Calls for papers

 

International Journal of Knowledge and Learning

 

Special Issue on: “Learning and Interacting in the Web: Social Networks and Social Software in the Web 2.0”

Guest Editors:
Sheizaf Rafaeli, University of Haifa, Israel
Stephen Downes, National Research Council Canada, Canada
Miltiadis Lytras, University of Patras, Greece
Ambjorn Naeve, Royal Insitute of Technology, Sweden

Knowledge and learning are social phenomena as well as human-centric. In simple terms, the deployment of emerging technologies in knowledge and learning requires the multilevel support of individuals, teams, communities and networks. The evolution of technologies has made difficult the distinction between the various levels of reference. Put simply, people are not isolated from their micro- or macro-environment. However, technology-supported information highways have developed unforeseen opportunities for knowledge and learning flows between the peers in this network.

According to Finin et all (2005), social networks are “explicit representations of the relationships between individuals and groups in a community. In the abstract, these networks are just simple graphs with nodes for the people and groups and links for the relationships. In practice, the links can encode all kinds of relationships – familial, friendship, professional or organizational. Social network theory, the study of such social networks, has developed techniques found useful in many fields, including sociology, anthropology, psychology and organizational studies… Virtual or online communities are groups of people connected through the Internet and other information technologies. These have become an important part of modern society and contribute to life in many contexts - social, educational, political and business. The communication technologies and infrastructures used to support virtual communities have evolved with the Internet and include electronic mailing lists, bulletin boards, usenet, IRC, Wikis, and blogs.”

Downes (2005), argues that personal descriptions, as found in social networks, and resource descriptions, as found in the semantic web, should be merged to form a single network, the semantic social network.

It seems that knowledge and learning domain enters in a new era where micro-contents¹ provide the most critical asset. Web 2.0² is the new buzzword with great potential.

The key motivation for this special issue is to go beyond the words and wishful thinking to examine the critical role of networks for the promotion of knowledge and learning.

We invite open minds - academics and practitioners alike - to contribute their research on how social networks and social software create new opportunities, exploiting leading edge approaches in the design and modelling of systems towards the vision of Web 2.0

¹ http://www.microlearning.org/
² http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

References:

Downes S. (2005). Semantic networks and social networks., The Learning Organization, Vol. 12 No. 5, pp. 411-417

Finin T., Ding L. and Zou L. (2005). Social networking on the semantic web. The Learning Organization, Vol. 12 No. 5, pp. 418–435

Lytras M., Sicilia M.A., Kinshuk, Sampson D., Special Issue on semantic and social aspects of learning in organizations. The Learning Organization Journal, Volume 12, Issue 5
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContainer.do?containerType=Issue&containerId=22676

Subject Coverage
Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Social network analysis as applied to the Web
• New forms of interaction in social systems
• FOAF and other metadata schema describing individuals and social ties
• Folksonomies, tagging and other collaboration-based categorisation systems
• Sharing contents in on-line communities
• Blogging as a social activity and approaches to semantic blogs
• Wikis, semantic Wikis and other collaborative knowledge creation systems
• Collaborative filtering in social settings
• Analysing social interaction for finding knowledge on Web users

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Author Guidelines page

Important Dates

Initial contact with Guest Editors for ideas sharing: ASAP

Abstract submissions; 30 September 2006

Manuscripts due by: 15 December 2006

Notification to authors: 15 February 2007

Final versions due by: 15 April 2007