HomeSocial Living Labs for Digital Participation: Designing with Regional and Rural Communities

Social Living Labs for Digital Participation: Designing with Regional and Rural Communities

www.dis2016.org

The Fostering Digital Participation Project will host a two-day workshop in Brisbane as part of the Designing Interactive Systems conference on 4-5 June 2016.

“Fostering digital participation through Living Labs in regional and rural Australian communities,” is a three year research project funded by the Australian Research Council and managed at the Queensland University of Technology. The project aims to identify the specific digital needs and practices of regional and rural residents in the context of the implementation of high speed internet. It seeks to identify new ways for enabling residents to develop their digital confidence and skills both at home and in the community. Examples of initiatives from the project include:

Storyelling (Toowoomba)

Pittsworth Stories (Pittsworth)

Digitville (Townsville)

To build on this experience, a two-day symposium and workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners from diverse backgrounds to discuss design practices and user needs in social living labs that aim to foster digital inclusion and participation. Day one will consist of practitioner and research reports, while day two will provide an opportunity for participants to imagine and collaboratively design future digital participation strategies.

The workshop will act as a Living Lab experience with the goal of identifying innovative and practical solutions that will foster sustained digital participation in regional and rural communities. Discussion might include, but need not be restricted to, topics such as developing basic digital skills, youth entrepreneurship, community digital story-telling, and policy development.

This workshop is an event within the National Year of Digital Inclusion. 

To Participate:

Call for Participation: The workshop organisers invite participation from community change agents (e. g. representatives from libraries, community organisations, and the non-government sector), policy makers and industry representatives. Interested participants should provide a 300-word position statement that describes their stake or interest in digital inclusion, be prepared to make a 10-15 minute presentation on Day One, and participate fully in the activities on Day Two.

Call for Papers: Academic participants are encouraged to contribute to a peer-reviewed volume to be published by Chandos Publishing (an imprint of Elsevier). Participants wishing to be considered for this volume should provide a 300-word abstract by the due date below and be prepared to present a 15-20 minute paper at the workshop. Full papers will be due on 1 August 2016 and final decisions will be made by 31 October 2016.

Limited spaces are available for interested observers or participants who might wish to contribute to the discussion without giving a formal presentation. 

All workshop participants can express their interest in the workshop or submit an abstract or position statement by emailing the organisers. Submissions must be mailed to rs.osborne@qut.edu.au no later than 15 April 2016.

 

 

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