C&T 2015: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies
The Seventh International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T 2015), hosted by the University of Limerick, Ireland, took place between 27 and 30 June 2015. This biennial meeting serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating research on the complex connections between communities --- both physical and virtual --- and information and communication technologies. This seventh edition of the conference aimed to provide a stronger link with community activists, in particular with the work being done and published in the field of 'Community Informatics'. Therefore, the conference was co-sponsored by the Journal of Community Informatics (http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej) aiming to revitalize the academic discussion in a way that also makes the academic discourse more relevant for practice and to widen the base of relevant case studies. At the same time, this collaboration aimed to strengthen the reflection and discussion on these practice-based cases.
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- Conference PaperUrban ageing: technology, agency and community in smarter cities for older people(Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, 2015) Righi, Valeria; Sayago, Sergio; Blat, JosepDespite the widespread popularity of smart cities in policy and research fields, and the ever-increasing ageing population in urban areas, ageing issues have seldom been addressed in depth in smart city programs. The main focus has hitherto been on making physical environments 'older people friendly'. We review studies in environmental gerontology, policies and HCI that show the multifaceted relationship between ageing and cities. We discuss two case studies with scenarios of engagement of older people in urban areas we undertook in the past 4 years. By drawing upon the results, we propose a vision of smart city that conceives of older people as embedded in intergenerational urban communities and capable of creating new engagement situations by reconfiguring IT-driven scenarios to their interests and social practices. This paper aims at expanding the current visions of smart cities for older people by building along three main dimensions: technology, agency and community.
- Conference PaperGrowing food in the city: design ideations for urban residential gardeners(Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, 2015) Lyle, Peter; Hee-jeong Choi, Jaz; Foth, MarcusUrban agriculture refers to the production of food in urban and peri-urban spaces. It can contribute positively to health and food security of a city, while also reducing 'food miles.' It takes on many forms, from the large and organised community garden, to the small and discrete backyard or balcony. This study focuses on small-scale food production in the form of residential gardening for home or personal use. We explore opportunities to support people's engagement in urban agriculture via human-computer interaction design. This research presents the findings and HCI design insights from our study of residential gardeners in Brisbane, Australia. By exploring their understanding of gardening practice with a human-centred design approach, we present six key themes, highlighting opportunities and challenges relating to available time and space; the process of learning and experimentation; and the role of existing online platforms to support gardening practice. Finally we discuss the overarching theme of shared knowledge, and how HCI could improve community engagement and gardening practice.
- Conference PaperVote as you go: blending interfaces for community engagement into the urban space(Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, 2015) Hespanhol, Luke; Tomitsch, Martin; McArthur, Ian; Fredericks, Joel; Schroeter, Ronald; Foth, MarcusThis paper presents a series of studies on situated interfaces for community engagement. Firstly, we identify five recurring design challenges as well as four common strategies used to overcome them. We then assess the effectiveness of these strategies through field studies with public polling interfaces. We developed two very different polling interfaces in the form of (1) a web application running on an iPad mounted on a stand, allowing one vote at a time, and (2) a playful full-body interaction application for a large urban screen allowing concurrent participation. We deployed both interfaces in an urban precinct with high pedestrian traffic and equipped with a large urban screen. Analysing discoverability and learnability of each scenario, we derive insights regarding effective ways of blending community engagement interfaces into the built environment, while attracting the attention of passers-by and communicating the results of civic participation.
- Conference PaperReducing "white elephant" ICT4D projects: a community-researcher engagement(Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, 2015) Winschiers-Theophilus, Heike; Zaman, Tariq; Yeo, AlvinParticipation is a key requirement to ensure that ICT4D and HCI4D projects succeed. Specifically, the relationship between the research and community is necessary for any ICT4D project; without this cooperation, the proverbial white elephant project will result. Existing literature provides much evidence on the need and importance of this participation. However, many researchers lack the skills and knowledge to be able to build, develop and maintain the relationship, as many interactions are based on assumptions. We investigate challenges and frustrations as expressed by a community with whom we have established a long term collaboration. This provides further evidence on the need to guide and educate novice researchers working with the community. We have conducted a workshop to raise the awareness among guest researchers. The workshop comprises a series of presentations, discussions and reflections. We have recorded guest researchers' responses within the workshop to evaluate further needs for researcher-community interaction preparations. A workshop is yet only one of the gatekeepers' obligations to protect the community. We equally promote continuous engagement with the community itself in the design of critical incidents based on established cultural protocols as well as preparing the community for the novice researchers to maximize research benefits to the community. We discuss potential roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders, partner community, gatekeepers and guest researchers aiming to sustain a coherent research and development collaboration.
