Call for papers:
SCA2011 - International Conference on Social Computing and its Applications,
Dec.12-14, 2011, Sydney, Australia. Website:
http://www.swinflow.org/confs/sca2011/ Key dates:
Submission Deadline: extended to August 15, 2011.
Submission site: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sca2011 Publication:
Proceedings will be published by IEEE CS Press. Special issues:
Distinguised papers will be selected for special issues in Journal of
Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce; Social Science Computer
Review; or Computers in Human Behavior. ===========
Introduction Social computing is concerned with the intersection of social behaviour and
computing systems, creating or recreating social conventions and social
contexts through the use of software and technology. Various social
computing applications such as blogs, email, instant messaging, social
networking (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), wikis, and social
bookmarking have been widely popularised where people interact socially via
computing space. Such applications have been profoundly impacting social
behaviour and life style of human beings while pushing the boundary of
computing technology simultaneously. While people can enjoy or even indulge
in the benefits such as freedom and convenience brought about by social
computing, various critical issues such as privacy protection, touch-screen
based HCI design, and modelling of social behaviour in computing space still
remain challenging. SCA (Social Computing and its Applications) is created to provide a prime
international forum for both researchers, industry practitioners and
environment experts to exchange the latest fundamental advances in the state
of the art and practice of Social Computing and broadly related areas. Scope and Topics Topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to: · Fundamentals of social computing
· Modelling of social behaviour
· Social network analysis and mining
· Computational models of social simulation
· Web 2.0 and semantic web
· Innovative HCI and touch-screen models
· Modelling of social conventions and social contexts
· Social cognition and social intelligence
· Social media analytics and intelligence
· Group formation and evolution
· Security, privacy, trust, risk in social contexts
· Social system design and architectures
· Information retrieval, data mining, artificial intelligence and
agent-based technology
· Group interaction, collaboration, representation and profiling
· Handheld/mobile social computing
· Service science and service oriented interaction design
· Cultural patterns and representation
· Emotional intelligence, opinion representation, influence process
· Mobile commerce, handheld commerce and e-markets
· Connected e-health in social networks
· Social policy and government management
· Social blog, micro-blog, public blog, internet forum
· Business social software systems
· Impact on peoples activities in complex and dynamic environments
· Collaborative filtering, mining and prediction
· Social computing applications and case studies Submission Guidelines Submissions must include an abstract, keywords, the e-mail address of the
corresponding author and should not exceed 8 pages for main conference,
including tables and figures in IEEE CS format. The template files for LATEX
or WORD can be downloaded here. All paper submissions must represent
original and unpublished work. Each submission will be peer reviewed by at
least three program committee members. Submission of a paper should be
regarded as an undertaking that, should the paper be accepted, at least one
of the authors will register for the conference and present the work. Submit
your paper(s) in PDF file at the SCA2011 submission site:
https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sca2011. Authors of accepted
papers, or at least one of them, are requested to register and present their
work at the conference, otherwise their papers may be removed from the
digital libraries of IEEE CS and EI after the conference. Publications Accepted and presented papers will be included into the IEEE Conference
Proceedings published by IEEE CS Press. Authors of accepted papers, or at
least one of them, are requested to register and present their work at the
conference, otherwise their papers may be removed from the digital libraries
of IEEE CS and EI after the conference. Distinguished papers presented at the conference, after further revision,
will be published in special issues of Journal of Organizational Computing
and Electronic Commerce, Social Science Computer Review, and Computers in
Human Behavior. General Chairs
Irwin King, The Chinese University of Hongkong, China
Igor Hawryszkiewycz, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Program Chairs
Jinjun Chen, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Shaun Lawson, University of Lincoln, UK
Nitin Agarwal, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USA Program Vice-Chairs
Rajiv Khosla, Latrobe University, Australia
Tim Butcher, RMIT, Australia
Man-Kwan Shan, National Chengchi University, Taiwan Workshop Chairs
Nathalie Colineau, CSIRO-ICT Centre, Australia
Xiangfeng Luo, Shanghai University, China Steering Committee
V.S. Subrahmanian, University of Maryland, USA
Irwin King, The Chinese University of Hongkong, China
Igor Hawryszkiewycz, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Jinjun Chen, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia (Chair)
Feiyue Wang, Chinese Academia of Science, China
Wesley Chu, University of California, USA
Shaun Lawson, University of Lincoln, UK
Jianhua Ma, Hosei University, Japan
John Yen, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Jiming Liu, Hong Kong Baptist University, China
Adrian David Cheok, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Craig Standing, Edith Cowan University, Australia
Laurence T. Yang, St Francis Xavier University, Canada (Chair) Local and Finance Chairs
Chang Liu, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Conference Secretary and Web Chair
Xuyun Zhang, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia 

