SECIII-Social, Ethical and Cognitive Issues of Informatics and ICT
Welcome to the post-conference book of SECIII, the IFIP Open Conference
on Social, Ethical and Cognitive Issues of Informatics and ICT
(Information and Communication Technology) which took place from July
22-26, 2002 at the University of Dortmund, Germany, in co-operation with
the German computer society (Gesellschaft flir Informatik). Unlike most
international conferences, those organised within the IFIP education
community are active events. This wasn't a dry academic conference -
teachers, lecturers and curriculum experts, policy makers, researchers
and manufacturers mingled and worked together to explore, reflect and
discuss social, ethical and cognitive issues. The added value lies in
what they, the participants, took away in new ideas for future research
and practice, and in the new networks that were formed, both virtual and
real. In addition to Keynote Addresses and Paper Presentations from
international authors, there were Provocative Paper sessions, Case
Studies, Focussed Debates and Creative Exchange sessions as well as
professional Working Groups who debated particular themes. The Focussed
Debate sessions helped to stimulate the sense of engagement among
conference participants. A Market Place with follow-up Working Groups
was a positive highlight and galvanised participants to produce
interesting reports. These were presented to the conference on its last
day. Cross-fertilisation between the papers generated some surprising
and useful cross-referencing and a plethora of social, ethical and
cognitive issues emerged in the discussions that followed the paper
presentations.