February 2009 - change - Mailing Lists

CFP at ICTD: What Makes Good ICTD Research?
by Yaw Anokwa 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

Call for Participation Workshop at ICTD2009 Friday 17 April 2009 ICTD2009 will be the third conference to highlight rigorous, scholarly research in ICTD. Yet, many feel that the question of what constitutes good ICTD research is still unclear.* *In this workshop, we aim to raise and explore some of the questions around what makes good ICTD research. For example, - How do we incorporate multiple disciplines without sacrificing quality and sound methodology? - Are there universal critieria by which the quality of ICTD research can be judged? - What kind of paper-review process and criteria makes sense? - How much 'development' evaluation needs to go into technology research, and how much 'technology' evaluation needs to go into development research? - How should the conference engage with policy-making? - What voices are missing from the current ICTD community? These questions are an ongoing discussion among researchers from all walks of the ICTD world, and yet it is rare that they are brought up in formal dialogue. Examining these questions will help define what makes ICTD research unique and create a stronger sense of community among ICTD researchers. We cannot hope to answer these questions in any definitive way in a half-day workshop, but we will raise new and old opportunities and challenges. Opening up these critical areas of debate will inform the ICTD advisory and program committees, editors of ICTD-related journals, and authors of ICTD papers. *Intended Audience:* This workshop is intended for ICTD program committee members, ICTD paper authors and potential authors, researchers, students, and others who are interested in questions of what makes for good ICTD research. *Format:* This half-day workshop will consist of a short panel by individuals from various communities within ICTD followed by a series of small and large group discussions. Moderators will provide context and materials surrounding existing areas of debate in ICTD research ? for example, underrepresented topics, paper-review criteria, good methodology, and incorporation of multiple disciplines. Participants will then be encouraged to raise, discuss, and prioritize their own questions surrounding 'what makes good ICTD research'. * * *Outcomes: *A written summary of our discussions as well as any recommendations will be provided to all participants and submitted to the ICTD advisory board. We also hope this discussion will be a catalyst for discussion in other ICTD venues, and invite participants to help disseminate our discussions in other forums as well. * * *Learning goals* - To foster a more nuanced discussion of what constitutes quality ICTD research - To work towards a common understanding of ICTD among research communities with diverse standards and methodologies - To discuss possible criteria by which ICTD publications across various disciplines can be compared - To explore future ideas for the ICTD research community *Participation:* To participate, please email a statement of interest copied to Rowena Luk (rowena(a)amitatelemedicine.org) and David Hollow ( D.M.Hollow(a)rhul.ac.uk) Please include your name, affiliation, a very short biography, and a brief description of your interest in the workshop. Note that this information may be circulated in advance to other participants in order to facilitate small group discussions. Please email your interest as soon as possible because participation will be capped at a first-come-first-selected basis to 40 participants to ensure a manageable and insightful conversation. *Important Dates: * Submission of statements: 15 March 2009 Notification of acceptance: 30 March 2009 Workshop: 1:30 pm -5:00 pm 17 April 2009 *Cost: *Workshop attendance is free for ICTD2009 conference attendees. Attendees however have to be registered for ICTD2009 to attend the workshop, or apply for a waiver. *Attendee Sponsorships*: There are very limited sponsorships and waivers for workshop participants. If you need these, you have to apply directly through the website at: http://www.ictd2009.org/scholarships.html Note -- the deadline is Feb 25, enforced strictly. *Organisers / Presenters: *David Hollow, Royal Holloway University of London Heather Horst, University of California, Irvine Renee Kuriyan, Intel Research Rowena Luk, AMITA Telemedicine Inc. Balaji Parthasarathy, International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore Isha Ray, University of California, Berkeley Jo Tacchi, Queensland University of Technology Rahul Tongia, Carnegie Mellon University Kentaro Toyama, Microsoft Research India John Traxler, University of Wolverhampton

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CSE 590f Seminar - special time and place
by Richard Anderson 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

