Social informatics

by IFIP TC 9 International Conference on Human Choice and Computers (7th 2006 Maribor, Slovenia)

Through the years, the principal message of the ‘Human Choice and Computers’ (HCC) tradition and its associated conferences has been: there are choices and alternatives. The special theme of HCC7 is Social Informatics, which includes in itself a promise of a less technically biased approach to informatics, whilst An Information Society for All adds the ethical aspects to it. When developing the infrastructure and applications in an information society, we should strive to afford people equal opportunities to information technologies. Professor Rob Kling introduced the name Social informatics in its widely known Computers and Controversy. He was director of the Center for Social Informatics at Indiana University, Bloomington. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2003 at age 58, leaving a rich heritage in the field. This HCC7 conference honours his work and memory, and it develops further the cultivation of Kling’s legacy. In this volume, Social Informatics takes in two directions. The first