Track
Moderators
José María Díaz Nafría, Universidad de León, Spain; Senescyt, Ecuador; Munich University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Marcus Abundis, Bön Informatics, Switzerland
Francisco Salto Alemany, Universidad de León, Spain; BITrum, Spain; UTI Research Group
Objectives
Is it possible to build a coherent model of information that bridges vested interests across the sciences? In the past two decades, efforts have been made toward a common understanding of information, but concurrently and even to a larger extent, this understanding has been scattered by specialised disciplines focused on their disjoined insights. In a practical context, this opposition is analogous to the one established between those advocating for information as a “commons” and those promoting the commodification of information. Whereas the former consider information as necessarily attached to a larger cultural and societal basis, the latter deem information as a kind of asset that can be used for the own benefit.
Despite the universality of “information” as a concept, we still lack a sort of continuity in the fabric of concepts each discipline weaves around information. Beyond the kind of “interdisciplinarity” in which the scientific concept of information has been entangled, a strong interdisciplinary or even a trans-disciplinary approach may bridge the gaps. A group of scholars after several years of attempting to weave the understanding of information across disciplines (http://glossarium.bitrum.unileon.es/glossary), now calls for summing up efforts in this endeavour to seed lights into the common enterprise of properly addressing the informational phenomena in physical, biological, cognitive, social, and technical realms. We ask: What formal tools enable us to capture the different perspectives? What must be clarified in the web of related concepts to enable a common understanding? What common theoretical soil can we plough to build up an inclusive information society?
Subjects and scope
Papers that help clarify concepts, metaphors, theories or problems concerning information are welcomed, for example: What is information content? How can we account for the essential fuzziness of awareness and morphogenesis? What is the relation between information and knowledge, information and energy, information and computation? What are the logical properties of informational states? Is an evolutionary concept of information pervasive enough to cover all information phenomena?
Further, papers that help develop the glossariumBITri’s network are encouraged, whether they present a new node (concept, metaphor, theory or problem) or a critic, discussion or extension of an already weaved node. Some proposals may be added early (prior to the IS4IS Summit) to the interactive-glossariumBITri, which will then be interconnected with other online media to stimulate open discussions on hot topics. A selection of relevant contributions will be collected in a special issue of glossariumBITri-journal.
Target groups
- Scientists from any field willing to look beyond their disciplinary borders towards an interdisciplinary understanding of information;
- BITrum members; UTI members
- Scientists and technologists committed to the development of a general or unified understanding of information;
- Scientists and technologists committed to develop the formal underpinnings of a general science of information
Important Dates
Submission deadline: 27 February 2015
Notification of acceptance: 20 March 2015