This week's seminar will be replaced by the CIS Speaker Series - Wednesday, February 18th, 3-4 pm, MGH 420. ________________________________ [cid:image001.jpg@01C9854C.D180AED0] SPEAKER SERIES DIGITAL STUDYHALL: VIDEO BASED INSTRUCTION IN RURAL INDIA WHAT: CIS is hosting a monthly Speaker Series which will include a presentation by a UW researcher (faculty/staff/student) accompanied by two panel members from varying disciplines. WHERE: Mary Gates Hall Rm. 420 WHEN: February 18th, 2008 3-4pm LECTURER: Richard Anderson – Computer Science Department TITLE: Digital StudyHall: Video Based Instruction in Rural India ABSTRACT: Digital StudyHall is an education project in Lucknow, India that aims to link together strong urban schools with poor rural schools through facilitated video instruction. Lessons are video recorded in the urban schools, and then shown in rural schools by classroom teachers. A key component of the instruction is that the classroom teachers will stop the video for classroom activities. The Digital StudyHall project is about three years old and has been replicated at a number of sites in India and Bangladesh. To date, the evaluation studies of Digital StudyHall have been limited – looking at results of a small number of schools without adequate controls. In this talk, Richard will first give background on the Digital StudyHall project, and then describe a research study that they are starting with twelve schools in Lucknow which have not previously been involved with the project. The goal is to assess educational outcomes of the teaching methodology and also to gain a deeper understanding of deployment costs and issues. Additional information about Digital StudyHall is available at dsh.cs.washington.edu. PANEL MEMBERS: Mike Eisenberg (Information School) and Steve Kerr (College of Education) Box 354985 Seattle, WA 98195 Tel 206.616.9101 Fax 206.616.5149 cisinfo(a)u.washington.edu<mailto:cisinfo@u.washington.edu> www.cis.washington.edu<http://www.cis.washington.edu>

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Fwd: [gshci4d] Young Researchers Workshop at ICTD 2009
by Yaw Anokwa 13 Feb '09

