (COMINF'06)

Nov 2 - Nov 3, 2006
Montpellier, France

Proceedings will be published by Springer LNCS 


BACKGROUND

Community Informatics, also known as community networking, electronic community networking, community-based technologies or community technology refers to an emerging set of principles and practices concerned with the use of Information and Communications Technologies for personal, social, cultural or economic development within communities, for enabling the achievement of collaboratively determined community goals, and for invigorating and empowering communities in relation to their larger social, economic, cultural and political environments.

As an academic discipline Community Informatics can be seen as a field of practice in applied Information and Communications Technology (ICT). It brings together the practices of community development and organization, and insights from fields such as sociology, planning, development studies, women's studies, library and information sciences, management information systems, and management sciences. Its outcomes -- community networks and community-based ICT-enabled service applications -- are of increasing interest to grassroots organizations, NGOs and civil society, governments, the private sector, and multi-lateral agencies, among others. Self-organized community initiatives of all varieties, from different countries, are concerned with ways to harness ICTs for social capital, poverty alleviation and for the empowerment of the "local" in relation to its larger economic, political and social environments. Collaborative communities help bridge organizational boundaries, ensuring more effective and efficient forms of collaboration in and between stakeholders from business, government, education, and civil society.

ICTs play a key role in enabling many types of virtual or hybrid communities. The resulting socio-technical systems, however, are very complex and continuously evolving. The intricate interactions between community requirements and their enabling technologies, however, are still ill understood. In particular, there is a huge gap between those who understand the complexities of community requirements and dynamics, and the information technologists who can build the technologies and systems that can catalyze and enable communities into more effective action.


GOALS AND TOPICS

We want to gather researchers and practitioners interested in the modeling and analysis of community requirements, the design and implementation of community based ICTs and community information systems, and the evaluation of these technologies in order to determine their effective use.

Topics of interest to this workshop include, but are not limited to:

  • Community requirements modeling and analysis
  • Enabling technologies (weblogs, discussion fora, portals, &)
  • Social computing
  • Collaborative working environments
  • Community ontologies
  • Community context modeling and meaning negotiation
  • Community IS development methodologies
  • Evaluation methods
  • Pragmatic Web
  • Mobile computing and local development
  • ICT4D (ICT for Development)
  • Community Planning and Community Technology
  • Locally significant broadband applications


ORGANISATION COMMITTEE

Aldo de Moor
STARLab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Belgium
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Michael Gurstein
Community Informatics Research Network
Canada
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it


PROGRAM COMMITTEE:

Mark Aakhus - Rutgers University, USA
Mark Ackerman - University of Michigan, USA
Anjo Anjewierden - University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Michael Bieber - New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
Andy Bytheway - Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa
Stijn Christiaens, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Tanguy Coenen - Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Fiorella De Cindio - University of Milan, Italy
Peter Day - University of Brighton, UK
Dan Dixon - Headshift, UK
Lilia Efimova - Telematica Instituut, The Netherlands
Hamid Ekbia - University of Redlands, USA
Marcus Foth - Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Mark Gaved - The Open University, UK
Tom Horan - Claremont Graduate University, USA
Driss Ketani - Alakhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco
Rolf Kleef - Drostan.org, The Netherlands
Ulrike Lechner - Universität der Bundeswehr, Germany
Peter Mambrey - Fraunhofer FIT, Germany
Dave Newman - Queens University Belfast, UK
Jack Park - SRI International, USA
Larry Stillman - Monash University, Australia
Beverly Trayner - Escola Superior de Ciências Empresariais, IPS Setúbal, Portugal
Bartel Van de Walle - Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Brian Whitworth - Massey University, New Zealand