Once in 10 years you have the possibility to discuss about current trends in research on computing for quality of life and propose your vision for the future at the decennial Aarhus conference. This time “Critical and participatory development of people centered smart learning ecosystems and territories” has been chosen as one of the themes that are likely to be influential throughout the next decade and offer an agenda for alternatives with computing technologies through new forms of societal and critical engagement.

Since 2005 we are assisting to a rush to transform cities into smart cities. At present, however, still doesn’t exist a fully shared definition of smart city: in the understanding of the majority a smart city is a sort of dream-city, i.e. a complex and optimized environment, or eco-system, where it could be desirable to live. This because it promises to preserve and improve the wellbeing of society, exploiting information and communication technologies (ICT) as an infrastructural backbone able to influence and improve key factors like mobility, environment, people, quality of life and governance.

However, going beyond the most popular top-down functionalist approach a new vision of regional and city smartness driven by a ‘people in place centered design’ approach is emerging. Not by chance, recently we have assisted to a shift of the meaning ascribed to the adjective ‘smart’ that has incorporated a higher consideration for the centrality of the individuals, their personal characteristics and their expectations, the quality of their experience and their well-being and, as well, for the characteristics of the contexts in which they work and live, to include also the preservation of the environment.
In this framework the interaction with the environment is moving from the metaphor “being able to use” towards the metaphor “actively influence and critically build”; individuals are transformed from consumers into “digital enactive” and produce an increasingly amount of “traces” and “artefacts” that actively contribute to the re-definition of places and spaces.

It is quite evident that within the development of people centered smart cities the underlying and ubiquitous techno-ecosystems - whose embedded intelligence, sensitivity and responsiveness surround the individuals - challenge the future of the learning ecosystems and call for a critical and participatory redefinition of spaces, contents, processes, skills and benchmarking approaches. Such challenge is not just for researchers or teachers, but requires the involvement of all potential stakeholders to develop critically the mediation role of ICT to:

• foster awareness about complexity and its government (orchestration) 
• support the acquisition of appropriate behaviors, skills & competencies
• promote open access to space, tools, services, practices, content/data, people/skills
• tame discontinuities (time - space/place - technological - process - learning practices)
• identify the driving factors of the smartness including those from the characteristics of local cultures and contexts
• support policy and decision making
• promote social innovation & learning, capacity building and a sustainable economy
• develop adequate monitoring and benchmarking approaches
• tame privacy, data control, security and safety

About position papers and authors

According to the expectations of the Critical Alternatives conference we invite submissions from authors who understand themselves in line with the spirit of the Aarhus Conferences and with that of the workshop.
Submitted position papers, while academically sound, will be evaluated on the capability to:
• inspire the workshop agenda
• offer a strong contribution to theory and practice
• provide new perspectives and offer critical alternatives
• have potential for long lasting impact

Position papers should be maximum 10 pages long and formatted in LNCS style.
Papers will undergo a double-blind reviewing process (done by invited reviewers from the program committee) that are complemented by a meta-review (done by a  primary reviewer/PC member).
Submission and review process will be handled by Easychair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=slet2015
To promote discussion we intend to limit the number of accepted contributions to 20-25 people.

Proceedings

After the workshop, authors of selected contributions will be invited to prepare a revised and extended paper to be included as part of a focus section of Interaction Design and Architecture(s) (IxD&A); an IxD&A slot has been reserved for the first half of 2016 http://www.mifav.uniroma2.it/inevent/events/idea2010/index.php

The focus session will be integrated with high quality papers submitted following an open call for papers that will be launched on late Autumn 2015.

Program Committee

• Alberto Abella, Rey Juan Carlos University Madrid
• Nel Andre, School of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering - University of Johannesburg
• Diana Andone, Politehnica University of Timisoara
• Nikolaos Avouris, Electrical & Computer Engineering Department - University of Patras
• Josep Blat, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
• Rosa Bottino, ITD - CNR
• Mihai Dascalu, University Politehnica of Bucharest
• Bertrand David, LIRIS - CNRS
• Vincenzo Del Fatto, Free University of Bolzano/Bozen
• Paloma Diaz Perez, Instituto de Cultura y Tecnologia - Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
• Ines Di Loreto, TechCICO Lab, UTT - CNRS
• Monica Divitini, IDI - NTNU
• Karl Donert, Eurogeo
• Paul Held, Innovation in Learning Institute - Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
• Mohamed Jemni, Ecole Supèrieure des Sciences et Techniques de Tunis
• Marco Kalz, Welten Institute - Open University NL
• Alke Martens, University of Rostock
• Viktoria Pammer-Schindler, Know-Center Graz
• Elvira Popescu, University of Craiova
• Fernando Ramos, Department of Communication and Art - University of Aviero
• Giuseppe Roccasalva, Department of Architecture and Design - Polytechnic of Turin
• Chiara Rossitto, Dept. of Computer and Systems Science - Stockholm University
• Stefania Spina, Dip. Scienze Umane e Sociali - Università per Stranieri di Perugia
• Anastasia Stratigea, National Technical University of Athens
• Kiran Tangri, Dubai Education LLC
• Sofia Tsekeridou, Athens Information Technology Center
• Annika Wolff, Open University UK

Workshop on "Critical and participatory development of people centered smart learning ecosystems and territories"
@ Critical Alternative 2015

17th August 2015
Aahrus, Denmark
http://www.mifav.uniroma2.it/inevent/events/critalter2015/

Important dates:  *** Deadline for submission of position paper: 20th of May, 2015 ***

Other important dates:

• Notification to the authors: 10th June, 2015
• Camera ready submission: 30th June, 2015