The Mind the Gap workshop will bring together participants interested in issues of connectivity and seamlessness for remote social interaction. Participants will address the following topics from multiple perspectives: embedded audio and video conferencing in social settings, interruption and seamlessness, integration of audio and video conferencing in the technological fabric of existing work and everyday environments, and conventions and rhythms of remote social interaction.
This workshop is part of AVI 2010.
About the Workshop
In the field of Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work it has been emphasised that bridging the geographic distance of team members with audio and video connections brings advantages for communication and cooperation in teams [Beran 2004; Gaver et al. 1992]. Still, remote communication and cooperation is often much more disruptive than in face-to-face situations [Czerwinski et al. 2004; Harr 2007; Mark et al. 2008]. In this workshop we want to address issues of connectivity and seamlessness for remote social interaction. In 1990 Ishii [Ishii 1990] identified three important seams: “(1) The seam between individual work modes and cooperative work modes; (2) the seam between computer-supported work (e.g. word processing) and non-computer-supported work (e.g., writing with pen on a paper); and (3) the seam between asynchronous communication (e.g., email), and real-time communication (e.g., telephone, video conference)”. Another important seam is the seam between work and leisure.
We want to ask whether these seams still exist and how remote social interaction can overcome these barriers. We would like to address the following topics from multiple perspectives: including empirical work and experience on user behaviour, system design and technical issues, as well as methodological questions and answers on how to tackle these points:
- Embeddedness of audio and video conferencing in social settings
- Interruption and seamlessness
- Integration of audio and video conferencing in the technological fabric of existing work and everyday environments
- Conventions and rhythms of remote social interaction
- Visual and aesthetical integration of communication technology in ambient intelligence
Workshop Activities
Authors of accepted submissions will be given 5 minutes to present their research, followed by a short question and answer period. Following this, the group will discuss key barriers to seamless remote interaction. Once the key barriers have been identified, the group will split into smaller sub-groups, each of which will brainstorm solutions for one of the key barriers. After the sub-group brainstorming sessions, each group will share their ideas with others in the workshop. Finally, the group as a whole will brainstorm important next directions.
Upon completion of this workshop, our goal is to organise a special issue of a journal (International Journal of Arts and Technology) related to seamless remote social interaction.
Call for Participation
We would like to have a diverse group of workshop participants with multifarious backgrounds and viewpoints such as interaction design, usability engineering, computer-mediated communication, computer-supported cooperative work, and new media arts and technology.
The selection of workshop participants and presentations will be based on refereed submissions. We invite authors to submit 2-4 page papers reporting contributions in the field of the workshop or 2-page position statements motivating their interest in specific workshop topics. Papers should be formatted according to the AVI 2010 (ACM SIG Proceedings) format. An expert panel of 3-4 researchers will be recruited to review the submissions and participate in the conference.
Please email your submissions to kori@microsoft.com by March 26th, 2010.
The workshop organizers will review the papers for pertinence to the workshop theme, general interest and quality. Notification of acceptance will be sent by email on April 9, 2010.
Participants may revise their submissions before April 23, 2010. The organizers will distribute copies of the papers to all participants by May 1. Participants are strongly encouraged to read all of this material before the workshop.
Organizers
Dr. Tom Gross is professor and chair of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, and Vicerector (i.e., Vice-President) of the Bauhaus-University Weimar, Germany. His research interests are particularly in the fields of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Human-Computer Interaction, and Ubiquitous Computing. He has participated in and coordinated activities in various national and international research projects and is an expert member of the IFIP Technical Committee on ‘Human Computer Interaction’ (TC.13). He has been conference co-chair and organiser of many international conferences (e.g., most recently program co-chair of the INTERACT 2009 conference). Further information can be found at: http://www.tomgross.net
Dr. Kori Inkpen is a Senior Research at Microsoft Research, USA and head of the Connect research team. Prior to joining Microsoft she was a Professor of Computer Science at Dalhousie University. Her research interests are particularly in the fields of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Human-Computer Interaction. She has been conference co-chair and organiser of many international conferences (e.g., most recently conference co-chair of the CSCW 2010 conference). Further information can be found at: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/kori/
Important Dates
Submission deadline: 26 March 2010
Notification of acceptance: 9 April 2010
Final submission: 23 April 2010
Workshop date: 25 May 2010