Depending on your point of view, the results of the research reported on here may be a cause for great concern or for celebration. Most notable among the findings is that, in the Internet age, we tend to remember how to find facts that may be useful rather than the facts themselves.  I suspect that some might see this as an issue negatively affecting our intellects, precisely as Socrates bemoaned the effects of writing on our ability to think. They would be right, to a point. Personally, however, I think this is a good thing, because it lets us better concentrate on how to use and link those facts.  It is a continuation of a process that began with the invention of signs, language, painting and (especially) writing, and that has given us the ability to gain a far richer and more useful view of the world, offloading and distributing our cognitive processes to create scaffolding for ever more powerful and complex ways of understanding. This research does not suggest a great difference in kind. However, it does starkly show that we shape our tools and that our tools shape us, deeply and significantly. 

It notably affirms George Siemens’s theory of Connectivism. This is good supporting evidence, if more were needed, that we are offloading our cognition into non-human entities, in a way that is significantly different from simple transactive memory. Whether or not it is a good thing, it suggests that the skills that we are developing relate to our ability to traverse human and non-human networks, so any theory of learning should consider us as being part of a broader web of knowledge.

Address of the bookmark: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/07/study-why-bother-to-remember-when-you-can-just-use-google.ars

Steve Wheeler on good form discussing whether there are (or should be) a different term for adult learning than for child learning. He thinks not and I agree with him up to a point. Many differences between adult and child learning relate to an increase in context (greater focus) and connection (greater ability to synthesise other knowledge) combined with greater power to control one’s own destiny. Adults tend towards greater self-direction, greater motivation leading from choosing their own directions, and can deal with more complex and connected knowledge. It’s not a difference in kind, but in proportion. But more is different in a complex system and different is different in any system. The stuff and process that goes into chocolate brownies is not so very different from the stuff and process that goes into rock buns, but it’s helpful to have different words to describe them when you are in the bakery. Yes, it’s all cake, but it’s not all the same cake.

Address of the bookmark: http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2011/07/learning-is-learning.html

Social Times reports a fairly remarkable set of figures, given the range of phones and tablets that are available. The iPad alone accounts for 1% of global Web traffic. That’s a hell of a lot of traffic for one line of computers in a market where there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of lines of computers (including desktops, notebooks, netbooks, tablets, smartphones, slightly-dumb phones, web-enabled clocks, refrigerators, cars, picture frames and chopping boards).

This is not great. I am currently a user of a great many Apple products because they make excellent machines at very good prices, but it should never be forgotten that Apple is a company that makes other former dominant computer companies like Microsoft and IBM seem, by comparison, like well-meaning bumbling saints. Apple are and have always been dedicated to capturing and locking in their users in every way they could think of. My stock response to complaints about Microsoft’s abuse of its dominance on personal computers through the 90s and early 2000s was ‘at least it’s not Apple’. But, increasingly, it looks like now it is. Ah well. At least it’s not Facebook…

Address of the bookmark: http://socialtimes.com/ios-iphoneipad-u-s-mobile-browsing-marketshare-60-7_b69156

An elderly but still relevant and very perceptive short piece, pre the rise of Facebook, on why social networks don’t always succeed. The reasons the article gives are:

1. privacy – or the lack of it
2. no real reward or penalty system – what’s the point of sharing, where’s the value?
3. not granular enough – we don’t have binary relationships – they have a context and vary according to what our current context might be (e.g. a workmate who is also a friend)
4. not integrated with other apps – predates Chris Anderson’s distinction of social networks as destination or feature and speaks to the importance of mashability
5. walled gardens – not connected, isolated pools

