Research Data Alliance (RDA) Plenary

Spreading the word about an interesting event/initiative I'm involved with:

Second Plenary of the Research Data Alliance, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, September 16–18, 2013

The Research Data Alliance invites participants from all walks of the research/data world to join us at the National Academy of Sciences for our Second Plenary!

• Great keynote speakers — including John Wilbanks of Sage Bionetworks and Carole Palmer, Univ. of Illinois
• Representatives from supporting agencies like the US National Science Foundation, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, the European Commission, and the Department of Innovation through the Australian National Data Service (ANDS)
• People from organizations like ESIP, CODATA, Microsoft Research, and W3C
• Opportunity to participate in a poster session
• Working sessions, breakouts, working and interest groups and much more

More info at https://www.rd-alliance.org/future-events.

Organizing a session at 4S (Society for social studies of science) annual meeting

I'm trying to co-organize a session at the 4S conference (see their CFP), so here is our call for papers (abstracts, actually):

Call for papers for a session on public engagement with science at the 4S Annual Meeting, November 2-5, 2011, Cleveland, OH

“Problematizing public engagement with science”

The discourse of public engagement with science is a prominent topic in the STS literature. Dissatisfied with conventional science education and media dissemination methods, scholars and practitioners explore alternative ways of public engagement, such as the use of digital media, scientists’ participation in school classrooms, and placements of members of the public on advisory boards of policy-making and funding institutions. Where are we with public engagement now? Are we as scholars and practitioners on the right track?

In this session, we aim to bring together researchers who are interested in investigating and problematizing ways the public is engaged with science. We would like to stimulate a discussion that draws on philosophy, methodology, and practice by seeking answers to questions such as: What methods can aid us in understanding and critical analyses of existing and prospective means of public engagement? How can researchers investigate the effectiveness, inclusivity, and underlying agendas of the means of engaging the publics? Are we as researchers missing any perspectives, methods, or tools that can facilitate better understanding and successful implementations?

Ways to contribute to this discussion may include papers that provide insight and raise questions regarding any of the following:

• Concepts and social agendas – What roles should various stakeholders (e.g., scientists, government, publics) play? What ethical and moral issues are involved? How do the core concepts, such as science, communication, and publics, influence our understanding of public engagement?
• Theories and methodologies – Methods, assessments, and perspectives that hold promise for investigating issues around public engagement with science and science discourse.
• Tools and rules – Existing means for promoting public engagement in science. What are the strengths and limitations of these means? What can be learned from reports of success or failure of existing initiatives of promoting public engagement with science?

We aim to organize at least one session submission for the 4S conference on the topic of problematizing public engagement with science. If we have sufficient number of co-presenters, we will submit complementary sessions themed accordingly to the submissions received.

Deadline for submitting abstracts: March 10, 2011

Please submit abstracts (250 words) to: Inna Kouper at inkouper at indiana dot edu

Session co-organizers: Lai Ma, Inna Kouper, & Thomas Fennewald (Indiana University)

Conference

CADAAD 2010 Call for Papers | Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines (CADAAD)

In line with previous CADAAD conferences, this conference aims to promote new directions in cross-disciplinary critical discourse research. We welcome contributions from all areas of critically applied linguistics. We especially encourage papers which assess the state of the art and explore new methodologies in critical discourse research oriented toward the general theme of ideology, identity and interaction. Possible areas of analysis include but are by no means limited to the following:

* · Identities in discourse
* · Political communication
* · Language in the news
* · Language in the new media
* · Discourse of advertising
* · Institutional discourse
* · Language and globalisation
* · Business communication
* · Scientific discourse
* · Health communication
* · Language and ecology

Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English.

Abstracts of no more than 350 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to discourse@cadaad.org by 15 January 2010. Please include name, affiliation, email address and paper title in the body of the email. All abstracts will be accepted subject to review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated via email by the end of February 2010.

Observations from the ICA meetinng

On May 22-23 I was in Chicago at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association. Below are my informal observations from this meeting.

• It is a fun crowd. It was my first time at this conference and even though I didn't know people, I understood what people were talking about and could relate to that. It'd be nice to end up at a communication department (long shot though).


• The conference is huge, almost 2000 people registered. This size has its own pros and cons. On the pro side, there were lots of interesting sessions. I tried to drop in into those that talked about unfamiliar topics and learned a lot. For example, about the agenda-setting theory. Big conferences with multiple sessions are good for expanding one's horizons. On the con side, the conference was packed and there was no time for discussions during sessions and panels. I guess most discussions happen during breaks, but it is hard for someone like me who doesn't know anybody.


• The conference format is outdated. There is too much information, too little time, lots of problems with equipment. Besides, writing the whole paper as a submission and then presenting it for 15 min without getting a publication is a waste of time. It certainly affected the quality of some papers at this conference. Something should change to match existing trends in information, communication, and technology.


• There is fear of theory in the qualitative camp. I already sensed it before at the ALISE conference, where I was interviewing for a job. Here I also heard people talking again about how Habermas is hard to understand and how Foucault is hard to apply. Several people proudly stated (including those from the podium) that they are *trying* to apply contemporary theory to their work. And others nodded with sympathy and understanding. What is up with all that? No wonder quant people look down on us. Not only we're slow to come up with theories, we also don't want to use them in our work.


• The most successful presentations show, not tell. They don't even try to present research. They provide some examples and talk about them, engaging the audience and making people laugh. So my presentation with proper intro-methodology-findings-conclusion was boring.


• Conferences are certainly for fun. At the beginning I tried to listen to talks as I'd be reading papers - to learn about people's research. But it's impossible to do in 15 min. All you can do is get a sense of what people are doing and then either approach them to talk more, or think about your own stuff and generate ideas. That's what I was doing mostly.