- Members - lists.sigcis.org

GAO reports as a tool; IRS modernization
by Jonathan Coopersmith 01 Mar '23

01 Mar '23

Worth a look: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-104719# the challenges of big system updating (it's not just Southwest Airlines) Stay sane, Jonathan Jonathan Coopersmith Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science Professor (retired) Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4236 979.739.4708 (cell) 979.862.4314 (fax) It's taking longer to vote - especially if you are Black or Hispanic <https://theconversation.com/its-taking-more-time-to-cast-a-ballot-in-us-ele…>, theconversation.com October 13, 2022 “The thought leader’s thought leader,” (interview with Norman Augustine) <https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/departments/the-thought-leaders-thought-l….> *Aerospace America* October 2022. Preserving space archives: https://www.toboldlypreserve.space/ *FAXED. The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine* (Johns Hopkins University Press)

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] History courses in CS departments
by Scott Campbell 21 Feb '23

21 Feb '23

I know I’m a bit late to this, but I teach a permanent history of computing course here at the University of Waterloo in Canada, hosted by the Faculty of Engineering: STV 210: The Computing Society. It’s cross-listed with the History department and open to any student, including computer science (who are in the Faculty of Math). It covers the standard pre-electronic history back to the late 18th century up through to the internet, using the venerable Campbell-Kelly, Apsray, Ensmenger, and Yost textbook as the background text, but not exclusively. I also strongly emphasize historical thinking practices, and wrote a short pedagogical paper about the course and its value to students: S. M. Campbell, "From historical thinking to critical thinking about technology," , Waterloo, ON, Canada, 2021, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/ISTAS52410.2021.9629144. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9629144 Cheers all, Scott Campbell -- Scott M. Campbell (he/him) Director, Centre for Society, Technology and Values University of Waterloo Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1 (519) 888-4567 x35635 http://cstv.uwaterloo.ca > > I've been asked by colleagues to narrow down the list to US schools, and > again only to those with a specific history-of-computing course. > Many schools offer courses that overlap into computer history, but as I see > it, the direct ones are Carnegie Mellon, Colorado/Boulder, Cornell, > Minnesota, and Yale. I've made my best case to our administration, and > hopefully NJIT can join the list soon. >

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CFP: "Engineering Events: Technologies of Performance" (SHOT 2023 Open Session—Abstracts 3/20)
by Scott Kushner 21 Feb '23

21 Feb '23

Dear SIGCISians, I'm proposing an open session for the SHOT 2023. It may be of interest to scholars working on the computerization of performance infrastructures and other topics related to theater, music, dance, and other forms of performance and exhibition. Feel free to be in touch with any inquiries. See below or visit https://tinyurl.com/shot-performance-tech. Abstracts by March 20 to scottkushner(a)uri.edu. ENGINEERING EVENTS: TECHNOLOGIES OF PERFORMANCE Organizer: Scott Kushner, University of Rhode Island (scottkushner(a)uri.edu) Accounting, amplifying, autotuning, broadcasting, concealing, crowd controlling, designing, displaying, fencing, filming, lighting, loading-in, marketing, monitor mixing, rigging, simulcasting, sound engineering, staging, striking, surveilling, ticketing, transporting, wayfinding: performance events are inseparable from technological interventions. These technologies all have their own histories, and each conspires with other technologies, practices, and discourses to form an assemblage of technical operations. This SHOT session will explore the histories of technologies that support and surround performance—music, theater, sport, and other cultural formations where large groups of people watch small groups of people do things. Technologies of performance can dazzle audiences or hide in plain sight, but they all structure the possibilities of entertainment and the social parameters of performing or audiencing. How have technical instruments of performance interacted with familiar social divides such as gender, race, class, and ability? How have technologies shaped who may perform or attend, whose labor is valued or devalued, whose financial or political interests are served or sidelined? The significance of this work to the history of technology lies in concentrating discussion about the ways that technological interventions have shaped the production, consumption, and possibilities of cultural performance. Scholars at various career levels (graduate students through senior scholars, and all throughout the various dimensions of the academic-labor dominion) working on projects at all stages of development (new ideas, works-in-progress, magna opera) may propose papers exploring technologies of performance from the perspective of innovators, implementers, users, performers, audiences, and/or excluded parties. Proposals engaging with any era and geographic context are welcome. Procedure: Those interested in proposing presentations for potential inclusion in this session will kindly prepare one-page abstracts and a one-page CVs with current contact information. Please submit materials to Scott Kushner (scottkushner(a)uri.edu) by March 20, 2023. If you will be a first-time SHOT presenter, do not hold a tenure-stream position, are a graduate student (or no more than two years from receipt of a terminal academic degree), and wish to be considered for the Robinson Prize, please indicate as much in your abstract. (Find information about the Robinson Prize at the Robinson Prize page at the SHOT website: https://www.historyoftechnology.org/about-us/awards-prizes-and-grants/joan-… ) -- Scott Kushner Associate Professor Department of Communication Studies Harrington School of Communication and Media University of Rhode Island 312 Davis Hall 10 Lippitt Rd. Kingston, R.I. 02881 +1 (401) 874-5223 scottkushner(a)uri.edu

