• Security and privacy in dynamic environments, SEC 2006, May 2006
• Description of research area DigiCom
• Experimental systems development methods for informationdesign
• HumanITforum: Search Engine Characteristics - Why is Google Better?
• HumanIT folder updated
• PhD theses defences
• Good example from HumanIT
• HumanITforum: The design perspective on IT systems development
• International computer conference in Karlstad August 2005
• Gender identity on the net
• International Development and HumanIT
• HumanIT Vison and Mission Workshop 2004
• HumanITforum: Semantic Web, May 25
• FIDIS - Future of Identity in the Information Society
• PRIME: Large EU6FP integrated project about privacy protection
• "Rally seminar" about Arenas of the Future
• HumanITforum spring 2004
• HumanITforum 12 November
• Grants for field studies in the Third World
• Research volume from HumanIT
• Book on methodology for Internet research
• EU-funding of Medical Technology in Värmland
• Another new book... P3P
• Medical IT within HumanIT
• Two new faces at HumanIT
• HumanITforum spring 2003
• Burnett and Marshall on web theory
• Bridging the Digital Divide
• Ericsson and TietoEnator
• Two HumanITforum lectures in December
• Most stress from stationary telephones
• 1.5 million SEK to IT project
• Lectures during the fall
• Positions as Visiting Researchers Filled
• Simone Fischer-Hübner new Chairman for HumanIT
• Karlstad Researchers will simultaneously be in Karlstad and Canada
• Guest lectures during spring
• Placement as visiting researcher at HumanIT (3-6 months)
• HumanIT signs contract with World Internet Institute
• HumanIT forum: IT research for people
• Opening of the EC studio
• www.HumanIT.org gets a face-lift (Dec 2001)

21st IFIP International Information Security Conference, "Security and Privacy in Dynamic Environments", May 22 - May 24, 2006, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden.
IFIP/SEC 2006 is organized by IFIP TC-11 (Technical Committee on Security & Protection in Information Processing Systems) in cooperation with Karlstad University.

For more information, see http://www.sec2006.org.

Computer Science, Information Systems, and Media and Communication Science at Karlstad University have joined in a proposal for studying mobility, usabiltiy and identity aspects of the digital communication society, DigiCom. For more information, see our research page.

Funding for eye tracking equipment for analysis of how people react to computer screen layout and texts has been granted by Sparbanksstiftelsen Alfa. The grant also includes some resources during autumn 2005 for demonstrations and introduction to Karlstad University researchers, research students, exam workers, and also some companies. The project is meant to support building up competence in the region by providing means for the HumanIT researchers to guide students and companies in using this kind of technology which is now becoming more reliable and less cumbersome to use.

Friday, August 19, 13.15-15.00, room 12B151.
Guest research student Sameer Patil from Univ. of California at Irvine will present a study that was conducted while he was an intern at IBM Watson Research Center in New York. The presentation will be held in English.

HumanIT now has produced an updated leaflet for 2005.

PhD candidates Lennart Molin and Albin Zuccato will defend their theses in June 3 and 16, respectively, at Karlstad University. Stefan Lindskog defends his thesis at Chalmers Institute of Technology April 20.

HumanIT's BDD are included among the "Good examples of internationalising" that the Swedish board for higher education (HSV) recently published (in Swedish http://web2.hsv.se/publikationer/rapporter/2005/0506R.pdf).

Tuesday, March 8, 13.15-15.30, room 12B152.
Prof. Erik Stolterman from Umeå Univ.
Recent books by Prof. Stolterman:
Löwgren, J. & Stolterman, E. (2004). "Thoughtful Interaction Design." MIT Press.
Nelson, H. & Stolterman, E. (2003). "The Design Way -- Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World." Educational Technology Publications. New Jersey.

"14th International Conference on Information Systems Development" will be held in Karlstad, August 15-17, 2005. The theme is Bridging the Gap between Academia and Practice and indeed there will be a special industry track: "Integration of Information Technology in Practice". HumanIT also has a track, among the scientific presentations, called "Human Values of Information Technology" with four areas planned: - Privacy issues in network-based services
- Multimedia experiences in the Information Society
- Digital bridges for empowerment
- Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and prototyping tools
More areas are conceivable as 'humane IT', please contact humanitforum@kau.se if you want to discuss suggestions!

The ISD 2005 conference proceedings will be published by Springer. For more information, see www.it.kau.se/isd2005.

