Pre-Conference Workshops
Four excellent pre-conference workshops are being offered during IR 11.0, all taking place on Wednesday, October 20. Details regarding content, costs, and participation are provided below.
- Ethics and Internet Research Commons: Building a sustainable future
- Evaluating Social Media
- Academic Career Development Workshop for Research Students and Early Career Academics
- Learning and Research in Second Life
All workshops are taking place at the main conference site, Chalmers University of Technology/Chalmers Student Union Building, Chalmersplatsen 1, 412 58 Gothenburg, Sweden, see map.
For participation, please contact the organizer of each workshop.
Workshop 1: Ethics and Internet Research Commons: Building a sustainable future
DESCRIPTION
This full-day workshop is designed to accomplish three goals: First, workshop leaders will present case studies to review key ethical challenges and identify important components of ethical decision making. Second, participants work with workshop leaders in small groups to brainstorm solutions to ethical challenges in their own projects. Third, members from the AOIR Ethics Committee will present and discuss the newly revised AOIR Ethics Guidelines.
This pre-conference workshop continues AOIR’s efforts to build and promote flexible and adaptive learning communities that engage in a dialogic evolution of ethical research practice. More specifically, this workshop will train individuals to be capable contributors in the Internet Research Ethics Commons, a National Science Foundation (US) sponsored online resource community that provides troubleshooting and advice for researchers who encounter ethical stumbling blocks in their projects. For more information, see internetresearchethics.org
ORGANIZERS
- Elizabeth Buchanan, Ph.D.
- Charles Ess, Ph.D.
- Annette Markham, Ph.D.
FEES & LOGISTICS
- Date: Wednesday, October 20, 2010.
- Time: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
- Location: Chalmers student union building, room TBA.
- Sponsored program, no cost to attendees.
- Attendance: minimum 10, maximum 40.
- Lunch and coffee included.
SUBMISSION & PARTICIPATION
There is no fee, as this is sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation, project number 0924604. To register, please email Project Assistant jjmauger@uwm.edu. Submissions should include a brief description of the individual’s research, its methodologies, and its specific ethical issues. Each participant will work in small groups with an IRE Commons leader to resolve pressing ethical dilemmas facing the researcher.
Preference will be given to those that submit their materials by 30 August 2010.
CONTACT
Elizabeth Buchanan, Director, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 414.229.3973.
elizabeth@internetresearchethics.org
Workshop 2: Academic Career Development Workshop for Research students and Early Career Academics
DESCRIPTION
For research students and early career academics, universities offer resources that help develop their research skills – for example, critical theory development, literature reviews, research methods, data analysis, writing skills, etc. However, building a successful career in academia poses a wide range of new challenges in addition to the pure academic craft of research. The resources and resilience one needs in order to shape an academic career path often appear ambiguous, particularly in the innately transformative field of Internet research. In response to feedback from AoIR members, this full-day workshop seeks to address this concern by offering a supportive and constructive environment to discuss career development related issues that are of specific interest to research students and early career academics.
The first half of the workshop is devoted to the process of transitioning into research student training and supervision. In the second half, we will look at issues of academic leadership. The workshop chairs, along with invited senior academic researchers, will share with the participants some of their off-the-record insights of their career development milestones and the related decisions that have shaped their career paths. The workshop chairs will act as facilitators and moderators who will encourage the participants to join the discussion and share their own views and experiences with the rest of the group. The goal is to establish a peer support atmosphere that bridges disciplinary, cultural, and regional differences in order to distill the common skills and capabilities that are necessary to identify and seize opportunities for shaping one’s own career trajectory in academia. The main topics of discussion for each session will be negotiated with the participants on the day. This is to make the workshop as relevant and practical to the participants as possible.
The following is the proposed activity plan:
09.00 – 12.00 Research training and supervision
- Building a track record
- On and offline communication and collaboration tools
- Mode of Thesis: Monograph / By Publications / Exegesis
- New ways of building and communicating knowledge
12.00 – 13.00 Lunch
13.00 – 17.00 Academic leadership
- Identifying significant research trends and building momentum and engagement
- Building and managing a multidisciplinary research team
- Social media tools for research and stakeholder relationship management
- Recruiting research partner organisations and liaising with external stakeholders
- Project management and research budget accounting
- Human resources: recruitment, performance planning, and review
- Research-teaching nexus
- Promotion and tenure
The final selection of the invited senior academics is to be confirmed.
ORGANIZERS
Associate Professor Marcus Foth is Principal Research Fellow with the Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia, and founder and team leader of the Urban Informatics Research Lab. He received a QUT Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowship (2009-2011), and a Smart Futures Fellowship from the Queensland State Government (2009-2011), co-sponsored by National ICT Australia (NICTA). He was awarded the inaugural Australian Business Foundation Research Fellowship on Innovation and Cultural Industries 2010 sponsored by the Aurora Foundation. He was an ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellow (2006-2008), and a 2007 Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK. Dr Foth’s research explores human-computer interaction design and development at the intersection of people, place and technology with a focus on urban informatics, locative media and mobile applications. The high quality of his research work has attracted over $1.7M in national competitive grants and industry funding since 2006. Dr Foth has published over 70 articles in journals, edited books, and conference proceedings. He is the editor of the Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics (2009), and is currently co-editing the book “From Social Butterfly to Engaged Citizen” for MIT Press (2011). He was on the AoIR Executive Committee between 2007 and 2009. He is the conference chair of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies 2011 in Brisbane.
