e-Social Science 2007
October 7-9, Ann Arbour, Michigan, US

Call for position papers

Goals & Objectives

In recent years, the concept of the so-called “Social Web” has emerged that is similar to the World Wide Web but, instead of linking documents, links people, organizations, and concepts. It describes the collaborative effort of users to make sense of and provide context to the Internet.

The term Web2.0 has emerged, not as a new version of the internet, but as a new way of using it, facilitating collaboration and sharing between users. Web2.0 is associated with blogs and wikis where users can keep publicly available online diaries (a new medium for project diaries?) and volunteer contributions to online encyclopaedias such as Wikipedia. Social network sites such as MySpace allow users to create a profile listing their likes, dislikes and favourites (in music, videos, etc.). This stimulates the emergence of networks of friends and people with similar interests. Social tagging, where users tag resources with keywords coined by themselves, has been applied to photos, websites and academic papers, amongst others. The social bookmark and publication sharing systems BibSonomy and Connotea allow users to tag websites and publications and to share these tags with other members of the community. The tags can be used to search for resources that other people have tagged, thus providing a different (more effective and user-centric) way of searching the internet.

We invite position papers on the following topics:

1. The role Web2.0 technologies play in delivering enhanced e-social science tools. Bibsonomy and Connotea stimulate collaboration by enabling users to easily share interesting publications, websites etc. We wish to explore in which other ways Web2.0 technologies can be used to support e-social science.

2. The role of Web2.0 tools as social science research tools in their own right. How can wikis, blogs, etc. be used to gather information, as alternatives to the more classic methods of interviews and questionnaires?

3. Studies of Web2.0 environments and communities. Web2.0 communities are interesting phenomena in their own right; we are interested in studies into the social aspects of these phenomena.

Intended Participants

This workshop is intended for participants working or interested in the cross-over areas between e-social science and Web2.0 mentioned above.

Programme/Format

The workshop will comprise one keynote presentation, plus a series of short presentations on submitted position papers (20 mins duration) addressing one or more of the themes above. The event will conclude with a discussion/agenda-setting session.

Position papers (max. two A4 pages in length) should be sent to the workshop organisers by email to the following addresses: fhielkem@csd.abdn.ac.uk, achorley@csd.abdn.ac.uk.

Important Dates

August 27 Submission deadline
August 31 Notification
October 7 Workshop
Workshop Registration

Workshop participants must register for e-Social Science 2007 (http://ess.si.umich.edu/index.htm).

Organiser Biographies

o Peter Edwards is Director of the ESRC funded PolicyGrid NCeSS Node at the University of Aberdeen. He is a Computer Scientist with interests in the Semantic Grid and knowledge technologies, and has worked in the area of e-social science since 2004. He is working to integrate aspects of Web2.0 technology with the Grid to support community driven e-science.

o Alison Chorley is a postdoctoral research fellow working at the PolicyGrid Node. Her interests are in the area of flexible provenance management and argumentation support for e-social science.

o Feikje Hielkema is a research assistant on PolicyGrid, interested in the integration of natural language techniques with advanced Web technologies to enhance the e-social scientist’s user experience.

o Edoardo Pignotti is a graduate student funded by the Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability; previously he worked as a research assistant on the ESRC funded FearlusG e-social science project. He is interested in novel tools to support workflow in e-science.

Posted by prolurkr at August 19, 2007 10:56 AM

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