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] History courses in CS departments
by herbert.bruderer＠bluewin.ch 15 Feb '23

15 Feb '23

Hi Evan, I have published more than 50 blog posts on the history of computing, see Communications of the ACM My new two-volume book on the history of computing might be of help to you, it is available in English and German: Bruderer, Herbert: Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham, 3rd edition 2020, 2 volumes, 2113 pages, 715 illustrations, 151 tables, translated from the German by John McMinn, https://www.springer.com/de/book/9783030409739 Bruderer, Herbert: Meilensteine der Rechentechnik, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin/Boston, 3. Auflage 2020, Band 1, 970 Seiten, 577 Abbildungen, 114 Tabellen, https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/567028?rskey=xoRERF&result=7 Bruderer, Herbert: Meilensteine der Rechentechnik, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin/Boston, 3. Auflage 2020, Band 2, 1055 Seiten, 138 Abbildungen, 37 Tabellen, https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/567221?rskey=A8Y4Gb&result=4 I used the book for several courses. Best wishes, Herbert Bruderer Department of Computer Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (retired) ----Ursprüngliche Nachricht---- Von : members(a)lists.sigcis.org Datum : 15/02/2023 - 19:44 (MN) An : members(a)lists.sigcis.org Betreff : Re: [SIGCIS-Members] History courses in CS departments I am currently teaching a short course in the history of computing at Stanford, but in the "Continuing Studies" (adult education) department. I had previously pitched it to both the EE and CS departments. My conclusion after those discussions was that the faculty would be interested but, sadly, it was unlikely that the students would be. They are too focused on creating the next unicorn to be bothered with history. Len Shustek Founding Chairman Emeritus Computer History Museum At 09:40 AM 2/15/2023, Evan Koblentz via Members wrote: Hi everyone, I've been teaching a special topics course in computer history for three semesters here at NJIT. The university policy is three semesters maximum, then the course must be made permanent or cancelled. So I'm going through the process of trying to make it permanent. The department administration supports it, but it has to be voted on by the rank-and-file faculty, many of whom don't seem to understand the value of a history course -- or at least not of a history course in a technical department, rather than through our humanities college. It would help if I can show them other examples. Can anyone point me existing examples of history courses in CS, EE, or other technical departments at U.S. universities? -- Evan Koblentz New Jersey Institute of Technology - Senior Writer, Office of Strategic Communications - Adjunct Instructor, Ying Wu College of Computing - Faculty/Staff Advisor, NJIT Lego Club evank(a)njit.edu (973) 596-3065 https://web.njit.edu/~evank _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org

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CFP: 2023 ACM History and Archiving Fellowship
by Tracy, Kim 10 Feb '23

