Virtual Community Informatics: Towards the Systematic Study of Technology-Enabled Virtual and Geo-Local Communities

New Jersey Institute Of Technology, Newark NJ

Investigators

Abstract

A series of small workshops will bring together researchers in the separately developing fields of virtual communities and geo-local community informatics. Objectives include the integration of the conceptual approaches that have been developed in those two areas, systemization of the theoretical and technical advances in these areas, development of a common research agenda, collaborations in research and field projects, and emergence of a new field of Virtual Community Informatics. There is the potential for broad benefit as many community projects have been developed without knowledge of advanced theory or resources for new technology, while many academic projects remain testbeds or are short-lived experiments. To insure that a community can grow and thrive, researchers from many disciplines will be included, as well as graduate students and practitioners from many parts of the world.