[Web4lib] 2nd CFP - Studying the Users of Digital Education Technologies

[Mick Khoo]

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS [with apologies for cross-posting]

THE NEW REVIEW OF HYPERMEDIA AND MULTIMEDIA, SPECIAL ISSUE

"STUDYING THE USERS OF DIGITAL EDUCATION TECHNOLOGIES: THEORIES,  
METHODS AND ANALYTICAL APPROACHES"

Guest editor: Michael Khoo, National Science Digital Library,  
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado,  
United States
mjkhoo at ucar.edu

Submission deadline: 16 May 2007
Acceptance notification: 2 July 2007
Final manuscripts due: 20 August 2007

Digital technologies are increasingly integral components of  
educational settings and Digital Libraries, serving for instance as  
repositories, as scaffolds to enhance face-to-face pedagogy, and as  
distance-learning tools. How might we understand the impact of these  
technologies on knowledge and learning, and what lessons might be  
learnt from their use, that could be applied to future technologies?  
Addressing these research questions requires recognition of the  
highly complex character of digital education technologies: they vary  
in size from handheld PDAs to large distributed digital library  
projects; they are used in a range of formal and informal educational  
settings ranging from schools and universities to hospitals, clinics,  
museums and art galleries; and they serve learners of all ages. How  
may researchers approach this heterogeneity and work towards useful  
research outcomes?

This special issue of NRHM addresses issues associated with the  
qualitative understanding of the use of digital educational  
technologies in real-life contexts (with a focus on digital  
libraries, broadly conceived), by emphasizing the importance of  
contextual sociotechnical studies of technology use and design. The  
issue will consider educational technologies as complex mixtures of  
people, practices and technologies, embedded in a range of  
institutional, technological and social contexts. The editor  
therefore invites contributions that address the qualitative and  
sociotechnical study of digital educational technologies and users  
‘in the wild.’ Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

Theoretical approaches
- Ethnographic, anthropological, sociological, sociotechnical,  
activity theory, practice-based, and other approaches to the analysis  
of digital educational technologies

Methodological approaches
- Ethnography
- HCI, user testing, scenarios, interviews, focus groups, etc.
- Discourse analysis
- Webmetrics and use models
- Etc.

Applications to particular domains
- Science education
- Medical
- Digital Libraries
- User groups and use-in-context
- Etc.

Applied approaches
- Case studies
- Qualitative research and project evaluation strategies
- Communicating qualitative research results to digital library  
developers and sponsors
- Etc.

The New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia (NRHM) is published by  
Taylor & Francis and appears in both print and digital formats. For  
more details, see the journal website:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13614568.asp

Submissions should be sent by email to the guest editor, preferably  
in pdf format. Questions and enquiries concerning this call should be  
directed to the guest editor. Open topic papers meeting NRHM's scope  
in general are also welcome (send to Editor, dstudhope at glam.ac.uk).





Michael Khoo, Evaluator, Core Integration Team
The National Science Digital Library (NSDL)
P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000, USA
Tel: +1 303.497.2604  Fax: +1 303.497.8336

NSDL evaluation pages: http://eval.comm.nsdl.org/
Personal home page: http://www.mjkhoo.info/