Month: October 2021

19th Annual CIRN Conference: 8-12 November 2021

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CIRN

Registration is open for the 19th Annual Community Informatics Research Network Conference, “Communities, Technology and This Moment“: 8-12 November 2021 co-sponsored by Monash University and Simmons University.

REGISTRATION
Please see the registration information: https://sites.google.com/view/cirn2021/programs-and-registration?authuser=0

PROGRAM
Browse the virtual conference program at https://www.conftool.net/prato2021/sessions.php.  Note that all times are in UTC/GMT.

The theme of the 2021 conference, “Communities, Technology and this moment” aims to bring together the rich knowledge, experience, and practice of Community Informatics, Community Archives, and Development Informatics with a focus on data justice, digital equity, and community informatics response to this moment in history.  The 2021 CIRN conference will provide a  virtual space to explore how researchers and practitioners ethically collect information, including what happens when community information is intentionally left uncollected, and how information systems can be designed in harmony with communities.

CIRN is an annual conference that normally takes place in the wonderful atmosphere at Monash University’s campus in Prato, Italy.  This year it is online because of pandemic restrictions. It is  focused on sharing lessons, learning together, and developing strategies to build more inclusive, just, and equitable communities. CIRN welcomes researchers and practitioners working towards human and civil rights, self-determination, sustainable development, and social justice to submit a proposal to this year’s CIRN conference.The conference call is now closed Follow the links above on submitting a paper or proposal, costs, and other matters.

Speakers Announced for ASIS&T Research Symposium

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The Planning Committee for The 17th Annual Social Informatics Research Symposium and the 3rd Annual Information Ethics and Policy Workshop: Sociotechnical Perspectives on Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (SIG-SI and SIG-IEP) are excited to share the speakers and schedule for the joint SIG-SI and SIG-IEP Workshop on Sociotechnical Perspectives on Equity, Inclusion, and Justice on Friday, October 29th, 2021 from 8:00am-12:00 MDT.

Our speakers will discuss research related to policy, training, AI and diversity and inequality. In this half-day workshop, a range of scholarly sociotechnical inquiries alongside ethical, practical, and policy perspectives across a range of disciplines and sectors will be presented and discussed. The workshop will provide a virtual space to share and exchange experiences and ideas or suggest theories and directions for future work among international SI researchers and practitioners. This workshop will facilitate collaboratively producing short- and long-term research agendas, addressing pressing critical and diversity concerns around technology, sharing research that supports empirically driven policy making, ethical decision-making, and practice for social justice and well-being with pervasive and emerging sociotechnical systems.

The speakers and topics are as follows:

  • Tien-I Tsai and Hui-Yun Sung. Towards an Inclusive and Sustainable Knowledge Society for Everyone: Development of a National Policy for Public Libraries in Taiwan. (virtual)
  • Nga Than, Abhishek Gupta, and Ameen Jauhar. Critical Analysis of “Responsible AI #AIforAll: Approach Document for India” (virtual)
  • Sundaraparipurnan Narayanan. Game based training as a model for skill enhancement in bias mitigation efforts. (virtual)
  • Dania Bilal and Jessica Barfield. Increasing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Design and Use of Voice Digital Assistants. (virtual)
  • Lindsay Poirier. Grappling with the Representational Inequities in NYC 311 Data. (virtual)
  • Lala Hajibayova. In Search for Cuteness: Interactive Discovery and Play in Times of Pandemic. (virtual)
  • Hengyi Fu and Yao Lyu. How People Experience Facial Recognition in an Organizational Setting: An Organizational Justice Perspective. (virtual)
  • Elliott Hauser. Action in light of information: What robots can teach us about algorithms. (in-person)

Additional registration fee applies. All of the workshop descriptions can be found on the ASIS&T Annual Meeting website. To register for this workshop, whether attending online or in-person, you can visit Registration and Workshop Rates. If you have not already done so, please register for the Annual Meeting here: https://www.asist.org/am21/registration/.

We look forward to seeing you there!

New Article in Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning

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Meghan Doran (Simmons Community Engagement), Sarah Arena (Harvard University), and I have a new article in the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning. The paper is titled “Perspectives of Community Partner Organizations in the Development of Ethical Service-Learning Guidelines” and it was published in a special issue on “Centering Social Justice in the Scholarship of Community Engagement,” co-edited by Tania D. Mitchell and Tabbye Chavous.

Here is the abstract

This research brings the voices of community partner organizations into the discussion of ethical obligations of university and student partners in community-based learning. We used a framework for service-learning ethics developed by Wendler (2012), which brings The Belmont Report (1979) on research ethics together with decolonizing, feminist, and participatory action research frameworks, to guide our interviews with staff members of community organizations about their experiences and beliefs about the ethical obligations of faculty and students partnering with service-learning courses. We found that the community organization perspective deepened our understanding of the categories elaborated in the Wendler framework (i.e., respect, reflexivity, beneficence, and justice) and situated them in relationship to one another as context, process, and outcome. Based on these findings, we introduce a relational approach to service-learning ethics that centers social justice, and we offer seven key principles to reflect the perspectives of community partners in our ethical practice.

The full paper for download can be accessed freely online from the journal’s website.