Wednesday 12 October 2011

TDC (Transdisciplinary Common Room)

Soft Launch w/c 12th December 2011. Date to be announced.

Location 

The Common Room is in the former GP surgery in Fletcher Quad.
The Transdisciplinary Common Room provides a relaxed and congenial space for transdisciplinary conversations. Every day from 12pm-2pm there will be drop-in Brown Bag Sessions when we might watch and discuss a short TED or RSA video together, or just talk about issues of interest. Bring your sandwiches and enjoy an informal but stimulating lunch break. There will also be occasional afternoon or evening workshops and seminars, but most of the time the Common Room will simply be open for members to meet, chat, work, read or plan projects.

Activities

This academic year 2011-12 we will:
  • · conduct an audit of transdisciplinary working at DMU
  • · create an active network of transdisciplinary researchers, their external collaborators, and other stake-holders
  • · offer a programme of events and activities, some organised in partnership with the RSA (Royal Society of Arts) and the LLEP (Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership).
  • We also aim to produce at least one peer-reviewed journal paper and to help colleagues generate transdisciplinary funding applications.
Membership
Membership is free and open to all DMU staff members and nominated post-graduate students. Use your keycard to access. Guest memberships are also currently free and available to nominated representatives of the RSA, the LLEP, and the guests of DMU staff.

Partners

The Common Room is supported by sponsorship from Sleepydog media company and HEIF and managed by the cross-faculty Transdisciplinary Group Committee. External partners are the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) and the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).
Stay informed
Contact

Tuesday 11 October 2011

IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE E-SOCIETY 2012

IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE E-SOCIETY 2012
March 10-13, 2012 – Berlin, Germany


Conference Background and Goals
The IADIS e-Society 2012 conference aims to address the main issues of concern within the Information Society. This conference covers both the technical as well as the non-technical aspects of the Information Society. Broad areas of interest are eSociety and Digital Divide,  eBusiness / eCommerce, eLearning, New Media and E-Society, Digital Services in eESociety, eGovernment /eGovernance, eHealth, Information Systems,  and Information Management. These broad areas are divided into more detailed areas (see below). However innovative contributes that don't fit into these areas will also be considered since they might be of benefit to conference attendees.
Format of the Conference
The conference will comprise of invited talks and oral presentations. The proceedings of the conference will be published in the form of a book and CD-ROM with ISBN, and will be available also in the IADIS Digital Library (online accessible). The best paper authors will be invited to publish extended versions of their papers in the IADIS Journal on WWW/Internet (ISSN: 1645-7641) and other selected Journals.
Types of submissions
Full and Short Papers, Reflection Papers, Posters/Demonstrations, Tutorials, Panels and Doctoral Consortium. All submissions are subject to a blind refereeing process.
Topics related to the Information Society are of interest. These include, but are not limited to the following areas and topics:
«« eSociety and Digital Divide »»
Connectivity may imply social coherence and integration. The opposite may result as well, when systematic measures are taken to exclude certain individuals or certain groups. Papers are welcomed on the next keywords:
• Social Integration
• Social Bookmarking
• Social Software
• E-Democracy
• Social Integration
«« eBusiness / eCommerce »»
May include issues relating to:
• Business Ontologies and Models
• Digital Goods and Services
• eBusiness Models
• eCommerce Application Fields
• eCommerce Economics
• eCommerce Services
• Electronic Service Delivery
• eMarketing
• Languages for Describing Goods and Services
• Online Auctions and Technologies
• Virtual Organisations and Teleworking
«« eLearning »»
May include issues relating to:
• Collaborative Learning
• Curriculum Content Design & Development
• Delivery Systems and Environments
• Educational Systems Design
. E-Citizenship and Inclusion
• eLearning Organisational Issues
• Evaluation and Assessment
. Political and Social Aspects   
• Virtual Learning Environments and Issues
• Web-based Learning Communities
«« New Media and E-Society »»
May include issues relating to:
• Digitization, heterogeneity and convergence
• Interactivity and virtuality
• Citizenship, regulation and heterarchy
• Innovation, identity and the global village syndrome
• Internet Cultures and new interpretations of “Space”
• Polity and the Digitally Suppressed
«« Digital Services in E-Society »»
May include issues relating to:
• Service Broadcasting
• Political Reporting
• Development of Digital Services
• Freedom of Expression
• E-Journalism
• Open Access
«« eGovernment /eGovernance »»
May include issues relating to:
• Accessibility
• Democracy and the Citizen
• Digital Economies
• Digital Regions
• eAdministration
• eGovernment Management
• eProcurement
• Global Trends
• National and International Economies
• Social Inclusion