Lunarstorm is a chat site which many Swedish children and teenagers use. According to its managers, as many as 88% of all swedes aged 15-20 visit Lunarstorm at least once a week. Malin Sveningsson has received funding from the Swedish Research Council for a project investigating how gender identity is developed among Lunarstorm users. Malin started as a HumanIT guest researcher and has nowadays a full-time lectureship in Media and Communication.

The Swedish International Development Agency, SIDA, has awarded HumanIT a grant for the two-year research project. A locally oriented perspective on ICTs in rural Africa - Tracing key factors for successful ICT usage. Susanne Sundén will work as a research student within the project headed by HumanIT director Dr. John Sören Pettersson. HumanIT did also last year receive SIDA funding for field studies, which also involve Gudrun Wicander. The three are active within the HumanIT programme Bridging the Digital Divide and co-operates with the Swedish national programme for ICT in developing regions SPIDER.

HumanIT will have a workshop on the theme Vison and Mission the 5th of October, afternoon. The number of participants is limited.

HumanIT Vision and Mission Workshop 2004, October 5, in short:

	12:30	Lunch The VIP room of the restaurant Solsta Inn in builiding 1A
	13:30	Brief presentation of participants
	13:45	Director: Past definitions of HumanIT
	14:00	Anders Hektor (NITA): Humane IT
	14:20	Discussion
	14:40	Director: Presentation of faculty evaluation
	14:50	Discussion
	15:10	Vision and Mission: discussing the agenda for the latter session
	15:30	BREAK
	16:00	Vision and Mission analysis Human aspects of Digital Solutions of Future Arenas Co-operation within and without Digital Solutions of Future Arenas Other projects Bernt Ericson: News about IT institute(s) Co-operation with other organisations Future conferences and events
	17:45	Concluding discussion
	18:00	Finish
	18:30	Restaurant Artist

Room: Sammanträdesrummet i universitetsbiblioteket (max 20)

Former HumanIT guest researcher William Song is visiting us for some days. On Tuesday, May 25, in 12B152, 1 o'clock he will be presenting at a seminar on "Semantic issues in Web Services and Grid Services". (Contact Prof. Remigijus Gustas.)

This is another EU-project within the sixth framework where HumanIT takes an active part. It is a "Network of Excellence" with Goethe University, Frankfurt, as co-ordinator. The network project will be running for five years and HumanIT researchers from computer science department will working within its framework.

Europe requires technologies which address trust and security yet also preserve the privacy of individuals. As Europe develops as an "information society", the increasingly digital representation of personal characteristics changes our ways of identifying individuals, and supplementary digital identities, so-called virtual identities, embodying concepts such as pseudonymity and anonymity, are being created for security, profit, convenience or even for fun. These new identities are feeding back into the world of social and business affairs, offering a mix of plural identities and challenging traditional notions of identity. At the same time, European states manage identities in very different ways. This complex picture will be addressed by the FIDIS network.

For more information, contact Professor Simone Fischer-Hübner.

see also www.fidis.net

The 10.1 MEuro project PRIME - Privacy and Identity Management for Europe - will include HumanIT researchers for defining usability aspects of privacy protecting technologies. For more information, contact either Simone Fischer-Hübner or John Sören Pettersson;

see also www.prime-project.eu.org

The 5th of February we will have a seminar in connection with the start of Uddehol Swedich Rally. Hockey hero Håkan Loob will be speaking, delegates from ISC will be presenting the World Rally Championship concept, the local IT industry will discuss their on-going Arena efforts, and HumanIT researchers make various presentations and demonstrations. See invitation in Swedish.

HumanITforum will have a joint series within the University's Core Curriculum series together with HELP, "IT Bridging Distances -- Technology for Social and Economical Development"; see Core's web pages in Swedish.

13:15 "Internet Research Ethics: Emerging Guidelines and Current Issues" by Charles Ess from Drury University, presently Visiting Professor at the Department of Digital Aesthetics and Communication (DIAC), The IT University of Copenhagen.
15:15 "Improving user comprehension and entertainment in wireless streaming media - Introducing Cogntitive Quality of Service" by Greger Wikstrand, doctoral candidate at Umeå University.

The Swedish International Development Agency has granted money for field studies during 2004 and 2005 in the Third World for a project within HumanIT's programme Bridging the Digital Divide. However, a proposal for funding a doctoral candiadate during the same period was not approved (SIDA refers to lack of resources).

