"Tools for collaboration and communication have proliferated in
academia. Students and professors regularly communicate via email and
mailing lists and course materials are commonly made available via the
web. Students regularly use instant messaging and cell phones to
communicate with each other, enhancing relationships and building
support networks for college life. A new wave of tools for
communication and collaboration has surfaced under the name 'social
software' including tools like weblogs, wikis, del.cio.us, Flickr,
tagging, etc. Researchers are exploring how these tools fit into
everyday life and how they can be employed in professional contexts.
The goal of the conference is to bring together researchers working
in a variety of academic disciplines to understand current and possible
uses of social software in the academic context. We invite submissions
for papers, panels and demonstrations of relevant research tools.
Possible topics might include:
• The social/learning issues of using backchannels in the classroom
• How weblogs and wikis can be employed in support of teaching and learning
• The possibilities and challenges of using folksonomies for organizing academic knowledge
• Wikipedia as an encyclopedic tool
• Designing better social software tools for the classroom
• The use of social software as assistive technology
• The role of instant messaging in learning
• Models for using social software to collaborate across disciplines and universities
• Using social networking tools to create and/or enhance campus community
• Methodologies for researching the use and impact of social software
tools on various aspects of campus academic and non-academic life"
The deadline for submitting 500-word proposals is the end of March.
