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Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:46:47 -0400
From: "Natalia Teixeira" <nat@iadis.org>

Submission Deadline: 9 October 2006

IADIS International Conference Web Based Communities 2007
February 18-20, 2007 – Salamanca, Spain

                             
Conference background and goals
 
The mission of this conference is to publish and integrate scientific results and act catalytically to the fast developing culture of web communities. The conference invites original papers, review papers, technical reports and case studies on WWW in particular the emerging role of so-called WWW-based Communities.
 
Domain: It is increasingly important for our culture to bring people together and to promote dynamics in professional organizations, mutual understanding, learning and harmony. Creating "virtual communities" is one major way to do this. The Web Based Communities 2007 conference aims at sharing and aggregating scientifically proven methods on how to organize and moderate WWW-based communities. These communities do not limit participants to particular locations – the international and multicultural dimension is a most challenging one. Good WWW communities undergo a continuous evolution and adapt to the changing world. The nature of these communities can be corporate, scientific, social or educational. Pragmatic questions which need to be addressed include: What software tools are the most adequate and how to use them? How to promote your community so that new members can find it? How to protect the members’ privacy? How to moderate discussions and how to provide information that people can use? How to create and maintain a sense of trust and commitment among the members? In addition, sociology, education, communication and philosophy issues are addressed as the main disciplines reflected in building WWW-based communities, although critical theories on societies and post-modernism are also relevant starting points. New and imminent technologies will be discussed.
 
Objectives: The Web Based Communities 2007 Conference aims at bringing together new vital understanding of WWW communities and what new initiatives mean. Each new perspective is potentially a catalyst for finding new architectures. National and regional-oriented communities may soon be relegated to a subordinate position compared to interest-oriented communities. Multiculturalism, critical thinking, expressing aesthetic aspects of our identity, and finding sparring partners for sharpening our ideologies, are all processes that need the new communication infrastructures.
 
The targeted audience is scientists and members and moderators of WWW communities who feel responsible for optimizing its quality and effect.

Format of the Conference

The conference will comprise invited talks and oral presentations. The proceedings of the conference will be published in the form of a book. The better papers will be candidate for the "International Journal of Web Based Communities" (IJWBC);  ISSN: 1477 – 8394 [4 issues per year]
 
Types of submissions

Full and Short Papers, Posters/Demonstrations, Tutorials, Panels and Doctoral Consortium. All submissions are subject to a blind refereeing process.

Subject indications (but not limited to)

• The history, architecture and future of virtual communities

1. From mobility to connectivity
2. Identity and augmented ideologies
3. Visionary web architectures, implanted computers
4. Network revolutions, post-colonial and post-modern societies
5. Escaping from reality, virtual reality and multi-user games
6. Towards alternative ways of presence

•  Group processes and self-organization

1. Tele-democracy, morality, netiquette 
2. Social networks, tribal- and open communities, peace education
3. Computer mediated-, hyper- and narrative communication, woven stories
4. MUDs, MOOs and avatars
5. Hosting web-based communities
6. Nationalities, ethnicities and gender effects

•  Cyborgs, teleworking, telemedicine, art games and learning communities

1. Fading hierarchies and epistemic dictatorship
2. Distributed cognition, the electronic cortex and constructivism
3. Community directories
4. Mechanic world, organic computer
5. Agents and the vectorized self
6. Beyond metaphors: imagining and representation
7. Communizing as a marketing approach

•  Expanding markets through virtual communities

1. The WWW as digital market place
2. The enterprise as a learning community
3. The learning as a road map for business
4. Universities as online communities
5. Business-to-business communication in profit- and non profit sectors

•  Virtual communities for people with special needs

1. Access to public spaces
2. Accessibility and long-term disabilities
3. Virtual communities in health care

  Important Dates:

• Submission: 9 October 2006
• Notification to Authors: 15 December 2006
• Final Camera-Ready Submission and Early Registration: Until 8 January 2007
• Late Registration: After 8 January 2007
• Conference: Salamanca, Spain, 18 to 20 February 2007

  Conference Location: The conference will be held in Salamanca, Spain.

 Secretariat

IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE WEB BASED COMMUNITIES 2007
Rua Sao Sebastiao da Pedreira, 100, 3, 1050-209 Lisbon, Portugal
E-mail: wbc-sec@iadis.org Web site:

Program Committee

Conference and Program Co-Chairs
Piet Kommers, University of Twente, The Netherlands
Pedro Isaías, Universidade Aberta (Portuguese Open University), Portugal

Committee Members:

for the full Committee Members list please access

Co-located event

Please also check the co-located event Applied Computing 2007
– 17-20 February 2007

Registered participants in the Web Based Communities conference may attend the Applied Computing conference sessions free of charge.

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