Boken "HumanIT 2003" består av bidrag från sjutton forskare och forskarstudenter inblandade i HumanITs verksamhet under de senaste tre åren. Vissa kapitel handlar om HumanITs tidigare verksamheter, en del inriktar sig på framtida forskningsområden. Bidragen spänner från språkbruk i internet "chat" via IT-relaterad stress och integritetsrisk-hantering till användandet av IT för att bekämpa fattigdom i delar av världen där ingen har använt någon form av IT-redskap. Boken innehåller även en presentation av centret självt.

KK-stiftelsen har stött HumanIT med ett särskillt plattformsanslag till Karlstads Universitet under tiden januari 2001 till augusti 2003. Mentorerna till det här plattformsprojektet har bidragit med en inledning till ovan nämnda bok.

*Att fånga nätet* -- *Catching the Web* -- is a book about how research methodologies are effected when the researchr is using Internet to conduct his/her studies. Authors are, inter alia, HumanIT researcher Malin Sveningsson. The publishers website

The EU structure fund "Innovativa Åtgärder" will give 3.4 million Swedish kronor to HumanIT and its partners within medical technology. The funding concerns a project "Medicinsk Teknik i Värmland" where the companies Aiolos, Fyrplus, Medical Robotics, WermTec, and EDC in Munkfors are included together with Landstinget i Värmland (public health service in the county) and Karlstad University (project owner). The County Council as well as the Association of Municipalities, Region Värmland, also contributes economically to this project, which in total runs around 6,7 million kronor.

Few areas are as complex as medical technology. Small and medium sized companies might therefore have problems with the competence supply. The project is aming at forming a cluster for co-operation between companies concerning product development and marketing, with a further goal to gain attention from and co-operation with other companies within the area of medical technology, attract company allocations and competence to Värmland.

Within the area of medical technology, people and technology meet in close and sensitive situations: the user interface will therefore in many cases become the decisive for success on the market. Karlstad University is contributing with a project focusing methodologies for user-centered development of user interfaces and will be an important partner together with Landstinget i Värmland for knowledge transfer as well as for strengthening the cluster formation.

Another new book written by HumanIT researchers: Web Site Privacy with P3P by Helena Lindskog and Stefan Lindskog. The book deals with Platform for Privacy Preferences Protocol and is published by Wiley.
The publishers website

See also the HumanIT project
Privacy enhancements in the mobile Internet.

A collaboration has been initiated with the medical technical company Medical Robotics. The company is developing a robot based direction indicator named PinTrace designed for orthopedic surgery. The system is based on a combination of robot technology and advanced image processing. The method works with input data from traditional x-ray fluoroscopy in two dimensions. Medical Robotics is building a network around medical technology in Värmland. www.medicalrobotics.se; see also the HumanIT-project on Ozlab.

Since the beginning of February HumanIT has an assistant named Gudrun Wicander employed at 20%. Gudrun works moreover at the Section for Information Technology as a doctoral candidate within the subject Information Systems and she belongs to the national research school MIT, Management and IT. Her research area concerns implementation of ICT in developing countries (see also notice December 23, 2002, below).

Ylva Hård af Segerstad is a guest researcher at the Centre for HumanIT during Spring 2003. She defended her PhD thesis in December 2002 at the Depr of General Linguistics, Gothenburg University. In her research, she analyses texts from e-mail, web chat, etc. Ylva will give a seminar within the Core Curriculum series March 31 mars: "Personal communikation and IT".

HumanITforum will have a special series within the University's Core Curriculum series; see Core's web pages in Swedish.

Moreover, Göran Frödin, a well-known industrial representative in HumanIT's board, will give a speech on IT-based service and relationship development: March 20, 13.15-15.00, room 11C 121.

Routledge is now publishing a book by HumanIT researcher Robert Burnett and HumanIT mentor David Marshall: 'Web Theory: An Introduction'. See www.webtheory.nu for details.

Susanne Sundén is a new name within HumanIT. She has together with fellow student Gudrun Wicander, who is now accepted to the national research school Management and IT, made exam works about IT in Zambia. From January to June Susanne will co-ordinate HumanIT's Bridging the Digital Divide in co-operation with Ericsson's Third World-oriented Communication for All. This will open for interdisciplinary work within the university and possibly it will involve also other actors in the Karlstad region.

Tieto Enator AB recently acquired Ericsson's development unit in Karlstad. Tieto Enator AB will continue the research cooperation that was initiated between the Department of Computer Science and Ericsson in Karlstad. The cooperation involves research projects in both computer networking and computer security. Ericsson Research will support the projects with competence.

