4th IDIA Conference

IDIA2010 Conference
Cape Town, South Africa
3-5 November 2010

Exploring Success and Failure in Development Informatics: Innovation, Research and Practice

NB
We do not accept email registrations.
Please use the Online Conference Registration - no longer active

We invite you to submit an abstract in the area of "Exploring Success and Failure in Development Informatics: Innovation, Research and Practice" included in the 4th International Development Informatics Association Conference: IDIA 2010 to be held on 3-5 Nov 2010 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Keynote speakers

1. Let’s Stop and Rethink IS Research in the Sub-Saharan African Context

Prof. Victor Mbarika
President, The ICT University and Executive Director/IT professor, ICITD, Southern University
More...

2. Development informatics: current status and future prospects

Prof. Geoff Walsham
University of Cambridge
More...

3. Re-thinking Communication Research and Development in Africa

Prof. Prof. Francis Nyamnjoh
University of Cape Town
More...

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1. Call for Papers

The 4th International IDIA Conference will be held in Cape Town, South Africa.

The conference is aimed at researchers, policy-makers and reflective practitioners. It will be managed and hosted by the Information Systems (IS) department at the University of Cape Town (UCT), in partnership with Faculty of IT at Monash University. The IS department at UCT has been actively pursing research in development for many years through its research unit - The Centre for IT and National Development (CITANDA) and takes great pleasure in planning this event.

The Conference Committee calls for papers on the following themes.

Papers will be double-blind peer-reviewed. Selected papers will be considered for publication in an accredited journal in development informatics.

Conference proceedings will be distributed at the conference.

The Development Informatics space is a dynamic, complex, morally challenging and altruistic area to intervene or undertake research. The 3rd international development informatics conference held in October 2009 at the Kruger National Park in South Africa gave an account of these realities. One of the key themes emerging form the conference was to improve the rigor with which we understand and explore the successes and failures of the various initiatives in innovation, research and practice.

The 4th annual conference hopes to progress in this direction and calls for papers in any of the following themes:

Themes

1. What is positive development?
a. How appropriate are development indicators?
b. Must development be equitable?

2. What right do DI researchers and practitioners have to intervene?
a. Who defines development goals?
b. When is intervention justifiable?

3. How can success or failure in DI be measured?
a. What are the goals of DI research and practice?
b. Who defines goals and measures success or failure of DI initiatives?

4. How may success in DI be achieved?
a. The value of assessing and managing expectations
b. How can the links between development and ICTs be explained?
c. What methods can be adopted to improve positive impact of DI research and practice?
d. Theories and models of successful DI initiatives
e. Scaling up DI initiatives
f. Sustaining DI initiatives
g. Connecting research, innovation, and practice
h. Describing the project ethos of development projects

5. What are the risks/ dangers in DI?
a. How are ICTs impeding development?
b. How may risks in DI be mitigated?

6. Reflections on success or failure in DI practice
a. Case studies of DI failure and success
b. Reports on the adoption or rejection of ICTs at a global and national level

Development informatics covers a broad range of fields relevant to developing countries and marginalised communities such as health informatics, egovernance, e-learning.

Papers may be relevant to one or more of these topics and the above themes. Candidates may also put in proposals for a panel discussion.

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2. Submission of Abstracts and Proposals

Abstracts of no longer than 500 words may be submitted through the electronic submission system: http://www.conftool.net/idia2010/

Full papers may only be submitted via the electronic submission system. For relevant themes see the Call for Papers above. Full paper formatting instructions will be indicated on the conference website.

Paper submission deadlines:

• 1 April 2010 Final date for submission of Abstracts
  the original date (15 March 2010) has been extended.
• 15 April 2010 Notification of acceptance of Abstracts
• 1 June 2010 Full papers due for blind peer review
• 1 August 2010 Peer review results
• 1 September 2010 Final version of papers due

Conference proceedings

Papers will be published in:

Proceedings of the 4th International IDIA Development Informatics Conference
Publisher: IDIA, Monash University
ISBN - 978-0-620-47590-7

Format

For reviewing purposes:

• Papers should be submitted in one of these formats:
  • Open Office
  • MS Word
  • RTF
• The paper should include a title, abstract or summary, and references (preferably Harvard/APA style).
• Please remove all references to author names and institutions.
• The paper length should be between 4000 and 8000 words including all headings, references, and footnotes
• We recommend 1.5 or double line spacing with size 10 or greater font
• Use of footnotes should be minimised.
• The abstract should be a maximum of 300 words

For publishing purposes:

• The paper should include the author and co-authors' name, affiliation and contact email.
• Note that papers may be reformatted by the conference organisers for the conference proceedings and for journal submission.
• The paper will only be included in the conference proceedings if at least one co-author is able to present the paper at the conference.
• Once the paper is accepted for the conference proceedings, it is assumed that the author gives consent for the paper to be published online by the conference organisers

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3. Registration Information

Please use the online conference system to register.

Registration fees

	Rand		Euro
Conference fee	R2700		€290
Early bird	R2200		€245
Student Specials
Conference fee	R2000		€225
Early bird	R1700		€190

Early bird ends: 15 September 2010.

Courtesy of xe.com. Universal Currency Converter service and trade mark under license from xe.com. Terms of Use

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4. Accommodation

See a list of accommodation services in the region around the University of Cape Town.

• Bishopscourt
• Claremont
• Kenilworth
• Mowbray
• Newlands
• Rondebosch
• Rosebank

Transport

All the accommodation services above are within 4Km from the University of Cape Town campus. Taxi from the accommodation services to the campus range between R100 to R150 per trip, while for further places around R200 per trip.

There is a train service fromj the Cape Town city centre. The closest stations to the campus are Rosebank (about 1.2Km) and Rondebosch (about 1.5Km).

Maps

• Maps of suburbs and greater Cape Town
• Map from Airport to Univ Cape Town - an De Waal, which is near the central city
• Map of upper campus location
• Map of upper campus (4Mb PNG)
• Map to Kirstenbosch Gardens (795Kb PDF)
• Map of the layout of Kirstenbosch Gardens (824Kb JPG)

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5. Conference Committee

	Wallace Chigona, University of Cape Town, South Africa
	Kosheek Sewchurran, University of Cape Town, South Africa
	Jacques Steyn, Monash South Africa
	Graeme Johanson, Monash University, Australia
	Irwin Brown, University of Cape Town, South Africa
	Michael Kyobe, University of Cape Town, South Africa
	Salah Kabanda, University of Cape Town, South Africa
	Maureen Tanner, University of Cape Town, South Africa
	Paul Plantinga, Monash University, South Africa
	Agnes Chigona, University of Cape Town, South Africa
	Rangarirai Matavire, University of Cape Town, South Africa

About CITANDA

CITANDA is a research unit at the University of Cape Town that focuses on creating knowledge by pursuing research relating to the use of ICTs for socioeconomic upliftment in Africa.

About IDIA

IDIA, the International Development Informatics Association, is an association serving as a forum for international cooperation between organisations focusing on research into the use of ICTs by developing economies and societies (ICT4D). IDIA was founded in 2006 and has held national workshops on Development Informatics, as well as three international conferences. IDIA2009 was held in October 2009, attracting papers from 12 countries.

IDIA2010 is the 4th International IDIA Conference. Best regards, Organizing Committee