AI & Society International Journal Call for Papers
The Journal "AI and Society" (Artificial Intelligence, folks - not Appreciative Inquiry) is seeking papers that explore the connection between the environment (social, natural, technological, media, etc.) and civil society. They are looking for theories that can be used descriptively to account for new social movements, but also to inform research directions, organizational development, technological R&D, media, policy, and formal and informal education....
Special Issue of AI & Society: THE JOURNAL OF HUMAN CENTRED SYSTEMS
"Exploring Civic Intelligence: Descriptions & Prescriptions"
Douglas Schuler, Guest Editor
The Evergreen State College, The Public Sphere Project (of CPSR)
The dawning of the 21st Century brings with it a daunting collection
of problems and challenges, from environmental degradation, famine,
economic disparity, and epidemics to militarism. Can "ordinary"
people do more about addressing these problems than reading about
them in newspapers? Is voting for a handful of candidates every few
years the ultimate in public participation?
The idea of "civic intelligence" suggests an alternative perspective,
based on practical approaches to solving problems. Throughout civil
society, technology developers, activists, businesses, media
producers, government workers, journalists, intellectuals, artists
and citizens and community members are devising imaginative
solutions to difficult problems.
Civic intelligence (as a theoretical concept and as the title of
this call) is intended to be descriptive and prescriptive. Civic
intelligence, we suggest, is already distributed throughout our
society. Can it be enrolled in new practices of participative
democracy to address the larger problems of our time? The concept
should help us identify and understand innovative new citizen
initiatives, but, at the same time, it should help serve as motivation
and inspiration for thinking about and developing new conversations,
organizations, strategies, and technologies.
Our understanding of civic intelligence is likely to be critical
to our future, but there is virtually no vocabulary for talking
about society's collective problem-solving capabilities.
One starting point would be to build the concept of civic intelligence
upon an understanding of intelligence as an integrated collection
of capabilities, such as learning, planning, perceiving, deliberating,
communicating, debating, musing, and reviewing. Civic intelligence
may also be conceived as a type of distributed intelligence (where
information resides in human and in human constructed media) that
is directed towards social and environmental amelioration. We are
interested in how different models of intelligence, including
individual/collective intelligence, environmental adaptation, and
theories of interpretation and learning can be used to address
issues in the promotion of human values.
Civic intelligence is intended to describe a collective phenomenon.
The development of a meaningful concept of civic intelligence must,
therefore, also be a collective enterprise. Any exploration of
"civic intelligence" must include book projects, workshops and
conferences, computer-mediated discussions and ongoing dialogues
with policy-makers, researchers, activists and "ordinary" citizens
worldwide.
We are seeking papers that explore the connection between the
environment (social, natural, technological, media, etc.) and civil
society. We are especially interested in projects that explicitly
address the ameliorization of social or other shared problems, both
at a strategic and policy level. Although our focus is civil
society, we welcome perspectives and projects that link civil society
to governmental and commercial enterprises cooperatively -- and
non-cooperatively. We are looking for theories that can be used
descriptively to account for new social movements, but also to
inform research directions, organizational development, technological
R&D, media, policy, and formal and informal education. We are
specifically seeking papers that bridge theory and practice and
theories that highlight the role of people and human agency in
addressing challenges of the 21st Century. Some relevant fields
may include distributed cognition, new social movements, community
informatics, formal and informal education, distributed artificial
intelligence, network science, management science, cognitive science,
computer supported cooperative work, library and information science,
civic innovation and social learning, as well as discussions relevant
to policy, media, the arts, etc.
The problem is framing the idea of civic intelligence in a way that
engages intellectuals, decision-makers, artists, activists and
citizens. This special issue of AI & Society will provide a forum
and a platform for exploring these critical issues. We hope that
this special issue will help spur the evolution of an information
and communication infrastructure that truly meets today's urgent
needs.
ABOUT THE JOURNAL
The Journal AI & Society is published by Springer-Verlag, a pre-eminent
scientific publisher with a reputation for excellence spanning more
than 150 years. The journal therefore figures in the SpringerLink
world-class exploratory tool on the Internet (over 500 peer-reviewed
journals and 2000 books online) which enjoys access via multiple
portals -- it is highly visible in the research community. For
other reasons why authors should publish in this issue, please see
(search under the discipline of computer science): http://www.
springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,10735,5-111-2-103775-0,00.html.
The Editor of the journal is Professor Karamjit S. Gill, University
of Brighton, Brighton, United Kingdom.
SUBMISSION
The length of a paper may vary, but authors must write concisely.
The title is not to exceed 48 letters and spaces. The body of the
manuscript should include a 100 word abstract explaining its
international significance. 6 key words or phrases are to be provided
as well as full information (affiliations, titles, address, telephone,
etc.) concerning the authors. Each paper shall be reviewed by an
international and multidisciplinary panel of referees and shall be
communicated accordingly. As this is an interdisciplinary effort,
we encourage all submitters to write their papers for a general
audience. In practical terms, this means avoiding jargon when
possible and providing simple definitions for any terminology that
is not in regular usage outside your discipline. Also, for purposes
of review, please indicate with what academic (or other) disciplines
or classifications your submission is associated. Please list up
to three possible reviewers (and their affiliation and contact
information) who are familiar with the field and are not closely
related via affiliation or recent collaboration to you. Full
papers are due on the 22nd of November 2004 for this special
issue scheduled to appear in mid 2005. Full papers will not be
accepted without approval based on your extended abstract.
* Submission of extended abstracts (1000 words: 13 August 2004)
* Submission of full papers for reviews: 22 November 2004
* Reviews: December 04 -mid January 2005
* Revision/acceptance: mid January 2005- end of February 2005
Please forward abstracts, questions and finalised submissions in MS
Word (Arial 10) format by e-mail to the Guest Editor:
Special Issue AI & Society
"Exploring Civic Intelligence: Descriptions & Prescriptions"
Douglas Schuler
Guest Editor
The Evergreen State College
The Public Sphere Project (of CPSR)
Phone: +1 206.634.0752
E-mail: [email protected]
