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The CPSR Compiler - December 2008

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The CPSR Compiler - December 2008 - 1.0
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COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS for SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Turning Thoughts to Actions

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Liberating Voices Book Now Available!

Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution, the book on the information and communication pattern language project that was launched at CPSR's 2002 Shaping the Network Society conference (DIAC-2002), is finally available (From Powells Books, and other online and offline sources). Liberating Voices brings together ideas and suggestions from a variety of perspectives including activism and social change, education, community informatics, governance, media, development, information science, economics, journalism, arts and culture. It can be used by researchers, by practitioners in a variety of fields including teachers in the classroom, by activists, and by citizens and community members throughout the world.

This book is particularly relevant at this moment in history. It's a call for social change based on a peaceful revolution in grassroots information and communication. Inspired by the vision and framework outlined in Christopher Alexander's classic 1977 book, A Pattern Language, the Liberating Voices manifesto takes the form of a pattern language containing 136 patterns designed to meet these challenges. Each pattern is a template for research as well as for social critique and action. And each pattern is linked to other patterns to form a single coherent whole — a pattern language. Douglas Schuler and the book's 85 co-authors have tried to show that the struggle for liberatory information and communication systems is absolutely critical to a just and sustainable future.

While different patterns will be interesting to different people, the following patterns should be particularly compelling for CPSR members and their friends:

The pattern language was developed collaboratively with nearly 100 co-authors using an online pattern language management system. The patterns from the book are all online as are approximately 300 other patterns in work. We are treating the publishing of the book as an important milestone rather than the culmination of the project. While we are very enthusiastic about what we've produced we realize that people and organizations who use the patterns will need to adapt the pattern language to their specific needs which may even include developing new patterns. For this reason and others we are revamping our web site to encourage collaborative pattern language construction and allow people to share ideas and experiences with others more easily.

The authors worked to create an intriguing and informative catalog of intellectual, social, and technological innovations, a practical manual for citizen activism, and a compelling manifesto for creating a more intelligent, sustainable, and equitable world. Now is the time to unleash the collective creativity — social as well as technological — of the world's citizens and develop the communication systems that promote community and civic innovation and engagement to address serious challenges like climate change and environmental degradation.

Endorsements

"If we keep following the well-trodden paths that have brought us to where we are, we'll never get to where we want to go. Schuler and his colleagues believe that we can get out of these ruts, and better yet, they tell us how. This work goes beyond elections and demonstrations, beyond cynicism and business as usual. It asks the much deeper questions: what kind of a world do we want and what must we do to get there? Schuler and his colleagues show us that another world is possible and invite everybody to the project. I say, 'Let's get going.'"
— Jerry Greenfield, co-founder, Ben & Jerry's

"In this wide-ranging analysis of the role of information in society, Doug Schuler proposes a grand theory that weaves together disparate information and communication activities into an organized, synergistic fabric. He taps into the collective wisdom of citizens — both theorists and advocates — to develop a pattern language that can be used as a framework for rethinking how we build community and create a more humane, equitable future."
— Nancy Kranich, Former President, American Library Association, author of Libraries & Democracy

"It's a wonder no one has attempted this monumental project before! Doug Schuler and his collaborators have produced a visionary manual rich in insights and directly useful in any attempt to connect people and information technologies in the quest for real democracy. This is a crucial book for our time."
— Langdon Winner, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

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2009 IEEE Service Cup (Service Cup 2009)

Call for Participation

Resuming the three successful service computing contests (2006, 2007, 2008), we extend this contest to a wider scope in 2009. The Service Cup 2009 has two categories: the Service Computing Contest is open to university students and professors to demonstrate results from course projects or research projects, and the Service Industry Contest is open to the practitioners from industry to show case their products or development projects. The contest focuses on using the SOA methodologies, solution reference architectures, and tools to better solve business issues facing today. The team can select a problem in any context to explore the new frontiers of SOA techniques. In the past contests, the contest teams have worked on a wide range of applications from public safety, health, information management and retrieval, education and so on. We are expecting the contest participants to explore the new frontiers of SOA techniques.

Each team is required to submit a technical paper and build a demo system which should be accessible on line. The finalists will be invited to ICWS 2009 in LA, USA for on-site contest. The The papers of the finalists will be published in the proceedings of the 2009 IEEE Congress on Services (SERVICES 2009) which is collected in IEEE Digital Library. IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Services Computing sponsors travel awards to the top teams in final list. NSF funding for student travel is pending.

Important Dates

  • Paper and demo submission due date: February 20, 2009.
  • Decision notification: March 20, 2009.
  • Camera-ready copy due date: April 10, 2009.
  • the final competition is one day between July 7-10 during ICWS2009 (will be decided later).

Contest Awards

  • Each team on the final list will receive a framed certificate presented by IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Services Computing.
  • The teams on the final list will publish their papers in the Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE Congress on Services (SERVICES 2008). One registration fee is required. A second registration is free.
  • Each team on the final list will receive one student travel award for a student member to present their work at SCC 2008 or ICWS 2008.
  • $1,000 cash award will be shared among the winning teams.

Contest Web Site: http://iscc.servicescomputing.org/2009

Contest Organization

Co-Chair:
Sushil Prasad, Georgia State University, USA
Yuhong Yan, Concordia University, Canada

Contest Committee:
Chris Armstrong, IBM Canada, Canada,
Janaka Balasooriya, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA
Akshaye Dhawan, Georgia State University, USA
Erdogan Dogdu, TOBB University of Economics and Technology University, Turkey
Soo Dong Kim, Soongsil University, South Korea
Wolfgang Lehner, Technical University of Dresden, Germany
Li Li, Avaya Researches, USA
Althea Liang, Singapore Management University, Singapore
Lin Liu, Tsinghua University, China
Shiyong Lu, Wayne State University, USA
Kelly Lyons, University of Toronto, Canada
Praveen Madiraju, Marquette University, USA
Bill McIver, National Research Council, Canada
Felix Naumann, Hasso Planttner Institute of Software System Techniques, Germany
Liam Payton, University of Ottawa, Canada
Michael Sintek, DFKI, Germany
Eleni Stroulia, University of Alberta, Canada
Anthony Sulistio, the University of Melbourne, Australia
Paramala Thulsiraman, University of Manitoba, Canada
Michael Weiss, Carleton University, Canada

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(c) Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility 2008


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Created by hdihuyen
Last modified December 16, 2008 10:12 AM
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