Lars Borin "Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Language Technology: What are we doing - What can we do - What do we want to do?"
December 4, CANCELED DUE TO ILLNESS. New time will be announced later on.

Mikael Sandberg "Creativity and IT innovation in Swedish Organisations: results from a survey in 2000"
December 5, 13.15-14.30, 11A316

The HumanIT research project "Homo Mobile" has revealed a surprising facts about information technology and stress. The old stationary telephone appeared as the most stressing technology in a study surveying public institutions of three smaller towns in Sweden.

Results show that different information and communication technologies were frequently used in participants' daily work. In general, the experience of IT use was characterized by ambivalence. Participants reported equally many advantages as disadvantages with information technologies. On the whole, no IT stress was found, but respondents who considered themselves stressed by other factors did also report IT-related stress. IT stress could then be defined as an experience of unmanageable information loads and unmanageable communication demands. No differences were found between leaders and administrative assistants regarding experienced IT stress. Out of the different IT's, the stationary telephone was considered the number one stressor, whereas a fax machine caused the lowest degree of stress. The three main sources of stress related to technology were interruptions in the daily work, lack of time, and malfunctioning technology.

The organizations had not formulated specific rules or norms for facilitating or restricting use of information technologies. A majority of the respondents experienced that the amount of information and the communication demands were constantly increasing, and that the organization and its members would benefit from formulating some kind of policy regarding the use of email, Internet, and intranets etc. As things are at present, restrictions and norms for dealing with communication technologies are individually determined by each user.

The national research project "Wireless IP" has been awarded a total of 10 million SEK from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, SSF (www.stratresearch.se), for the next three years. Karlstad University will be granted 1.5 million SEK, and participate in the project together with two other universities. The competition for the funds has been tough. Only 14 out of 144 applications to SSF within IT have been granted funds.

The Wireless IP project aims at studying and developing fourth generation wireless IT systems. Three researchers at Karlstad University are involved with the project, among them Anna Brunström, senior lecturer in computer sciences.

- We investigate how future mobile systems can be designed. We aim at high capacity combined with large mobility. Services available today in fixed networks will in future be available for mobile users with the same capacity as today, Anna Brunström explains.

The project is a multi diciplinary cooperation between Karlstad University, Uppsala University, Chalmers University of Technology, and several corporations, among them Ericsson.

- The cooperation with other universities and with corporations contributes to the overall picture. Karlstad University holds competence within datacommunication, while Uppsala University and Chalmers University of Technology hold competence within signalling and telecommunication.
The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research supports research and research training to increase the scentific and technological competence in Sweden. This summer SSF has granted funds totalling 190 million SEK to three year research projects within IT, whereof 5 million SEK has been reserved to support commercialisation of results. A prioritised area has been Internet and Mobility, which has received 5 out of 14 grants.

During the fall, the following lectures are planned:

Jan Holvast "Political, ethical and technical considertions on 'Privacy after September 11'"
August 16, 9.30-11.00 Room: 12A 425

Malin Sveningsson "Creating a Sense of Community. Experiences from a Swedish Web Chat"
September 18, 15.15-17.00, Room: 12B 152 (The lecture will be held in Swedish.)

Pär Carlshamre "Is systems development a typical engineering problem? - About the difficulties in formalising usability and connecting it to requirements handling."
October 9, 13.00-15.00, Room: 12B 152 (The lecture will be held in Swedish.)

Lars Borin - See new announcment Nov 21
December 4, 13.15-15.00

Mikael Sandberg - See announcment Nov 21
December 5, 13.15-14.30

Several researchers will be working here as visiting researchers during the fall of 2002. They will participate in different projects in the Centrum för HumanIT research program.

Marit Hansen, and colleagues, from the Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz Schleswig Holstein, Kiel, will be working in Professor Simone Fischer-Hübner's project about end-user understanding of security terms used in mobile telephony.

Malin Svenningsson from Gothenburg will be working in Robert Burnett's project from July to October. Her main interest is music on the net - buying, exchanging, listening - from the listener's perspective rather than the established e-commerce research, which focuses on increasing revenue on e-commerce sites.
Mikael Sandberg, who earlier studied use of IT within large organizations, will be working half time from July to December in Birgitta Johansson-Hidén's project Homo Mobile. He will write a paper on creative development of IT, e.g. looking at the importance of customer relations for this creativity, within listed corporations and government agencies.

