CALL FOR WORKSHOP PAPERS

Lightweight User-Friendly Evaluation Knowledge for Digital Librarians

Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL)
Austin, Texas, USA, June 15-19, 2009

ORGANIZERS

• Michael Khoo, the iSchool at Drexel University, Philadelphia, U.S.A.
• George Buchanan, Center for HCI Design, City University, London, U.K.
• Sally Jo Cunningham, Computer Science Dept., University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

For further information, and to submit abstracts, please contact: michael.khoo@ischool.drexel.edu.

The submission deadline for abstracts is May 20th. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by May 27th. Deadline for final position papers is June 8th.

WORKSHOP GOALS

Real-life DL systems require evaluation for funding and to give feedback to the digital librarians. However, academic evaluation techniques may be high effort and seek higher levels of confidence and deeper claims than are needed or appropriate. Lightweight evaluation methods can therefore play an important role in digital library research. This workshop will bring together communities that are seeking effective evaluation techniques that can be applied with minimal expertise, specialist apparatus or financial costs.

The workshop will appeal to digital librarians wanting to learn about evaluation, evaluators interested in digital librarians’ practices, funders, and others. Identifying user-centered evaluation knowledge will boost digital librarians’ confidence in carrying out evaluation, and support them to engage in relevant and useful evaluation, while at the same time satisfying agencies’ wider strategic demands for substantive program-based evaluation data. The workshop also welcomes contributions from those who have developed lightweight evaluation methods for others, and researchers and systems developers who also need easy to use evaluation techniques

FORMAT AND SUBMISSIONS

Persons interested in presenting are invited to submit a short (250 word) abstract describing their research by May 10th, for acceptance/rejection by May 20th. The authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit a longer (600-1000+ word) position paper by June 8th. The description of relevant case studies is encouraged.

The workshop will consist of a series of themed panels and presentations of accepted position papers. Presentations will be discussed in a seminar format by presenters and participants. All attendees will be encouraged to make significant contributions, and to draw links between the presentations and their own experiences.

Accepted position papers will be collated, printed, and distributed at the workshop. Copies of accepted position papers and a summary of the workshop will be made available as part of the JCDL Workshop report made to D-Lib Magazine. After the workshop, opportunities for submitting expanded versions of selected papers for a special journal issue on qualitative digital library research will be explored.

LOGISTICS

Important Workshop Dates