The Smart City is moving beyond a few exemplars to the mainstream and is also developing into Smart Regions that incorporate Smart Farms and Villages. The technical and data infrastructure to support these now exist in many cities and regions across the world. What is even more interesting is the shift from top-down vision, ‘city-planning’ and resources utilization to opening up of data and possibilities for citizens to be drivers, as well as target, of urban innovation.
 
Learning is one of the pillars that sustain all it.

Workshop on "Smart Learning Ecosystems in Smart Regions and Cities" @EC-TEL 2015
15th September 2015, Toledo, Spain

Important dates:

*** Deadline for submission of position paper: 15th of June, 2015 ***

Other important dates:

• Notification to the authors: 15th July, 2015
• Camera ready submission: 17th August, 2015

Aims & Questions

This workshop co-located at EC-TEL 2015 and promoted by the SCLO (Smart City Learning Observatory) aims at exploring aspects of learning within these new Smart Places. How is it possible to harness the full potential of these new infrastructures and increasing volumes of open data to develop new ways for citizens to learn and produce social innovation.

• How is it possible to support learning across time, place and device?
• How can these new technologies be used to foster inclusivity and greater awareness of others who are sharing the same space?
• How can citizens contribute to and benefit from new forms of knowledge about their neighbourhoods?
• How can we produce more data-aware citizens and teach more about sustainability and other smart city topics in schools?
• How smart learning ecosystems can foster social innovation and well being, increasing city and regions smartness?
• How can schools recover social centrality and increase job prospects to school-leavers?

Themes

The broad themes around which this year’s workshop on smart learning  ecosystems in Smart Regions and Cities is shaped are:

• CONTINUITY-DISCONTINUITY: of learning across time, space, device and process. Especially related to learning on the move, and learning both as an individual but also as part of a community.
• RELEVANCE OF OPEN ACCESS: space, tools, services, practices, content, people/skills - effect on disparity.
• MEDIATION ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY: to get smarter, foster awareness, orchestrate.
• RELATION WITH TERRITORY & SOCIAL INNOVATION: role of schools and campuses, cultural issues, capacity building and economical sustainable development
• DRIVERS OF SMARTNESS: flow state and basic needs
• MONITORING & BENCHMARKING: including integration of top-down & bottom-up smartness and support to decision making.

Organized by

Diana Andone (Politehnica University of Timisoara)
Carlo Giovannella (University of Rome Tor Vergata)
Sofia Tsekeridou (Athens Information Technology Center)
Annika Wolff (Open University UK)

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 6 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=sleectel2015
To promote discussion we intend to limit the number of accepted contributions to 20-25 people.

Proceedings

After the workshop, participants will be invited to prepare a revised and extended paper to be included as part of a special issue of Interaction Design and Architecture(s) (IxD&A); an IxD&A slot has been reserved for the second half of 2016.
The special issue will be integrated with high quality papers submitted following an open call for papers that will be launched on Spring 2016.