THE NEW REVIEW OF HYPERMEDIA AND MULTIMEDIA, SPECIAL ISSUE

***CALL FOR PAPERS*** [with apologies for cross-posting]

"STUDYING THE USERS OF DIGITAL EDUCATION TECHNOLOGIES: THEORIES,
METHODS AND ANALYTICAL APPROACHES"

Guest editor: Michael Khoo, National Science Digital Library,
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado,
United States
mjkhoo@ucar.edu

Submission deadline: 16 May 2007
Acceptance notification: 2 July 2007
Final manuscripts due: 20 August 2007

Digital technologies are increasingly integral components of educational settings and Digital Libraries, serving for instance as repositories, as scaffolds to enhance face-to-face pedagogy, and as distance-learning tools. How might we understand the impact of these technologies on knowledge and learning, and what lessons might be learnt from their use, that could be applied to future technologies?

Addressing these research questions requires recognition of the highly complex character of digital education technologies: they vary in size from handheld PDAs to large distributed digital library projects; they are used in a range of formal and informal educational settings ranging from schools and universities to hospitals, clinics, museums and art galleries; and they serve learners of all ages. How
may researchers approach this heterogeneity and work towards useful
research outcomes?

This special issue of NRHM addresses issues associated with the qualitative understanding of the use of digital educational technologies in real-life contexts (with a focus on digital
libraries, broadly conceived), by emphasizing the importance of
contextual sociotechnical studies of technology use and design. The issue will consider educational technologies as complex mixtures of people, practices and technologies, embedded in a range of institutional, technological and social contexts. The editor
therefore invites contributions that address the qualitative and
sociotechnical study of digital educational technologies and users
‘in the wild.’ Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

Theoretical approaches
- Ethnographic, anthropological, sociological, sociotechnical, activity theory, practice-based, and other approaches to the analysis of digital educational technologies

Methodological approaches
- Ethnography
- HCI, user testing, scenarios, interviews, focus groups, etc.
- Discourse analysis
- Webmetrics and use models
- Etc.

Applications to particular domains
- Science education
- Medical
- Digital Libraries
- User groups and use-in-context
- Etc.

Applied approaches
- Case studies
- Qualitative research and project evaluation strategies
- Communicating qualitative research results to digital library developers and sponsors
- Etc.

The New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia (NRHM) is published by
Taylor & Francis and appears in both print and digital formats. For more details, see the journal website:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13614568.asp

Submissions should be sent by email to the guest editor, preferably in pdf format. Questions and enquiries concerning this call should be
directed to the guest editor. Open topic papers meeting NRHM's scope
in general are also welcome (send to Editor, dstudhope@glam.ac.uk).