10 Feb '23

SIGCIS members, The ACM History Committee’s call for proposals for the history and archiving fellowship program is now open. We’d appreciate your sharing this call with anyone who may be interested. The full call can be found in the link: https://history.acm.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/ACM-fellowship_CFP_2023_…. The deadline for submissions is February 15th, 2023. The ACM History Committee’s 2023 fellowship competition is for research and archiving projects on or centrally-related to ACM history. The History Committee plans to support up to four projects with awards up to $4,000. The History Committee has awarded over 40 fellowships<https://history.acm.org/projects-and-initiatives/fellowship-for-the-advance…> since the start of this fellowship program in 2009. Thanks for any help in getting the word out, --Kim Kim W. Tracy Visiting Asst. Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering (he/him/his) ROSE-HULMAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 5500 Wabash Avenue | Terre Haute, IN 47803-3999 Room: Moench D216 | tracy(a)rose-hulman.edu<mailto:tracy@rose-hulman.edu> Phone: 812.877.8343 | Fax: 812.877.8343 www.rose-hulman.edu<http://www.rose-hulman.edu>

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Information & Culture seeking book reviewers
by James A Hodges 09 Feb '23

09 Feb '23

Greetings! Please accept my apologies for cross-posting. I'm the Senior Book Reviews Editor for *Information & Culture* ( https://infoculturejournal.org/) an information studies journal published by the UT Austin School of Information. We're currently looking for a few reviewers. In particular, we're looking for someone to review a few recent titles, listed below (although I welcome suggestions/pitches for anything within our wheelhouse that has been published within the last 6 months or so). Reviews are generally under 1,000 words and directed at a wide audience of media, library, information, and communication scholars. You can also read our full book review guidelines at https://bit.ly/ICReviewGuidelines. "The Political Lives of Information Information and the Production of Development in India" By Janaki Srinivasan https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262544047/the-political-lives-of-information/ "An Anthropological toolkit: Sixty Useful Concepts" by David Zeitlyn https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/ZeitlynAnthropological "Semantic Media: Mapping Meaning on the Internet" by Andrew Iliadis https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/ZeitlynAnthropological "Writing the Revolution: Wikipedia and the Survival of Facts in the Digital Age" by Heather Ford https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262046299/writing-the-revolution/ "A House for the Struggle: The Black Press and the Built Environment in Chicago" by E. James West https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/9780252086397/a-house-for-the-struggle/ "Stuck on the Platform: Reclaiming the Internet" by Geert Lovink https://valiz.nl/en/publications/stuck-on-the-platform If you are interested in reviewing for us, *please send your response to reviews(a)ischool.utexas.edu <reviews(a)ischool.utexas.edu>* Thank you! Sincerely, James A Hodges, Ph.D. Senior Book Reviews Editor -- *JAMES A. HODGES, PH.D. *(he/him/his) Assistant Professor San José State University School of Information http://www.jameshodges.net Senior Book Reviews Editor Information & Culture <https://infoculturejournal.org/> Member, Committee on Publication Ethics <https://publicationethics.org/> (COPE) Junior Fellow, Rare Book School Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography <https://rarebookschool.org/admissions-awards/fellowships/sofcb/>

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TT Position in Gaming, Media, and Communication at Simon Fraser University
by Stephanie Dick 08 Feb '23

08 Feb '23

Hi everyone, The School of Communication<http://www.sfu.ca/communication.html> at Simon Fraser University is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Gaming, Media, and Communication<http://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/communication/career-opportunities/2023/G…> this year. Review of applications begins March 1. Please apply and/or distribute to your networks! We are a union shop in Vancouver, Canada, and we are excited to have a new colleague in this field. Feel free to email me with any questions. With thanks, Stephanie -- Stephanie A. Dick<https://www.sfu.ca/communication/team/faculty/stephanie-dick.html> Assistant Professor School of Communication Simon Fraser University sdick(a)sfu.ca<mailto:sdick@sfu.ca> she/her I respectfully acknowledge that at Simon Fraser University, we live and work on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

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16th CIFAS Field School in Ethnographic Research Methods in New York City
by Renzo Taddei 08 Feb '23