«« eHealth »»
May include issues relating to:
• Data Security Issues
• eHealth Policy and Practice
• eHealthcare Strategies and Provision
• Legal Issues
• Medical Research Ethics
• Patient Privacy and Confidentiality
«« Information Systems »»
May include issues relating to:
• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
• Intelligent Agents
• Intelligent Systems
• IS Security Issues
• Mobile Applications
• Multimedia Applications
• Payment Systems
• Protocols and Standards
• Software Requirements and IS Architectures
• Storage Issues
• Strategies and Tendencies
• System Architectures
• Telework Technologies
• Ubiquitous Computing
• Virtual Reality
• Wireless Communications
«« Information Management »»
May include issues relating to:
• Computer-Mediated Communication
• Content Development
• Cyber law and Intellectual Property
• Data Mining
• ePublishing and Digital Libraries
• Human Computer Interaction
• Information Search and Retrieval
• Knowledge Management
• Policy Issues
• Privacy Issues
• Social and Organizational Aspects
• Virtual Communities
• XML and Other Extensible Languages
* Important Dates:
- Submission deadline: 28 October 2011
- Notification to Authors: 28 November 2011
- Final Camera-Ready Submission and Early Registration: Until 19 December 2011
- Late Registration: After 19 December 2011
- Conference: Berlin, Germany, 10 to 13 March 2012

Conference Location
The conference will be held in Berlin, Germany.
Secretariat
IADIS Secretariat - IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE E-SOCIETY 2012
Rua Sao Sebastiao da Pedreira, 100, 3
1050-209 Lisbon, Portugal

Program Committee
Program Chair
Piet Kommers, University of Twente, The Netherlands
Conference Chair
Pedro IsaĆ­as, Universidade Aberta (Portuguese Open University), Portugal
Committee Members:*
for committee list please refer to http://www.esociety-conf.org/committees.asp
Co-located events
Please also check the co-located events:
Information Systems 2012 (http://www.is-conf.org/) - 10-12 March 2012
Mobile Learning 2012 (http://www.mlearning-conf.org/) - 11-13 March 2012

* Registered participants in the e-Society conference may attend Information Systems and Mobile Learning conferences’ sessions free of charge.
 
 

Sunday 9 October 2011

Understanding Interdisciplinarity: Theory and Methods

Understanding Interdisciplinarity: Theory and Methods - 
An International Conference
June 12th to the 14th 2012
Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK.


Supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council funded interdisciplinary “Engineering For Life” (EFL) project at Sheffield Hallam University (http://research.shu.ac.uk/engineering-for-life/index.html). The EFL Programme has supported over 30 projects that link, Materials Science, Engineering, and Biosciences with Information Studies, Design and Arts.

The aim of the meeting is to bring together researchers that engaged in interdisciplinary projects and those researchers seeking to understand the processes that lead to successful cross-disciplinary collaborations.

The meeting will both showcase high quality research that has emerged from interdisciplinary collaborations and contributions from leading researchers on the theory and practice of interdisciplinary research. Active dialogue will be promoted between the two communities to create increased awareness and understanding of the processes in which they are mutually engaged.

From this understanding, it is hoped to elucidate more clearly the difficulties which are often experienced and the ways in which these can be overcome. Interdisciplinary research can potentially open up important and exciting new fields of research; the meeting aims to identify the approaches which will yield the greatest chance of success in such projects.
Interdisciplinarity, the combining of two or more fields of study or research in one project, activity, or a new discipline – has become a major approach to contemporary ‘grand challenges’. This is reflected in the academic discussion of the term – and related concepts of multidisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity – as well as the assertion that
interdisciplinarity is key to solving contemporary social, economic and environmental challenges.

What then are interdicipinarity, multidisciplinarity and trasndisciplinarity? How are they articulated in the practical actions of projects and in the discourses around them? How are such projects conceived, developed, managed and evaluated? What are the theoretical and practical challenges inherent to such joint working across disciplines? What are effective strategies for running interdisciplinary teams, projects and programmes?
The conference seeks papers which address the theory and methods that underpin interdisciplinary working and those which provide case studies of actual practices and outcomes from projects.

Closing date for abstracts for the conference is 31st of January 2012
Please email abstracts to Charlotte Lester (Engineering for Life Project Administrator) at charlotte.lester@shu.ac.uk

Thursday 6 October 2011

New Transdisciplinary Centre: The TDC

A new centre for DMU Transdisciplinary Group, funded by a successful HEIF bid and generous support from Sleepydog, is being established in the old surgery in the old Student Health Centre, Fletcher Quadrangle, between Fletcher Tower and Low Rise facing the Retail Lab. 

The centre will have a soft launch in early December and the DMU Transdisciplinary Group committee is working hard to get it furnished and ready for then. More news will follow as we progress the project. 

It is primarily intended as a hub for trans-disciplinary university staff and researchers and will host a number of activities including: A speaker programme, a workshop programme, screenings of TED/RSA films, wall wikis, coffee mornings and published drop-in times for participants.