The mini-track calls for papers that study the digital divide and digital inclusion at different levels, from different perspectives and using different methods. Possible investigations of the digital divide may focus on international, national, regional, local, sector, communal and individual levels. Both empirical and theoretical papers are welcome.

Potential contributions related to the digital divide may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Conceptualisation and theory of the digital divide and digital inclusion
• Information and communication technologies for development
• Digital divide, digital spectrum and wireless spectrum
• Relationships between off-line divides and on-line divides
• Socio-demographic factors: gender, age, education, income, ethnic background, race, religion, language, etc.
• Social, political and governmental support Ð for example, the use of supportive initiatives, policy and applications to bridge the gap, or how society and community impact digital inclusion
• Access and technology:  infrastructure factors
• Affordability
• Use skills, frequency and time, locus, autonomy of use, what do users do online and for what purpose?
• Accessibility in populations with special needs
• Measurement: eReadiness, IDI, DiDix, Digital Opportunity and more
• Comparative analysis of policy
• Comparative cross-country or cross-region research
• Country- or region-specific case studies

David Yates earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts in 2006 and has been an Assistant Professor at Bentley University since this time. His research interests span from networked devices (e.g., embedded sensors and actuators) to networked societies. Much of his recent work has been focused in three areas (i) understanding how best to bridge the digital divide; (ii) utilizing information and communication technologies (ICTs) to make government more effective; and (iii) improving citizen engagement in the political process using ICTs. In the corporate arena, David was a co-founder and Vice President of Software Development at InfoLibria: a startup that grew to become a leading provider of hardware and software for building content distribution and delivery networks before it was acquired.

Karine Nahon is an Associate Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington, Director of the retroV (virality of Information) group. Her research focuses on Information politics and policy and digital divide/s. Formerly she held senior positions in Research and Development in the hi-tech industry, and currently is consulting on issues of electronic commerce, virtual communities, and privacy. Her academic education encompasses Computer Science, Political Science, and Management of Information Systems. Additionally, she was the coordinator and a member of the Communication and Informatics Committee for UNESCO in Israel, and participated in the WSIS (World Summit of Information Society) as a representative of the Israeli delegation. She is involved in different international task forces that deal with Internet policy.

SUBMIT INQUIRIES TO:

Our mini track aims to:

We welcome participation from researchers, designers, educators, industry, and students from the many disciplines and perspectives bearing on the social interaction, including systems sciences, design and engineering, information technology, business administration, economics, education, health, humanities, law, media and communication studies, and social sciences.

We welcome a paper based on theoretical Approach, descriptive approach, normative approach, conceptual modeling, operational modeling, or formal modeling and so on.

SUBMIT INQUIRIES TO:

This minitrack builds upon earlier HICSS minitracks on visual analytics, mobile computing, and digital media at scale. It seeks to define commonalities between analytical methods that utilize interactive visualization to cope with challenges posed by data, platform, and application. These include:

• Processing massive data from data archives and real-time data streams.
• Need for predictive and real-time analytics and operations management,
• Mobile device limitations: battery, processing capacity, screens and interactivity.
• Need to coordinate across multiple roles and tasks within and across organizations.
• Interoperability of mobile, desktop, tabletop, wall, and virtual environments

Innovations in computers, graphical displays and sensors give us the capability to generate, process, and visualize data from real-time data streams and massive data archives. Advanced data analysis approaches generate new algorithms, applications, and communication protocols optimized for platforms that include supercomputers and low-wattage mobile computers. Innovations in computer graphics and human-information interaction provide the basis for novel interactive visualization systems that can support the innate human ability to characterize, analyze, and manipulate information in complex interactive visual and multimodal environments across a multitude of devices, from mobile phones to supercomputers.

Taken in isolation, both algorithmic "data sciences" approaches and human-centered "visual analytics" human-computer interface methods hold great promise for operationalizing massive datasets and streaming data in support of a broad range of human activities. Applications in basic scientific research, business analytics, health sciences, environmental science and engineering R&D explore the implications of these methods for advancement of knowledge and strategic planning. Applications in coordination, command and control of complex human activities such as disaster relief, law enforcement, and anti-terrorism add the constraints of real-time performance and distribution of planning to the challenges faced.

• We invite mathematical, computational, cognitive, and organizational perspectives on the use of advanced data processing and interactive visualization approaches to understanding and controlling complex systems across a range of human endeavors.

• We also invite participation from researchers who are looking at scaling issues and multi-scale issues, whether these scales refer to the time of decision making, the form-factor and operational constraints of mobile devices, the number of decision makers or the more traditional notion of multi-scale simulation and real-world scales of data.

• We are particularly interested in papers that report on an effective synthesis of algorithms and visualization with an impact on decision-making and/or coordination of operations, as evidenced by either realist simulations or adoption in a concrete mission.

This minitrack seeks to bring together researchers and problem owners working in these areas to present research methods and findings and to discuss their approaches and ideas to advance the state-of-the-art for this class of complex "wicked" problems.