Module : Social Informatics Research Projects. CODE UMINR332
Responsable
Stefano A. Cerri
Parcours intégrant UV
aucun.
Parcours possibles
Informatique, tout Mastère ED I2S + Mastère EU Sciences de la Cognition (9 Universités).
Pré-Requis
aucun
Controle connaissances
3 Ecrit
Description de l'UE :
Semestre
Code
Intitulé
Cours
TD
TP
TER
S3
UMINR332
Social Informatics Research
15h
Detail du programme
Objectifs : Contenu :
Premise
Students currently at the PhD School I2S at the UMII are preparing a PhD in the following disciplines: Mathematics, Informatics,
Statistics, Microelectronics and Electrical Engineering, Mechanics and Robotics. Students from the MRCS have even more differentiated
backgrounds: from Scientific Psychology, Applied Mathematics and Modelling, Computer Science, Neurosciences, Ergonomy, Management,
Communication, Knowledge Engineering. The wide spectrum of concerns is a challenging context. Our goal is to "negotiate" with
each and all the students a common lexicon - an Ontology of Social Informatics issues - in order to progress towards a better
formalization of the domain, a denotation of concepts and relations among concepts: the only guarentee for a cumulation of
results expected to emerge progressively from future efforts in each discipline and in interdisciplinary projects.
Scheduled time
Topics
The course adresses the core of future developments in the Information Society.
There are two major (synergic) issues to be explored, defined, exemplified and put into the focus of any scientific, technical
as well as social debate on Social Informatics:
the new relationships between the scientific and technological progress in Informatics - intended as the conception and production
of experiments, theories, models, methods, tools and applications in Computing, but also in Artificial Intelligence, Networking,
Cognitive Sciences ans the like - and the social context of use of advances in the science and in the available technologies;
the core scientific-technical question of modelling, designing, building, evaluating, refining, exploiting socially evolving
systems of Human and Artificial Agents that show an increasing degree of local as well as social intelligence (eg: Ambient
Intelligence).
It is clear that the subject of Social Informatics is yet quite fuzzy. In the common understanding, its main connotation
is the first one above. However, it is more and more the case that technical advances and scientific efforts are invested
in order to make it possible that Societies of Humans and computer artifacts (Human and Artificial Agents) collaborate for
solving complex problems that no single Agent may solve with its limited resources.
The emergence of "Social Intelligence" from collaboration (and competition) among locally "intelligent entities" is a hot
scientific issue per se. The conversational, dialogic approach to social problem solving emerges as a major potential alternative
to unrealistic improvements in isolated "intelligence", be it human of artificial; within highly complex and dynamic contexts.
The major source of scientific inspiration for the classes will consist of the concepts within the EU Integrated project
ELEGI (European Learning Grid Infrastructure), where LIRMM is likely to be actively involved for the next 4 years. Other potential
sources will consist of other EU projects submitted at the moment.
1. human learning (by being told, by experiencing, discovering, abstracting and generalizing; as a side effect of enhanced
telepresence);
2. machine learning (as well as theory construction by negotiating meanings) - in order to enable the adaptivity of the ELEGI
technical infrastructure with respect to the user's needs and context (need for a formal, computable model of Learning Agents,
both individually and in Societies);
3. GRID computing, as the major challenge in current networking, introducing mobility, peer-to-peer access, "advanced semantics",
and a shift from the delivery of products to the dynamic generation of services;
4. Service Elicitation and Evaluation/Exploitation Scenarios (SEES) as a fundamental modification of the classical life cycle
of software engineering in order to enable/facilitate the engineering of software services.
SEES in ELEGI include in particular
one on the collaborative construction of an electronic Encyclopedia on Organic Chemistry (the ENCORE project);
one supporting the emergence of a global Virtual Institute for Alphabetisation for Development (VIAD) with a site on Tourism
and economic development for the Communities of Larzac-Lodevois; and two more on the Easter Island (Chili) and Maceio-Rondonia
(Brazil, Amazonia);
one on e-Qualification, i.e: how to monitor and evaluate collaborative processes in virtual communities of Human and Artificial
Agents connected in network for a common goal.
While the scientific-technical challenges adress some of the crucial advanced research issues in Ambient Intelligence, SEES
exemplify a quite wide spectrum of socially relevant fallouts of the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies
in Societies.
Modalities
Students from non French Universities belonging to the MRCS consortium are warmly welcome. All external students will be
helped, as much as possible, to have a minimal confort during their week of stay in Montpellier. A knowledge of office tools
is a minimal prerequisite for all students; a more profound knowledge of Informatics will be appreciated in order to allow
lectures to be better focussed on scientific - technical issues.
References
The ELEGI project (23 partners in Europe, among wich 20 Universities or Research Centers; about 60 full time researchers
committed) and the related scientific literature produced by the scientific leaders of the project (including the proceedings
of the 3 workshops of the EU LEGE-WG held in 2002 and 2003 in Lausanne, Paris and Berlin and electronically published by the
British Computer Society).
