Association of Internet Researchers
 

Abstract Deadline: February 1, 2007

This conference, which uses Open Conference Systems developed by the Public Knowledge Project, enables participants to submit abstracts online at http://conferences.aoir.org/submit.php?cf=6.

Presentations can include:

Call for Papers Announcement

LET'S PLAY!

We call for papers, panel proposals, and resentations from any discipline, methodology, and community, and from conjunctions of multiple disciplines, methodologies and communities, that address the (playful) blurring of boundaries online. The following TOPICS are suggestions simply intended to spark initial reflection and creativity:

- Mundanity implies normalcy, and thereby, the efforts to understand and regulate online interactions in ways that are analogous to and consistent with offline practices and norms (e.g., privacy protection, norms for community interaction, efforts to regulate information flows involving pornography, hate speech, etc.). As internet/s become interwoven with ordinary life on multiple levels, in what ways do these alter ordinary life, and/or how do prevailing community and cultural practices reshape and "tame"
such internet/s and the interactions they facilitate?

- Global diffusion: how do internet/s, as they exponentially diffuse throughout the globe facilitate flows of information, capital, labor, immigration ­ and play ­ and what are the implications of these new flows
for life offline?

- eLearning: how can such practices as distance learning and serious games utilize the liminal domain (the threshold world of dream and myth, in which important new skills, insights, and abilities are gained in the process of growing up) to go beyond traditional ways of learning? Are they necessarily better, or easier, to use or to learn from?

- Identity, community, and global communications: how will processes of identity play and development continue, and/or change as the role and place of the Internet in peoples lives shift in new ways ­ including the expansion of mobile access to internet/s?

- E-health: what do new developments in sharing medical information online and expanding telemedicine technologies into new domains imply for
traditional physician-centered medicine, patient privacy, etc.?

- Digital art: from downloading commercially-offered ringtones to facilitating cross-cultural / cross-disciplinary collaborations in the creation of art, internet/s expand familiar aesthetic experiences and open up new possibilities for aesthetic creativity: how are traditional understandings of aesthetic experience affected and how do new creative / aesthetic / playful possibilities affect human "users" of art?

- Games and gaming: the average gamer in North America is now a twenty-something whose lifestyle is more mainstream than adolescent. As games and gamers "grow up" ­ and as games continue their diffusion into new demographic categories while they simultaneously continue to push the envelopes of Internet and computer technologies what can we discern of new possibilities for identity play, community building, and so forth?

Sessions at the conference will be established that specifically address the conference theme, and we welcome innovative, exciting, and unexpected takes on that theme. We also welcome submissions on topics that address social, cultural, political, economic, and/or aesthetic aspects of the Internet
beyond the conference theme - e.g., in CSCW and other forms of online collaboration, distance learning, etc. In all cases, we welcome disciplinary and interdisciplinary submissions as well as international collaborations from both AoIR and non-AoIR members.

SUBMISSIONS

We seek proposals for several different kinds of contributions. We welcome proposals for traditional academic conference papers, but we also encourage proposals for creative or aesthetic presentations that are distinct from a traditional written "paper."

We also welcome proposals for roundtable sessions that will focus on discussion and interaction among conference delegates, as well as organized panel proposals that present a coherent group of papers on a single theme.

- PAPERS (individual or multi-author) - submit abstract of 500-750 words

- CREATIVE OR AESTHETIC PRESENTATIONS - submit abstract of 500-750 words

- PANELS - submit a 500-750 word description of the panel theme, plus 250-500 word abstract for each paper or presentation

- ROUNDTABLE PROPOSALS - submit a statement indicating the nature of the roundtable discussion and interaction

Papers, presentations and panels will be selected from the submitted proposals on the basis of multiple blind peer review, coordinated and overseen by the Program Chair. Each individual is invited to submit a proposal for 1 paper or 1 presentation. A person may also propose a panel session, which may include a second paper that they are presenting OR submit a roundtable proposal. You may be listed as co-author on additional papers as long as you are not presenting them.

Detailed information about submission and review is available at the conference submission website http://conferences.aoir.org [available December 1, 2006]. All proposals must be submitted electronically through this site.

PUBLICATION OF PAPERS

Several publishing opportunities are expected to be available through journals, based on peer-review of full papers. The website will contain more details.

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Graduate students are strongly encouraged to submit proposals. Any student paper is eligible for consideration for the AoIR graduate student award. Students wishing to be a candidate for the Student Award must send a final paper by June 30, 2007.

PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS

Prior to the conference, there will be a limited number of pre-conference workshops which will provide participants with in-depth, hands-on and/or creative opportunities. We invite proposals for these pre-conference workshops. Local presenters are encouraged to propose workshops that will invite visiting researchers into their labs or studios or locales. Proposals should be no more than 1000 words, and should clearly outline the purpose, methodology, structure, costs, equipment and minimal attendance required, as well as explaining its relevance to the conference as a whole. Proposals will be accepted if they demonstrate that the workshop will add significantly to the overall program in terms of thematic depth, hands on experience, or local opportunities for scholarly or artistic connections. These proposals and all inquires regarding pre-conference proposals should be submitted as soon as possible to the Conference Chair and no later than March 31, 2007.

DEADLINES

Submission site available: December 1, 2006
Proposal submission deadline: February 1, 2007
Presenter notification: March 31, 2007
Final workshop submission deadline: March 31, 2007
Submission for student award competition: June 30, 2007
Submission for conference archive: July 31, 2007

SUBMISSION OF FULL PAPERS

Full papers and a conference registration by at least one of the paper authors must be in place by July 31, 2007 for papers to be presented.

Formatting: Please submit papers in PDF with simple formatting, using sans serif font and in-text referencing. If you can't submit in PDF, use DOC or RTF format.

Submission process: Submit full papers to aoir2007@gmail.com by July 31, 2007.