Society and Information Research Group

You are invited to The Difference that Makes a Difference 2013, An interdisciplinary workshop on Information: Space, Time, and Identity.

Location: The Open University and the MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK
Dates: 8-10 April 2013
Website: http://www.dtmd.org.uk

Deadline for one page abstracts - extended to 1st February 2013.

Information has been conceptualised in many different ways in different disciplines, and the DTMD series of workshops is a forum for sharing of those insights . We are keen to involve as many different people, from as many different disciplines, as possible in presenting and participating in the workshop. We invite a wide range of participants to give short (10 minute) presentations on their work as it relates to an understanding of information.

There will be six sessions:

Over days 1 and 2 the first four sessions consist of a keynote speaker followed by six or seven short presentations (which will have been selected by referees from submitted abstracts) then a panel discussion.

1. Information and Space. The relationship between information and space, ‘meaning’ in our physical environment, and the information landscapes that go beyond physical space.
2. Information and Time. Both the historic framework of the notion of information, and time as a ‘dimension’ in information – physics, entropy, information and ‘the arrow of time’.
3. Information and Identity. Identity (race, gender, nationality, class and sexual orientation, for example) as information and, conversely, information as identity.
4. What is information? Why are so many disciplines using informational concepts in their narratives? Is a Universal Theory of Information (UTI) possible?

Sessions 5 and 6 on day 3 draw together the insights from the first two days in two ways. First, through art, when the results of the work of the Workshop artist’s collaboration with delegates is presented and discussed. Second, a final keynote speech from Luciano Floridi, Professor of the Philosophy of information will lead in to a panel discussion with the keynote speakers from the earlier sessions.

For more details see the workshop programme: http://www.dtmd.org.uk/programme and the Call for Papers: http://www.dtmd.org.uk/call-for-papers

Accepted abstracts will be published in a Workshop Digest which will be made available online prior to the event, and, following the workshop, delegates will be invited to submit papers for special issue of Kybernetes, based on papers presented at the workshop.

We hope to see you in Milton Keynes in April.

Seminar, Wednesday 19th October, 2pm.  Library Seminar rooms 1 &  2.

Amanda Spink
Professor of Information Science, Loughborough University

Abstract: This talk will provide an overview of the field of information science and discuss trends in the field moving forward. The presentation includes a discussion of the major research areas, schools, journals and conferences associated with information science. Currently, the major issue for the field is the growing nexus between computer science and psychology. As information science is a field concerned with the human use of information, it both draws upon and is influenced by fields associated with computer science and technology, as well as psychology and the social sciences. However, being a small field with limited scholarly impact, the long term future for information science is probably limited as “information” is becoming increasingly the purview of many fields related to technology and psychology. For example, there is a shift under way in cognitive and computer science to conduct research into the human aspects of Web and information retrieval, which has been a key area of information science.

Professor Spink is an international leader in information science research with 340+ publications and 6 books. Her research focuses on developing theories and models of information behaviour and she has over 20 years experience in information science in the United States, Australia and the UK. http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/people/ASpink.html