OII / Oxford e-Research Conference 2008

Background to the conference

This multi-disciplinary, international conference on e-Research will be held at the University of Oxford from 11-13 September 2008. It is being organized by a consortium of research projects in association with the journal Information Communication and Society (iCS).

The Oxford e-Research Conference 08 seeks to stimulate and inform multi-disciplinary research on the development, use and implications of information and communication technologies (ICTs), like the Internet, in shaping research across the disciplines. It will bring together research from key e-Research projects from around the world examining the role of the Internet, Web and the Grid in research. The conference seeks to facilitate scholarly communication and publication on this topic, and help foster a broader public understanding of the significance of this area to the sciences and humanities as well as to the public at large.

Anyone with a serious interest in conducting research on the development or use of ICTs across the disciplines should attend, as well as those with questions about how new research tools might impact the range, significance and quality of research. The conference is intended to complement and extend the activities of key research projects and programmes in this area, representatives of which are among the organizing committee.

Topics will include, but not be limited to:

• Major e-Research initiatives, such as e-infrastructure and cyberinfrastructure programmes in Europe and North America
• E-Social Science, including social, legal and institutional dynamics of e-Research
• Case studies of e-Research projects, programmes, and policies
• Policy analyses of key issues, ranging from IPR to privacy
• Ethical and legal analyses of innovations in e-Research, focusing on risks as well as approaches to resolving ethical dilemmas
• Research on e-collaboration, including new platforms for scientific collaboration, such as those using social networking sites
• Survey research and in-depth interviews focused on the attitudes and practices of researchers
• Usability of e-Research tools, and related issues of human-computer interaction
• Showcasing new methods, practices, and tools afforded by new ICTs
• Research on the social shaping and impact of e-Research
• Take-up, diffusion and sustainability of e-Research infrastructures
• Technical advances of relevance to any stage of research, from agenda-setting and budgeting to data collection, analysis, dissemination and evaluation of research
• Social and technical perspectives on innovations in metadata, the development of ontologies, and the semantic Web
• Overviews and comparisons of particular schools of research, including Web Science, e-Social Science, e-Research, and e-Infrastructure communities

Conference Programme Committee:

Chair: Professor William Dutton, Oxford Internet Institute
Panel Chair: Dr Marina Jirotka, Oxford e-Research Centre

Committee Members:

• Professor Christine Borgman, Information Studies, UCLA
• Professor Alan K. Bowman, Ancient History, Faculty of Classics, Oxford
• Professor Roger Burrows, Social Informatics Research Unit, University of York
• Professor Thomas Finholt, School of Information, University of Michigan
• Professor Wendy Hall, Computer Science, University of Southampton
• Professor Paul Jeffreys, Director of Information Technology, Oxford University
• Brian Loader, Editor of iCS and Social Informatics Research Unit, York
• Professor Rob Procter, National Centre for e-Social Science, Manchester
• Dr Ralph Schroeder, James Martin Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute
• Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Electronics and Computer Science, Southampton
• Professor Anne Trefethen, Oxford e-Research Centre, Oxford
• Professor Yorick Wilks, Oxford Internet Institute and Sheffield University
• Professor Steve Woolgar, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Submission Deadlines:

• Abstracts (or drafts) of Proposed Papers: 15 March 2008
• Workshop and/or panel outlines: 15 March 2008.
• Authors will be informed of the programme committee's decision by 15 April 2008.
• Full Papers should be received by 15 August 2008