[SIGCIS-Members] CFP SIGCIS Workshop (October 2010) Deadline 1 JULY

[Thomas Haigh]

Hello everyone,

 

A proud moment for SIGCIS as we issue the call for our second annual
workshop, held in conjunction with the SHOT meeting. 

There is a theme we hope will lead to some interesting new ways of thinking
about work in the field, but contributions on all topics are welcome. Please
contribute your work and help to firmly establish this as the annual peer
reviewed academic gathering the field has long needed. We are particularly
keen to welcome graduate students for regular presentations and a projected
dissertations in progress session. SIGCIS has a little money to assist
graduate students with travel costs and we hope to raise a little more
before the meeting. (Remember the Mahoney Fund - details at
http://www.sigcis.org/?q=mahoney).

 

See below for the call, and remember to send your questions to the workshop
chair Jeff Tang, tangjd at jmu.edu.

 

Tom Haigh (www.tomandmaria.com/tom)

 

CALL FOR PAPERS
SIGCIS Workshop 2010: Materiality and Immateriality in the History of
Computing 

Sunday October 3 2010, Tacoma, Washington

For the latest updates see http://www.sigcis.org/?q=workshop10.

The Society for the History of Technology's Special Interest Group for
Computers, Information and Society (SIGCIS - www.sigcis.org) welcomes
submissions for its latest one day scholarly workshop on Materiality and
Immateriality in the History of Computing. The workshop will be held in
Tacoma Washington all day on Sunday, October 3 2010. This is the final day
of the annual SHOT meeting. SHOT has reserved that day for SIG events and
therefore the symposium will not overlap scheduled sessions in the main
program. For details on the main SHOT meeting see
http://www.historyoftechnology.org/annual_meeting.html 

In keeping with the conference theme contributions that consider material
aspects of the history of information technology (people, things, places,
physical technologies and their relationship to work, practice, users,
standards, and so on), immaterial aspects of the history of computing
(logical standards, program code, theory, virtual
technologies/environments/communities) or the relationship between the two
are articularly welcome. However our practice is to welcome contributions on
all topics related to the history of computing whether or not there is an
explicit connection with the annual theme. Our membership is
interdisciplinary and proposals are expected from the perspectives of
business history, labor history, social history, science studies and the
history of science as well as from historians of technology.

Proposals for entire sessions and individual presenters are both welcome. We
hope to run special sessions featuring dissertations in progress and other
works in progress. The workshop is a great opportunity to get helpful
feedback on your projects in a relaxed and supportive environment. All
proposals will be subject to a peer review process.

Suggested Formats: Individual contributions can fit one of a variety of
formats

1.    Traditional 20 to 25-minute presentations followed by a question and
answer session with the SIGCIS community. In this case a one-page abstract
(maximum 400 words) will be reviewed and included in the electronic
conference program. Abstracts should address the paper's topic, argument,
evidence used, and contribution to the existing literature. A full version
of the paper should be sent to the session commentator at least a week prior
to the meeting.

2.    Dissertation proposals. We hope to include a dissertations in progress
session, in which individuals will present their ongoing dissertation work
and seek feedback from the history of computing community. In this case
submit your dissertation proposal, which will be included in the electronic
conference program if accepted. Participants will be encouraged to read this
prior to the session. You will have five to ten minutes to introduce the
material, leaving the bulk of time available for discussion.

3.    Works in progress. This is your chance to receive informal and expert
discussion of draft dissertation chapters, journal articles, or book
chapters. Submit a one page abstract (maximum 400 words) including
discussion of the current state of the work and any specific kinds of
feedback you are seeking. If your proposal is accepted you will need to
supply the draft for discussion by 1 September for inclusion in the
electronic program for the workshop. You will have five to ten minutes to
introduce the material, leaving the bulk of time available for discussion.

4.    Proposals in other formats are also welcome. For example round table
discussions, demonstrations of software of interest to historians of
computing, or "author meets critics" sessions.

We follow the normal format for a history meeting. That is: selection on
abstracts rather than full papers, no submission of full papers for regular
sessions (although works in progress and dissertation proposals must be
submitted in advance for inclusion on the workshop website), and no
publication of proceedings (and presenters are welcome to submit their work
the SIGCIS Member Contributions collection). However presenters in regular
sessions will be required to share some version of their paper at least two
weeks in advance with the session commentator so that he or she can prepare
insightful and helpful remarks

People already scheduled to participate on the main SHOT program are welcome
to submit an additional proposal to the SIGCIS workshop, but should make
sure that there is no overlap between the two presentations

All submissions should be made online via the SIGCIS website.

Individual submissions should be made at
http://www.sigcis.org/?q=workshop10a . Note that this requires a one page
curriculum vitae as well as the proposal itself in the form described above.

Proposals for complete sessions should be made at
http://www.sigcis.org/?q=workshop10b.

They should include:

*	a description of the session that explains how
individual papers contribute to an overall theme
*	the names and email addresses of each presenter
*	an abstract and title for each presentation (in the form described
above)
*	a one-page c.v. for each presenter and other participant (including
commentator or chair if named) 

Travel Support: The top financial priority of SIGCIS is the support of
travel expenses for graduate students, visiting faculty without
institutional travel support, and others who would be unable to attend the
meeting without travel assistance. The submission includes a box to check if
you fall into one of these categories and would like to be considered for an
award. These is no need to apply separately, though depending on the volume
of requests and available resources we may need to contact you for further
information before making a decision. Details on our travel grant program
are at www.sigcis.org/q=travelaward <http://www.sigcis.org/?q=travelaward> .
Funding sources include donations from SIGCIS members at our annual meeting,
income from the Mahoney Fund http://www.sigcis.org/?q=mahoney and support
from MIT Press for our annual book auction. Please note that the SHOT
Executive Council has told us that presenting at our workshop is not
considered as participation in the SHOT program and so does not
realistically make you eligible for the main SHOT travel grant program.

Last Year's Workshop: This is the second annual SIGCIS workshop. The
inaugural 2009 event featured a plenary session followed by six further
sessions grouped into two tracks. More than fifty people attended, many
staying an extra night and attending a group dinner in the evening after the
workshop. You can last year's program at
http://www.sigcis.org/?q=workshop09c and a report from the Charles Babbage
Institute at http://www.cbi.umn.edu/newsletter/article3.html. We expect to
follow a similar format this year.

Questions should be addressed to Jeffrey Tang who is serving as chair of the
workshop organizing committee. Email tangjd at jmu.edu.

 

 

 

 

 

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