08 Feb '23

<members(a)lists.sigcis.org> *Apologies for cross-posting. Please disseminate this call to potentially interested parties. * *16th CIFAS Field School in Ethnographic Research Methods in New York City* Online: June 19 to 30, 2023 – 9 AM to 12 PM EDT On-site in New York City: July 24 to August 4, 2023 – 9 AM to 12 PM EDT The Comitas Institute for Anthropological Study (CIFAS) is pleased to announce the 16th CIFAS Field School in Ethnographic Research Methods. The course will take place in two sessions: one in an online format at the end of June and another in a face-to-face modality in New York City in July. The Field School aims to offer training in the foundations and practice of ethnographic methods. The faculty works closely with participants to identify the required field methods to address their academic or professional needs. The Field School is suitable for graduate and undergraduate students in social sciences and other fields of study that use qualitative approaches (such as education, communication, cultural studies, health, social work, human ecology, development studies, and consumer behavior, among others), applied social scientists, professionals, and researchers who have an interest in learning more about ethnographic methods and their applications. *Program:* - Foundations of ethnographic research - Theory and practice: social theories in the field - Ethics - Research design - Data collection techniques - Planning the logistics of field research - Digital ethnography - Ethnography in interface with Social Network Analysis and other trends in the field of the digital humanities - Ethnography in specific fields of activity (applied social sciences, health, social service, environmental studies, public policy design, business, and others) - Principles of organization and indexation of field data - Analyzing field data; qualitative analysis software packages: basic principles The total workload of the course is 30 hours. In this edition of the summer school, the option of earning credits is not available. Places are limited. The tuition fee is US$ 1,200. *Comitas Field School Fellowship:* a limited amount of fellowships are available to students from underrepresented minorities and low-income countries. See information on how to apply at the end of the application form. The application should be completed online *here* <http://cifas.us/field-school-registration-form/>. For more information, please see https://cifas.us/field-school/ or email us at fieldschool(a)cifas.us.

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CFP: Just Computation - Social and Historical Perspectives on Calculation in the Law
by Michael McGovern 07 Feb '23

07 Feb '23

Hello SIGCIS, Hopefully this CFP will be of interest to a few people on this list! Take care, Mikey McGovern -- Call for Papers Just Computation? Social and Historical Perspectives on Calculation in Law Harvard University Sept 8-9th, 2023 Datasets, algorithms, and statistical models are increasingly dominating legal spaces as instruments for rendering “just” decisions. Academic and popular critiques have shown that the application of such tools to delicate social problems exacerbates the very inequities they were meant to curb, whether in allocating welfare, evaluating credit, hiring, policing, and so on. Missing from this ongoing discussion, however, is a broader perspective on how computation has shaped—and been shaped by—law and governance across time and place. How have different legal orders made sense of numbers and new methods of calculation? How does the law shape the conditions under which numerical evidence is deemed legitimate? Why have political communities come to accept that fraught matters of justice might be resolved through recondite numbers, and how has that commitment evolved? At a time when the authority of quantitative tools is on the rise, what can courtroom contests tell us about the making of facts and their history? This conference provides an opportunity to grapple with these and other pressing questions by inquiring deeper into the history and politics of numbers as evidence, legal proof, policy instruments, and even tools for representing and contesting injustice. We will bring together scholars from a host of disciplines including the humanities and social sciences, data science and legal studies interested in how the quantification of social life and decision-making raises fundamental concerns about justice and fairness across different time periods and geographies. We believe that approaching these questions from a critical perspective can help invigorate and inform the vital discussions that have formed around “AI ethics” and “Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency” in computing systems. By convening a rich, interdisciplinary conversation on the relationship between law and computation, broadly construed, we hope to attract a range of scholars interested in honing their work for a special issue on these complicated and urgent issues. Contributors We seek papers from scholars from across the humanities and social sciences, as well as those coming from schools of information, policy, and law. Early career scholars in particular are encouraged to apply. While the workshop is oriented toward contemporary issues, it seeks to re-frame them by bringing different time periods and geographies to the table, so we are interested in submissions that consider these questions beyond the contemporary Global North. We will also accept co-authored papers. Publication This conference will be a platform for authors to workshop papers intended for a special issue of the interdisciplinary legal studies journal such as Law & Social Inquiry, whose editors have expressed interest. Though we intend to submit abstracts as a proposal for this journal, we remain open to alternatives and will discuss options over the course of the workshop. Accepted participants will be asked to submit a draft paper (max. 8000 words) and give a short presentation on their material for feedback from the group. Further deadlines and requirements will be specified depending on the format of the journal and the intended publication schedule. Please submit your abstracts to the conference only if you are willing to eventually submit your paper for a special issue. We will aim for final papers to be submitted by the end of the year 2023. Timeline March 24: Deadline to submit abstracts Mid-April: Decisions sent out for accepted abstracts End July: Deadline to submit final papers for internal circulations Sept 8-9: In-person workshop in Cambridge, MA End of 2023: Submit final papers Funding For presenters traveling from outside of the Boston area, we will guarantee travel stipends of $400, with the possibility of more funding and housing assistance as we secure more partnerships. Organizers Michael F. McGovern (mmcgovern(a)princeton.edu) Program in the History of Science | Princeton University Pariroo Rattan (pariroorattan(a)g.harvard.edu) Program in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School | Harvard University William Deringer (deringer(a)mit.edu) Program in Science, Technology, and Society | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Please submit your 400-word abstract (not including references) and a short bio of no more than 250 words by March 24th via this submission form <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeVfWKHN-WLyBOmeMLI6FSUgOCeq98OXxI…>. Authors whose papers are accepted will be expected to provide full paper drafts two weeks prior to the conference, which will be circulated to all conference participants. Please send your questions to justcomputation2023(a)gmail.com. We look forward to reading your submissions! -- Michael F. McGovern PhD Candidate, History of Science Princeton University mmcgovern(a)princeton.edu michaelfmcgovern.com

