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Call for Participation for a
Workshop and Minitrack on "Persistent Conversation"
Part of the Digital Documents Track of the
Thirty-third Annual Hawai'i International Conference on
Systems Sciences (HICSS)
Maui, Hawai'i, January 4-7, 2000.
At-a-Glance
- What: Minitrack and Workshop on 'Persistent Conversation' (e.g.
email, MUDs, IRC, etc.)
- Who: Designers and researchers from CMC, HCI, the social sciences,
the humanities, etc.
- Dates: Abstract submission - April 1; Paper submission - June
1;
- Chairs: Thomas Erickson and Susan Herring
Details
Persistent Conversation: Definition
This minitrack and workshop will explore persistent conversation, the
transposition of ordinarily ephemeral conversation into the potentially
persistent digital medium. The phenomena of interest include conversations
carried out using email, mailing lists, news groups, bulletin board systems,
textual and graphic MUDs, chat clients, structured conversation systems,
document annotation systems, etc. The persistence of such conversations
as computerized records, although variable in duration and ease of user
access, gives them the potential to be searched, browsed, replayed, annotated,
visualized, restructured, and recontextualized, thus opening the door to
a variety of new uses and practices.
Participants
The aim of the minitrack is to bring together researchers who analyze
existing computer-mediated conversational practices and sites, with designers
who propose, implement, or deploy new types of conversational systems. By
bringing together participants from such diverse areas as anthropology,
computer-mediated communication, HCI, interaction design, linguistics, psychology,
rhetoric, sociology, and the like, we hope that the work of each may inform
the others, suggesting new questions, methods, perspectives, and design
approaches relating to theme of persistent conversation.
Workshop
The minitrack will begin with a half day workshop on Tuesday afternoon.
The goal of the workshop is to provide a background for the sessions and
to set the stage for a dialog between researchers and designers that will
continue during the minitrack. The minitrack co-chairs will contribute the
bulk of the workshop content, one presenting a design example and the other
presenting a research approach to computer-mediated conversation, with these
two cases providing a common ground and starting point for the research-design
dialog.
Minitrack Papers
We are seeking papers that address issues such as the following:
- Understanding Practice. The burgeoning popularity of the internet (and
intranets) provides an opportunity to study and characterize new forms
of conversational practice. Questions of interest range from how various
features of conversations (e.g., turn-taking, topic organization, expression
of paralinguistic information) have adapted in response to the digital
medium, to new roles played by persistent conversation in domains such
as education, business, and entertainment.
- Analytical Tools. The effort to understand practice can benefit from
an array of analytical tools and methods. One goal of this mini-track is
to bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines, so as to gain
a fuller understanding of the kinds of insights different approaches can
reveal to analyzing persistent conversation.
- Design. Digital systems do not support conversation well: it is difficult
to converse with grace, clarity, depth and coherence over computer networks.
But this need not remain the case. To this end, we welcome analyses of
existing systems as well as designs for new systems which better support
conversation. Of equal interest are inquiries into how participants design
their own conversations within the digital medium -- that is, how they
make use of system features to create, structure, and regulate their discourse.
- Social Implications. In addition to suggesting intriguing new applications,
the persistence of digital conversation has beneficial social effects ranging
from making a community's discourse more accessible to non-native speakers,
to laying the foundations for mutual support and community in distributed
groups. At the same time, it also raises troubling issues of privacy, authenticity,
and authority. Authors are encouraged to reflect on the social implications
of their observations, analyses, and designs.
- Historical Parallels. From the constructed dialogs of Plato to the
epistolary exchanges of the eighteenth century literati, persistent conversation
is not without precedent. How might earlier practices help us understand
the new practices evolving in the digital medium? How might they help us
design new systems? What perspectives do they offer on the social impacts
(present and future) of persistent conversation?
Minitrack Chairs
- Thomas Erickson
- IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
- 3136 Irving Ave. S.
- Minneapolis MN 55409-2515 USA
- email: snowfall@acm.org
- tel: 612-823-3663
- fax: 612-823-1576
-
- Susan C. Herring
- Program in Linguistics
- University of Texas at Arlington
- Arlington, TX 76019 USA
- email: susan@ling.uta.edu
- tel: (817) 272-5234
- fax: (817) 272-2731
Deadlines
- April 1, 1999: Authors submit abstracts via email to Minitrack
Chairs for guidance and indication of appropriate content.
- June 1, 1999: Authors submit full papers to Minitrack Chairs.
- August 31, 1999: Minitrack Chair sends notice of accepted papers
to Authors.
- Oct. 1, 1999: Accepted manuscripts, camera-ready, sent to minitrack
chair; one author MUST register by this time.
- November 1, 1999: All other conference registrations must be
received. Acceptance of registrations after this date is subject to space
limitations.
Instructions for Paper Submission
1. For the Persistent Conversation minitrack you must submit six (6)
paper copies of the full paper to:
- Tom Erickson
- 3136 Irving Ave. S.
- Minneapolis MN 55408-2515
2. Do not submit the manuscript to more than one Minitrack Chair. Papers
should contain original material and not be previously published, or currently
submitted for consideration elsewhere.
3. Each paper must have a title page to include title of the paper, full
name of all authors, and complete addresses including affiliation(s), telephone
number(s), and e-mail address(es). Papers should be 22-26 double-spaced
pages, including diagrams.
4. The first page of the manuscript should include the title and a 300-word
abstract of the paper.
About HICSS
HICSS-33 consists of eight tracks:
- Collaboration Systems and Technology Track
- Digital Documents Track
- Emerging Technologies Track
- Information Technology in Health Care Track
- Internet and the Digital Economy
- Modeling Technologies and Intelligent Systems
- Organizational Systems and Technology Track
- Software Technology Track
For more information about these tracks and a list of minitracks each
consist of, please check the HICSS web page for full listing of the minitracks:
http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu
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