- Conference PaperDo we speak the same language?: design goals and culture clashes in an online forum for young people(Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, 2015) Martinviita, Annamari; Kuure, Leena; Luoma, PenttiThis is a case study exploring the social scene created on a newly-developed online service for increasing the study motivation of 16--18-year-old students in vocational education in Finland. The developers wished to motivate participation by the addition of a communal chat space to engender a sense of community on the site. The analysis shows that the students appropriated the communal chat space for uses in line with their prior experience of online interaction, while the developers had based their design on a very different experience. However, the developers were able to respond flexibly to encourage interaction rather than limiting topics of conversation to those desired in the original design. As a result, the communal page could be seen to fulfil some of the expectations of the developers in unexpected ways. The case offers learning points for developers and administrators who wish to create online social spaces with a particular aim.
- Conference PaperAnonymous Quorans are still Quorans, just anonymous(Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, 2015) Paskuda, Malte; Lewkowicz, MyriamThis article presents a study that investigates how anonymity influences user participation in an online question-and-answer platform (Quora). The study is one step in identifying hypotheses that can be used to address a research and design issue concerning the role of anonymity in online participation, particularly among older informal caregivers. We present here a model that describes the factors that influence participation, which we based on the literature. These factors were used when analyzing the answers to questions in the health category on Quora. The results of this study complement an earlier study that we conducted on YouTube comments. On Quora, there was only one significant difference between anonymous and non-anonymous answers: with anonymous answers, social appreciation correlated with the answer's length.
- Text DocumentConnected sustainability: connecting sustainability-driven, grass-roots communities through technology(Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, 2015) Pantidi, Nadia; Ferreira, Jennifer; Balestrini, Mara; Perry, Mark; Marshall, Paul; McCarthy, JohnRecently, global economic turmoil has led to the rise of many grass-roots movements and communities that share a strong sustainability agenda and the desire for political, economic and societal change in the world. Digital technologies play a role in supporting these growing communities in achieving their goals, maintaining and extending their practices and connections. This marks a new area of research for HCI, that of Connected Sustainability. In this workshop, we seek to understand the values and practices of such communities; the role of digital technologies in shaping and sustaining identity and community action; and existing challenges and opportunities.
- Conference PaperExploring the mechanisms behind the assessment of usefulness of restaurant reviews(Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, 2015) López, Claudia; Farzan, RostaLocal online reviews such as Yelp have become large repositories of information, thus making it difficult for readers to find the most useful content. Our work investigates the factors that influence the readers' judgment of usefulness of restaurant reviews. We focus on assessing the mechanism behind the users' assessment of usefulness of reviews, particularly with respect to reviews provided by reviewers with local knowledge. We collected 160 manual annotations of 36 unique restaurant reviews and we interviewed ten participants. Our results show that users are able to detect reviews written by knowledgeable locals, and they perceive reviews provided by locals more useful not because they provide more valuable content but because local knowledge results in higher trust. We discuss design implications of these findings for helping readers to overcome information overload in local systems.
- Conference PaperParticipation in design between public sector and local communities(Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, 2015) Bødker, Susanne; Zander, Pär-OlaThis paper discusses three cases where design was carried out at the intersection between public sector and citizen communities. Based on three dominant traditions meeting there--public (municipal) decision-making, Web 2.0 and participatory design--we identify challenges and solutions regarding participation and engagement of municipal workers and citizens. While this intersection is exactly where a new form of democratic participation could develop, the three traditions were, nonetheless, far from easily combined in the specific cases. The challenges that we have identified are to: Identify win-win situations, rather than to maximize participation; to work with motivation for long-term projects across municipality and communities; to identify and work with early movers, and not just representative citizens; and to create space for local municipal agencies to develop bottom-up technological solutions. The multiplicity of co-existing traditions of involvement need more focus in the future development of participatory design.
- Conference PaperCultural heritage communities: technologies and challenges(Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, 2015) Ciolfi, Luigina; Damala, Areti; Hornecker, Eva; Lechner, Monika; Maye, Laura; Petrelli, DanielaThis workshop will explore the role of technology supporting and mediating cultural heritage practices for both professional communities (cultural heritage professionals, heritage institutions, etc.) and civic communities (citizen-led heritage initiatives, heritage volunteers, personal and community identified heritage, heritage crowdsourcing, etc.). The workshop - which aims to attract participants from heritage studies and practice, community engagement, digital humanities and human-centred computing - will discuss challenges and future opportunities for technology use and for design and participatory processes in the context of various heritage communities, and the role of different stakeholders in engaging with heritage in a technologically-mediated way.