13 Feb '09

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jahanzeb Sherwani <jahanzeb(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 17:25 Subject: [gshci4d] Young Researchers Workshop at ICTD 2009 To: gshci4d(a)googlegroups.com Hello all, It gives me great pleasure to announce the Young Researchers Workshop at ICTD 2009, that's co-organized by Matt Kam, Divya, Tapan and myself, along with another group, IPID/SPIDER. The main idea behind the workshop is to get people talking -- the agenda of what will be discussed is going to jointly be decided by participants, and we're aiming to make it really participatory by getting a discussion going online well before the actual workshop. The spirit of the workshop is to create a space where people like us can talk to each other, get to know each others' work, and potentially build collaborations (just like gshcid) that live on well beyond the workshop. The workshop is being co-organized by us and by this other group (IPID/SPIDER), they're managing the morning session where participants will introduce their work, and we'll then have open-ended discussions in the afternoon. The program is attached and contains all the details. If you're super lazy, the main info you need to know is: Send a short position paper to yrictd(a)gmail.com (anywhere between 1-4 pages) describing your ICTD research experience, and what you think the big challenges in ICTD research are. Hurry, slots are limited -- don't put this off till too much later, just jot your thoughts down and send them on in. I also wanted to mention that Rowena's co-organizing a workshop on evaluation, and it looks quite awesome too. So even though I want all of you to attend the Young Researchers workshop, do check out Ro's workshop. I'm sure she'll be sending an email soon. I've also pasted the invite in plaintext below. Please forward this to your networks. Really, do forward it! :) Thanks! J Call for Papers and Participation "Young" Researchers' Workshop at ICTD2009 Friday 17 April 2009 in conjunction with the 3rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD2009) 17 – 19 April 2009, Doha, Qatar, http://www.ictd2009.org IPID (the International Network for Postgraduate Students in the area of ICT4D) together with GSHCID (Graduate Students in Human-Computer Interaction and Development) are organising a workshop for "young" researchers to be held on Friday 17 April 2009 8:30am – 5:00pm at Carnegie-Mellon's campus in Doha, Qatar. Focus: The focus will be on the process of ICT4D research giving the participants an opportunity to discuss and reflect on various aspects of such research. Program: The workshop aims to provide an informal forum where participants can share their research experiences, initial findings and ideas in a supportive peer-environment. The area of ICT4D includes a wide range of fields of studies. By attending the workshop participants can share and reflect on their research findings as well as on their own experiences in ICT4D research. Format: Participants will be asked to read everyone's position papers in advance, to maximize face-time at the workshop. The morning session will include presentations of short papers of between 5-10 minutes followed by feedback from both the participants and invited senior academic researchers. The afternoon session of the workshop will revolve around small breakout group discussions, structured around themes to be decided with participants via email prior to the workshop, followed by a closing discussion among all attendees. Intended Audience: The workshop will be open to all "young" researchers in the area of ICTD/ICT4D. We use "young" broadly to reflect the vibrancy of ICTD as a new discipline, in which we strive to create an inclusive workshop atmosphere where all researchers – whether they are students, recent Ph.D. graduates or even senior researchers with a track record in other fields – who view themselves as "young-at-heart" researchers congregate to learn from one another about how to do research in the nascent field of ICTD. Space is limited and will be allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis. The morning session will be more generally across ICTD topics, the afternoon session will have a greater focus, though not restricted to HCI issues. Submissions: If you're interested in attending, submit a short position paper (no longer than 4 pages) describing your prior ICTD research experience and your views on the challenges of ICTD research, and mail it in PDF format to yrictd(a)gmail.com by March 1st for review. Important Dates: Submission of short papers: 1 March 2009 Notification of acceptance: 15 March 2009 Workshop: 17 April 2009 Cost: Workshop attendance is free for ICTD2009 conference attendees. Attendees however have to be registered for ICTD2009 to attend the workshop, or apply for a waiver. Attendee Sponsorships: There are very limited sponsorships and waivers for workshop participants. If you need these, you have to apply directly through the website at: http://www.ictd2009.org/scholarships.html (the deadline is Feb 25). Organisers: IPID has 320 members representing 224 universities in 77 countries and is sponsored by SPIDER, the Swedish Program for Information and Communication Technology in Developing Regions. Behind the program stands Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology. For further information about IPID: http://www.humanit.org/PID/ For further information about SPIDER: http://www.spidercenter.org/ GSHCID was formed by participants at the HCID workshop at CHI '08. It is a virtual group, with biweekly discussions held via teleconference, with participants from North America, Africa and Asia. In each meeting, one person leads the discussion, covering either their work-in-progress research, or presenting research papers or thoughts on issues in ICTD/HCID. Recently, the group has begun inviting ICTD experts to present and discuss their work with the group. To join GSHCID, email gshci4d(a)googlegroups.com Contact / Organizing chairs Morning Session (IPID): Gudrun Wicander, IPID coordinator, Karlstad University, Sweden Annika Andersson, PhD candidate, Örebro University, Sweden, Mathias Hatakka, PhD candidate, Örebro University, Sweden, Afternoon Session (GSHCID): Jahanzeb Sherwani, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Matt Kam, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Divya Ramachandran, Univ of California, Berkeley, USA Tapan Parikh, Univ of California, Berkeley, USA

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FW: my research group: please circulate to anyone you think may be interested
by Gaetano Borriello 13 Feb '09

13 Feb '09

________________________________ From: Beth Kolko [mailto:bkolko@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, February 13, 2009 12:59 PM Course number: TC 596 or TC 496 credits 2-3 Digital Games Research Group The Digital Games Research Group brings together people who are interested in games, gaming, interaction, community, underserved populations, and mobile devices. Our goal for the next several quarters will be to (a) research how games provide implicit and explicit messaging through play, (b) how to repurpose or redesign that messaging to further social impact goals, and, (c) testing and deploying games on mobile platforms in international and domestic contexts. Our primary goal will be to develop and deploy at least two games that help further the goals of international and community development projects. The mobile platform is the most likely development environment, but we can also explore other alternatives, including web-based games and alternative reality games. Students with gaming experience, design experience, and mobile development experience are all encouraged to join the group. In addition, we welcome students interested in international and/or community development. contact Beth Kolko at bkolko(a)u.washington.edu<mailto:bkolko@u.washington.edu> for more information

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Bonderman Travel Fellowship Deadline Reminder - February 16
by Yaw Anokwa 12 Feb '09

