A relevant call for paper:

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work Journal Special Issue “Settings for Collaboration: The Role of Place”

Co-edited by Luigina Ciolfi, Geraldine Fitzpatrick and Liam Bannon

Background Existing Recent work in HCI, CSCW and –more recently- interaction design has begun to critically examine the concept of place, its meaning and the implications for design. Early work by Erickson (1993) and Harrison and Dourish (1996) suggested that place, is a more appropriate concept rather than space is the notion that for providing an appropriate suitable framework for understanding people’s interaction with their physical environment. More recently, a consideration of place has been introduced in studies of particular domains such as geographical technologies, collaborative systems and interactive environments. In particular, increasing attention is being paid to the notion of place as a useful conceptual tool when studying people’s interaction with ubiquitous computing environments, whereby computational power augments and enhances existing features of actual physical environments. Place provides a frame for understanding how people relate to complex environments that include technology, physical and material resources and especially other inhabitants.

A debate is emerging regarding different conceptual definitions of place and on their implications if introduced within the HCI, CSCW and interaction design areas, particularly in terms of methodological approaches. The meaning and implications of these different notions needs to be discussed and analysed, and especially when the notion of place is applied to understanding social and collaborative activities in a number of locales, from work environments, to public spaces,. This is even more so as new forms of collaboration are enabled through ubiquitous computing environments.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): * conceptual frameworks for understanding place * methodological approaches for studying interaction and communication in place * case studies describing the design and evaluation of spatially distributed and mobile technologies * case studies of human experience of place mediated by technologies

SUBMISSIONS Deadline for submissions: 31st January 2006 Notification of Acceptance: 15th April 2006

Please **email** your submission (in MS Word or Acrobat PDF format) to luigina.ciolfi@ul.ie

Why do I b blog this? it's my area of research, then I may submit something.