Conference Themes:
There are many definitions of community. We focus on the notion of communities as social entitites compromised of actors who share something in common: this common element may be geography, needs, interests, practicies, organizations, or other bases for social connection. Communities are considered to be a basic unit of social experience. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can interact with communities in many complex ways. For example, ICTs can support community formation and development by facilitating communication and coordination among members. Conversely, the lack of attention to surrounding community context may inhibit the design and effective use of ICT innovations. Hence, new research into the creation, use, and evaluation of ICTs aimed at communitiy support is appearing at an increasing rate. New phenomena such as blogs, podcasting, smart mobs, and the popularity of social network software illustrate some of the new areas for research into the powerful and changing connections between community and technology.

Empirical, conceptual, and design contributions are invited, involving a range of methodologies and approaches. These might include application design, innovative frameworks, case studies, ethnographies, experiments, survey research, netwok analyses or economic studies.