CFP: Gender and Interaction: Real and Virtual Women in a Male World (Italy) (3/19/06; 5/23/06)

full name / name of organization: 
Brahnam
contact email: 

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                          CALL FOR WORKSHOP PAPERS
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"Gender and Interaction: Real and Virtual women in a male world"
1 day workshop at AVI 2006
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Date: 23 May 2006
Location: Venice, Italy
Submission Deadline: 19 March 2006 - Extended deadline
 
Web-site: http://www.informatics.manchester.ac.uk/~antonella/gender/
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AIMS AND SCOPE OF THE WORKSHOP
==============================
Gender differences in computer adoption have been investigated since the
'80s. Back then, research described computers as a male world and warned
of a serious digital divide attributed to different attitudes towards
mathematics and to sex-role stereotypes. Nowadays, the gap has decreased
with respect to selected applications (such as the Internet and e-mail)
but women are still severely underrepresented among computer scientists,
software developers, and video-games players

As HCI moves towards an experiential vision, the understanding of
gender-related differences assumes greater importance. The metaphor of
computers as social actors and the anthropomorphisation of the interface
(often embodied by attractive young females) are important triggers of
research on gender and interaction. Sexism, sexual harassment and a
tendency of misreporting sexual identity are well known aspects of
on-line communication which deserve further attention from the design
community.

Some of the larger questions we aim to address during the workshop are:

* What is the current status of the digital divide in computer adoption
and usage between male and female users?
* How do different interface metaphors (embodied conversational
characters, windows, desktops) affect gender related differences?
* What is the effect of gender on the perception and usage of
educational software?
* Does gender affect navigational knowledge and strategies (e.g. in VR
or Web-browsing)?
* Does gender affect the acquisition of sensory-motor tasks in the use
of multi-modal interfaces?
* Should machines (embodied characters and robots) have gender? How
should 'artificial' gender be designed and how would it affect the
interaction?
* Do sex-role stereotypes apply to embodied characters?
* Does gender affect the way human empathize with embodied characters
and robots?

INTENDED AUDIENCE AND WORKSHOP FORMAT
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The goal of this workshop is to address the relevance of gender for
interaction design, the sexualisation of embodied conversational agents
and the effect of emotional computing on male and female users. The
workshop will bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers
and practitioners in interaction design, human-computer interaction,
computer mediated communication, intelligent virtual agents, game
design, social psychology, and cultural studies. The program will
feature the presentation of refereed papers followed by interactive
sessions drawn on a number of design scenarios which will be distributed
prior to the workshop. A part of the discussion will concentrate on the
definition of a roadmap for future research.

SUBMISSIONS AND DISSEMINATION
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Prospective participants should send a 2/4 position paper to
Antonella.de-angeli_at_manchester.ac.uk

following the ACM format. Please e-mail your submission in PDF.

Accepted papers will appear in the workshop proceedings and will be
posted on the web. According to the quality of the submissions we will
explore alternatives such as a special journal issue or a book
collection.

IMPORTANT DATES
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   March : contact co-chair
   March : Notification of acceptance
   May 23: Workshop

ORGANISING COMMITTEE
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Co-Chairs:
  Antonella De Angeli (University of Manchester UK)
  Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze (UCL, UK)

Programme Committee:
Sheryl Brahnam (Missouri University, US)
Fiorella De Cindio (University of Milano, IT)
Claude Draude (Humboldt University Berlin, DE)
Alan Dix (University of Lancaster, UK)
Kathy Keeling (University of Manchester, UK)
Sri Kurniawan (University of Manchester, UK)
Piero Mussio (University of Milano, IT)
Mihoko Otake (University of Tokyo, Japan)
Catherine Pelachaud (Universite de Paris 8, FR)
Frank Pollick (University of Glasgow, UK)
Massimo Zancanaro (IRST, IT)
Sean Zdenek (Texas Tech University, USA)

CONTACTS
===================
For information, expressions of interest and/or submission contact

Antonella De Angeli
Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design
School of Informatics - the University of Manchester
Antonella.de-angeli_at_manchester.ac.uk

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Received on Wed Mar 15 2006 - 08:28:53 EST