12 Feb '09

great opportunity for uw grad students! ------------------------ The 2009 Bonderman Travel Fellowship application deadline is rapidly approaching this Monday, February 16, at 11:59pm. All application materials must be submitted online by this time to the Catalyst dropbox noted on the application form. This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to receive $20,000 to travel the world. Please see our website for further information, including a link to the application materials: http://www.grad.washington.edu/fellow/Bonderman_page.htm Please feel free to contact me at 3-1070 or helene(a)u.washington.edu with any questions. Best regards, Helene Obradovich Director, Fellowships & Awards The Graduate School

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change events are now on gcal
by Yaw Anokwa 10 Feb '09

10 Feb '09

change has a calender of events that you can subscribe to on gcal, ical, outlook or thunderbird. rss: http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/uwchange%40gmail.com/public/basic ical: http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/uwchange%40gmail.com/public/basic.ics html: http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=uwchange%40gmail.com&ctz=America/L… now you'll have no excuse to miss all the great talks at 590f this quarter. yaw

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Change Event in 2 weeks!
by Natalie Linnell 09 Feb '09

09 Feb '09

Change is a group of faculty, students, and staff at the University of Washington who are exploring the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in improving the lives of underserved populations, especially in the developing world. We will be hosting a poster session with light refreshments on Thursday, February 26 from 5:00-7:00 PM in the atrium of the Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering. In addition to helping network those interested in this field, the event will also kick off a speaker series on ICTs in Development that will start March 5. Contact Natalie Linnell (linnell(a)cs.washington.edu) if you are interested in presenting a poster of your work and please forward this announcement as appropriate. When: Thursday February 26, 5:00-7:00 PM Where: Atrium, Paul Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering http://www.washington.edu/home/maps/southcentral.html?CSE

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change t-shirt orders!
by Yaw Anokwa 09 Feb '09

09 Feb '09

to ramp up for our upcoming change events, gaetano has decided to subsidize t-shirts for all change members! we are going to order dark gray american apparel shirts with the change logo and web address in white. you can see a mock up at http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/yanokwa/tmp/change-shirt.jpg. the shirts cost $5 and ordering will close on monday 02/06 at midnight. use http://www.doodle.com/participation.html?pollId=fyquzfuikbfruex7 to place your order and keep in mind that american apparel shirts fit differently than regular hanes shirts. yaw

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uwchange is now on twitter
by Yaw Anokwa 08 Feb '09

08 Feb '09

if you use twitter, make sure to follow http://twitter.com/uwchange to get tweets about events as well as ictd content on the web. yaw

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Talk Announcement, February 11
by Richard Anderson 05 Feb '09

05 Feb '09

Building a Grassroots Transportation Information System CSE 590f seminar Wednesday, Feb 11, 4:00 pm, CSE 403 Building a Grassroots Transportation Information System Beth Kolko UW, Dept. of Human Centered Design and Engineering Ruth Anderson UW, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering In this presentation we will discuss the development of a transportation information system designed to make the sharing of transportation resources more efficient and effective. The system is built on GPS and SMS technologies, and it bridges the gap when there are no public facilities or agencies managing public transportation resources in a city or country. The prototype of the system (*bus) was developed for deployment in Kyrgyzstan. Our talk will describe (a) a longitudinal ethnographic study in Kyrgyzstan that demonstrated the importance of transportation resources in the developing world and how to plan for an appropriate ICT solution, and (b) present the results of a proof-of-concept system engineered to create a bottom-up, transportation information infrastructure using GPS and SMS. Transportation is a shared resource; enabling efficient and effective use of such resources aids overall development goals. The system, *bus, involved creating a hardware device (a *box) containing a GSM modem and a GPS unit, that can be taken onto a vehicle to track its location. The *box communicates via SMS with a server connected to a simple GSM phone. The server runs route prediction algorithms and users can send SMS messages to the server to find when a bus will arrive at their location. We will discuss the system and early testing, as well as the development implications for a range of urban and rural environments where transportation is scarce or inefficient, and where a central authority or institution is not in a position to provide robust information resources for users. We describe how the solution is also situated within technology usage patterns common to the developing world.

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