I like these a lot, and they reflect a number of the issues I and many others have been writing about since and that strongly underpin Athabasca Landing, this site – not bad for 2006. But the interesting thing here is that Facebook then happened, largely by concentrating on the single second aspect of value and not just ignoring the other four issues but actually riding rough-shod over them and squashing them into the ground. Which is of course why I hate Facebook, because these principles are sound, usable and relate to human, not multi-billion-dollar company needs and interests. However, it shows that you can probably do away with a lot of ‘necessary’ things if you do one thing very well and, equally, that there are quite a few necessary things that are not mentioned here.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.tnl.net/blog/2006/06/15/5-reasons-why-social-networks-fail/

An article in the Guardian from Cory Doctorow, pointing out the (possibly) obvious fact that networks are a necessary but far from sufficient cause of social change. Facebook, Twitter, et al do not cause revolutions like those seen recently in the middle east, but they certainly help to spread the word around.

A good antidote to over-enthusiastic posts that suggest social networks will change the world – e.g. this or this. People change the world, not social networks. Social networks make it easier for more people to connect, communicate and share in a more egalitarian way than ever before, but other forces and other (hierarchical and centralised) media still matter.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/16/networks-fame-revolutions?INTCMP=SRCH

Thanks Gregg for pointing me back at this one – a great paper on the importance of structural holes in networks. This is a formal representation of principles I and others have explored relating to parcellation in social spaces, and the need for (small) bridges and isthmuses to connect those parcellated spaces. Further proof and rationale from a different angle that (as is often so) Darwin was right about this.

It makes me wonder whether the principles the authors look at might be extended somewhat to consider temporal flux in more detail: the reason Darwin found this kind of hole-filled network interesting was that evolution happens more rapidly and branches sooner in small, parcellated spaces (like, famously, the Galapagos Islands). However, he noted that, very rarely and occasionally, these spaces need to connect with others in order for adaptations to flow into the broader ecology or, more often than not, be swamped by them. But maybe not entirely swamped: an interesting article in New Scientist recently suggests that early homo-sapiens coming out of Africa bred occasionally with existing hominids in Europe and Asia and, though only a small percentage of Neanderthal and Denisovan genes persist in modern populations, they definitely had an important impact, especially on immunity to disease. Lots of good lessons on social environment design from this.

Address of the bookmark: http://onemvweb.com/sources/sources/ties_bind_socialnetwork_principles.pdf

This is fascinating, not only in providing a bit of information about the resilience of Wikipedia pages to vandalism but also in graphically illustrating the flow to the adjacent possible, ever-growing and branching, that makes the system not just a repository of knowledge but a means through which it grows.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/projects/history_flow/results.htm

Interesting report on an article suggesting that the tragedy of the commons may be avoidable more easily at smaller scales. Obvious but interesting, this suggests to me that the principle of parcellation that helps drive differentiation in evolution has some ubiquitous underpinnings – it works in much the same way whether you consider competition or cooperation.

Address of the bookmark: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/06/group-dynamics-key-to-avoiding-tragedy-of-the-commons.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+Featured+Content%29

Shared with me by a student (self-referentially anonymised for public broadcast but thanks, you know who you are!) this is a brief article about a research paper comparing attitudes to privacy and trust on social network sites in different countries – specifically, India, China and the US.

Some of the differences are to be expected – telemarketers and poor privacy laws probably account for a little of the greater reticence to share private information in the US, for example, and the article mentions use of fake identities in China due to fear of restrictive governments. But there are some big disparities that may point to more profound cultural differences. It would be interesting to explore the extent to which this is determined by surrounding culture and context, and how much by the path dependencies of the popular social network sites in these countries. For instance, Facebook itself, with its famously callous and exploitative regard for user privacy, might have a lot to do with the apparently greater concerns for privacy in the US. Yang Wang’s site has more interesting research in this area at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~yangwan1/projects.html#sns-privacy

Address of the bookmark: http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/internet/privacy-on-social-networks-american-chinese-and-indian-perspectives/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=052611