Community Informatics and Older People: A Call for Papers

This call for papers is for a special issue of the Journal of Community Informatics on ICTs and Older Persons. Examples of activities using ICTs for support of the elderly in Less Developed Countries are particularly encouraged.

Community Informatics and Older People: A Call for Papers

If you have an article (or an idea for one) contact
Geneloeb Aronin, Ph.D. by July 15th geneloeb at gmail.com.

The peer-reviewed Journal of Community Informatics (www.ci-journal.net) is inviting submissions of articles for a special issue on community informatics and elderly. Community Informatics is concerned with the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to enable and empower local communities including for personal, social, cultural or economic development of and within communities.

There has been a recent a surge in the use of ICTs involving the geriatric community, elderly and those associated with their care or needs. This activity has taken several forms, including: the elderly communicating with others by computers and other technologies; technical devices used to monitor needs or send warnings; information from governments is now available online including training programs for older people to access such information; and the use of ICTs to support community caregivers for the elderly, self-help and self-care for the elderly, and as an infrastructure for the development of virtual community connections among the elderly and between the elderly and others are burgeoning areas of community care and in some places part of the public health system. We would very much welcome explorations and systematic (and other) accounts of these processes and others.

Now is the opportunity to examine model practices of ICT to benefit communities of older persons and their families, to support their care and their caregivers within communities and to suggest new ways in which ICTs can be used to maximize community based initiatives and opportunities.

Articles in the planned issue will focus on the use of ICTs for personal, social, cultural or economic development of, and within, communities for the elderly. We would look to include paradigms for reaching out to elderly people who can not yet access ICTs for these benefits; demonstrate improved technical frameworks for community based ICT applications; show the effectiveness of applications and new ways technology may be applied. Examples of activities using ICTs for support of the elderly in Less Developed Countries are particularly encouraged.

What other ideas and suggestions do you have? Email the co-ordinator for this issue,
Geneloeb: geneloeb at gmail.com

With Best Wishes for an Even Better Day

Gene-loeb
Gene-loeb Aronin, Ph.D.