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New Project: Screenshot Histories
by Jacob Gaboury 06 Feb '23

06 Feb '23

Hi All! SIGCIS has been so instrumental to my work over the past decade that I wanted to begin a new project by reaching out to the list for thoughts and feedback on resources related to this topic. In short I am writing a history of screenshots, based loosely on a series of short articles <https://www.fotomuseum.ch/en/series/screens-shot/> I wrote a few years ago. I'm interested in how we have historically remediated computing as visual output, that is, how we got pictures off our screens and into the world. This jumps off from some of my earlier work in Chapter 2 of *Image Objects* <https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262045032/image-objects/> on screen photography from the 1940s-1970s, but also moves into the development of WYSIWYG systems for print output at PARC in the 1970s, the use of CRT cameras for advertising and documentation <https://www.ebay.com/itm/275154558746> in the 1980s, and even more "vernacular" practices of screen documentation, such as children photographing video game high scores and taking screen selfies on beating a game. I also plan to approach contemporary screenshot cultures, such as the use of screenshots as "receipts" in texting and social media as well as screenshot practices in meme cultures <https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/deep-fried-memes>. The goal is to understand how we have arrived at a moment when so many of us are taking dozens, even hundreds of screenshots every week, and screenshots have become a kind of evidentiary object for cultures of use and individual actions taken via a computer. I'm on sabbatical this year planning archive trips, and would love any insight the list might have on where to look. I will be at the Computer History Museum to look at materials on the Alto and Apple Lisa, but would also love to hear from anyone that had experience with screen photography during their careers, or with thoughts on any objects, sites, or individuals I might look into or include. Happy to hear from any and everyone with thoughts! Feel free and reach out to me directly at: gaboury(a)berkeley.edu, and thank you! _Jacob -- Jacob Gaboury (he/him) Associate Professor of New Media History and Theory Dept. of Film & Media, University of California at Berkeley jacobgaboury.com/ <http://www.jacobgaboury.com/> *Image Objects: An Archaeology of Computer Graphics* (MIT Press, 2021) Winner of the 2022 Computer History Museum Prize https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/image-objects

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