Lars Borin, computer linguist, will, for three months, be working in John Sören Pettersson's project on modelling interaction automation. Borin has earlier studied whether public web pages can be used as example materials within computer based language training. The cooperation with HumanIT will consist of development of methods within the user interface area, focusing on mobile terminals.

Up-dated news: Lars Borin has become the Professor of Språkdata at Gothenburg's Unniversity. Instead William Song will be working in Remigijus Gustas's project on e-commerce.

New members have been elected for the board of HumanIT. Birgitta Johansson-Hidén will hand over to Simone Fischer-Hübner. Anders Gustafsson and Anna Brunström leave the board, and Gunnel Kardemark steps in.

Today, we will have our first live transmission with an Internet based system that creates virtual meeting places for participants all over the world. Karlstad University will be in direct contact with the University of Alberta in Canada.

- They will affect our system, our virtual reality, in real time, Steve Gibson explains. Steve is lecturer in Media and Communication Sciences at both Karlstad University and University of Victoria.

Several persons on both locations can participate simultaneously. The system detects where in the studio the participants are, in Karlstad and Canada respectively. In future, more Canadian universities will be online. Everone can communicate with everyone. Of course, the difference in time zones can leave one studio empty when there is activity on the other side of the Atlantic.

Centrum för HumanIT at Karlstad University runs the project, which is financed by research grants from Canada. In addition to the Canadian universities, the company Acoustic Positioning Research participates in the experiments. The company develops the sensors used to detect the position of the participants in the studios.

Centrum för HumanIT is a interdiciplinary research center, running several projects focusing on the interaction between man and information technology.

HumanIT invites you to a number of guest lectures during spring:

Pär Carlshamre, Ericsson Radio Systems: Strategic Usability
Information about dates and times will be posted shortly

Jan Gulliksen, HCI, Uppsala University
8 may 2002 at Karlstad University, room 11B239, 10.30-14 (lunch break 12-13)

Welcome!

We invite researchers from outside Karlstad University to conduct research in one or several of our projects during autumn 2002. The research may be concerned directly with a HumanIT project or it can put the researcher's earlier research in relation to some aspect of the HumanIT programme. Research may be carried out within the researcher's present placement or else as a short-term post as guest lecturer/guest professor at Karlstad University. The post can be particularly appropriate for post-doc. researchers who do not have tenure at any university, or for lecturers who are on leave. If the applicant and the project leader so desire research can be started this spring.

Information
Any further questions regarding the Centre for HumanIT can be answered by John Sören Pettersson, john_soren.pettersson@kau.se
Union representatives are Thomas Wennerstam for SACO and Torrun Johansen for OFR. Both can be contacted at 054-700 10 00 (the university exchange).

We welcome your application. Please refer to both the registration nr P44/02 and to your contact with the project leader in your application which must be in by 2002-05-27 to the address: Karlstad University, Avdelning för personal och ekonomi, 651 88 Karlstad, Sweden.

World Internet Institute is an independent research institute based in Gävle, Sweden. WII research behavioral- and social science with focus on Internet and its effect on man and society.

The contract which now has been signed between WII and HumanIT, allows HumanIT researchers access to information from the WII database. HumanIT will also be able to influence future WII enquiries.

Please visit WII's web site >>

On March 27, all HumanIT projects will be presented at a seminar held at Karlstad University. This time, the seminar will be adapted to the academy, but of course, the event is public and open for everyone.

More infromation will be posted shortly.

Date: March 27, 2002
Place: Karlstad University, room 1B325 (preliminary)

If you have any questions, please contact John Sören Pettersson or Patrik Wikström.

Welcome!

The chamber of commerce, Värmland, together with researchers at Karlstad University have created a learning studio focused on elecronic commerce. The studio will be used for educating hundreds of small and medium sized companies in Värmland.

Meet researchers and representatives from the Chamber of Commerce at the opening!

Time: January 28 2002, 13.00 - 16.00.
Place: Drottninggatan 41B, at the corner of Hamngatan (close to the bike shop Briljanten).

Other events at the opening:

• The department of Information Systems at the university will present the english version of their book om the "Karlstad model" for system development.
• Presentation of a research project focusing on lego robots.
  

If you have any questions, please contact Sten.Carlsson@kau.se.

Welcome!

Today, HumanIT will launch a new version of the web site!

Please send comments to the infomaster.