Dr Jaz Hee-jeong Choi is an ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellow (Industry) at the Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. Her research interests are in playful technology, particularly the ways in which various forms of playful interaction are designed, developed, and integrated in different cultural contexts. In her recently completed doctoral research, she developed a new conceptual approach to urban sustainability that recognises ‘play’ as the core of transformative interactions in cities as ubiquitous technosocial networks. Her current research explores designing and developing playful ubiquitous technologies to cultivate sustainable food culture in urban environments. She has collaborated with leading international researchers and published across various disciplines, which as been a fun journey, but she is looking forward to even more – or some would say, ‘the real’ – fun to come.
FEES & LOGISTICS
- Date: Wednesday, October 20, 2010.
- Time: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
- Location: Chalmers student union building, room TBA.
- Fee: 330 SEK (~35 EUR).
- Lunch and coffee included.
SUBMISSION & PARTICIPATION
The number of participants in this workshop is limited to 25. If you are interested in attending, please send an email to both workshop organisers with a single PDF file that contains:
- Your name,
- Affiliation,
- 200 word biography,
- 200 word statement expressing your career aspirations, and what you hope to get out of your participation in this workshop.
CONTACT
Associate Professor Marcus Foth
Email: m.foth@qut.edu.au
Web: www.urbaninformatics.net
Dr. Jaz Hee-jeong Choi
Email: h.choi@qut.edu.au
Web: www.nicemustard.com
Workshop 3: Evaluating Social Media
DESCRIPTION
Using social media for both work and leisure with different technical tools in an often changing context has become an everyday activity today. The goal of this workshop is to discuss and further develop current knowledge on evaluating social media.
The focus is on the role of the individual in the group s/he belongs to. We start with presenting case studies and recent research results on use of social media. Based on usability evaluation methods we discuss assessing user experiences for certain usage contexts and user practices. We also cover research on social consequences of choosing, using, or adjusting social media for a given user group profile.
Studies of user group behavior regarding interaction with social media have been generally conducted based on examining an individual and her/his interaction patterns. Little is known about the basic mechanisms of user groups and their driving forces. A deeper understanding of these mechanisms is important for defining better design and user support, and also in order to understand the consequences of certain usage patterns.
This workshop aims to bring together researchers from academia and industry, as well as designers working within HCI, media studies, psychology, communication studies, computer science or cognitive science. We will discuss requirements and usage of social media in order to identify new research ideas and methods for assessing it.
ORGANIZERS
- Associate Professor Ilona Heldal
- Lars Bråthe Ph.D.
FEES & LOGISTICS
- Date: Wednesday, October 20, 2010.
- Time: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
- Location: Chalmers student union building, room TBA.
- Fee: 330 SEK (~35 EUR).
- Lunch and coffee included.
SUBMISSION & PARTICIPATION
Submit a 2 – 3 page research or position paper about your interest in developing, evaluating or assessing social media. Both theoretical and practical papers are encouraged. The papers will be reviewed and selected based on their relevance to the workshop.
Email your paper, in Word or PDF to ilona.heldal@chalmers.se with the subject line “IR 2010 Evaluating Social Media” by September 1, 2010. The authors will be notified by September 10th, 2010. Upon acceptance, some of participants will be asked to present their ideas at the workshop. Workshop results will be summarized on the Website and published in a suitable form.
Workshop participants must register for at least one day of the IR 2010 conference as well as the workshop.
CONTACT
Corresponding organizer: Ilona Heldal, ilona.heldal@chalmers.se
Workshop 4: Learning and Research in Second Life
DESCRIPTION
The 4th annual workshop on Learning and Research in Second Life aims to improve the understanding of Second Life as a Learning and Research environment by inviting researchers and educators to share experiences, discuss and develop research and education in and about Second Life and virtual worlds. This year the workshop invites discussion on the aspects of the main conference topics of sustainability, participation and action in addition to other current issues of research and education in Second Life. The workshop will consist of networking, group work and short keynote presentations.
ORGANIZERS
- Kim Holmberg (Åbo Akademi University, Finland) Ph.D. (Kim Zwiers in SL)
- Isto Huvila (Uppsala University, Sweden and AVO-project at Åbo Akademi University, Finland) Ph.D. (Ab Marvin in SL)
- Professor Terry Beaubois (Montana State University, US) Director, Creative Research Lab (Tab Scott in SL)
FEES & LOGISTICS
- Date: Wednesday, October 20, 2010.
- Time: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
- Location: Chalmers student union building, room TBA and in Second Life.
- Fee: 330 SEK (~35 EUR) for onsite participation.
- Lunch and coffee included.
SUBMISSION & PARTICIPATION
To apply to the workshop, you are expected to send your CV and a short Letter of interest (1 page) describing your interest and experience in Second Life and virtual worlds, and topic(s) and/or questions you would especially like to discuss during the workshop. Indicate clearly in your application whether you intend to participate in Gothenburg or via Second Life. Submissions are open from this date onwards and should be sent as soon as possible by email to isto.huvila(a)abm.uu.se. Invitations will be sent to selected applicants starting from 15 August, 2010. The final deadline for applications is September 15, 2010 or when 35 invitations have been sent.
Applicants from organizations that require an accepted refereed paper to participate in the workshop, may submit a full paper that will be formally peer-reviewed on request.
Submissions are encouraged from professionals, faculty and graduates.
CONTACT
Isto Huvila, isto.huvila(a)abm.uu.se or by IM (Ab Marvin) in SL.
