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WORKSHOPS

The National Center has facilitated and sponsored several workshops. Three national workshops have been organized to build research agendas in the areas of identity (Camp, 2003); e-rulemaking (Coglianese, 2003) and social science foundations of digital government research (Fountain, 2003).  In addition, NCDG has sponsored several shorter workshops on research methodologies to build theory and tools for information technology research. The inclusion of the Open Source Computing Laboratory into the Center has allowed several of the recent workshops to introduce open source tools to researchers.

As of Fall 2009, all NCDG events are displayed on our

2009

• The 2nd US-Korea Information and Communication Technology-Based Policy Forum, Thursday, November 5, 2009
  World Bank, Washington DC
  Organized by the National Information Society Agency of Korea, co-sponsored by the NCDG
  Registration deadline: October 16
  
  Visit the forum's website for more information
  
  Building off of the success of the 1st Forum, this year’s forum provides a unique opportunity for dialog between Korean and U.S. experts on national IT enablement, Green IT,  Knowledge Infrastructure and job creation in the knowledge-based society

• YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the United States, April 16-17, 2009 University of MA Amherst
  An interdisciplinary conference about YouTube and politics.
  
  Sponsored by the Department of Political Science, the Science Technology and Society Initiative, NCDG, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, and the Qualitative Data Analysis Program
  
  Visit the conference website for more information.

2006

• IBM Innovation Center Student Workshop, October 5, 2006 IBM will bus students to the IBM Innovation Center in Waltham, MA for a set of presentations on (1) top ten skills; (2) Demo of some of IBM products such as Lotus Sametime software; (3) Discussion of careers at IBM; and (4) a tour of the IBM Innovation Center. Food will be provided.
  
  Participation is free, but there are only 38 seats available on the bus. To register your seat, contact Ginger Goldsbury by email at ggoldsbury@acad.umass.edu by Sept 28th if not earlier.
  
  Sponsored by the UMass Career Services, the UMass IT minor program, and NCDG.

• Open Source Web Development Workshop, October 3, 2006

This workshop session is a combined briefing/workshop where participants will be given the opportunity to build a robust, “open computing” development environment that can be used to build and deploy applications. Workshop modules will include the installation and configuration of open source/open standard tools such as Eclipse 3.2 with the Web Tool Platform, Apache Derby and Apache Geronimo, and WebSphere Application Server Community Edition.  This workshop will also provide hands-on tutorials to use these tools to explore various tasks and skills required to develop and deploy web applications.  Attendees will be able to experience the power and ease of use of the Eclipse development platform with the added functionality of open databases and open application servers

This technical workshop will be led by Paul Coates, Senior Software Engineer from IBM’s Academic Initiative team.  Paul will conduct this open computing workshop where participants will be able to gain hands-on experience in installing and configuring open source/open standard tools for developing applications in a Linux Fedora CORE 5 environment.

Sponsored by IBM, UMass' National Center for Digital Government, the UMass IT minor program and UMass Career Services. Registration required.

• Performance measures and transparency using ICTs in government, June 14, 2006 This workshop was led by Albert Meijer from Universiteit Utrecht in The Netherlands and addressed the problems associated with posting performance indicators for hospitals and schools online.

• IBM Collaboration Workshop, April 5, 2006 This workshop discussed collaborative research and education activities with IBM, NCDG, and UMass Amherst; participants included IBM application and tool developers, UMass faculty, and NCDG faculty and fellows. Included a tour of the University's Connections Commons, Open Source Computing Lab, and NCDG. Facilitated by Charles Schweik, and sponsored by the Open Source Computing Lab.

• Quantum GIS (Geographic Information Systems), Spring semester 2006 This research methods and tools workshop was led by Charlie Schweik, Maria Fernandez, Alexander Stepanov, and Jim Peters and sponsored by the Open Source Computing Lab. Quantum GIS is an open source geographic information system software that allows users to visually display and organize spatial data.

2005

• Organizing the Government Open Code Collaborative (GOCC), December 21, 2005 This workshop was led by Peter Quinn, CIO of Mass; Claudia Boldman, Chief Planning and Strategy Officer, IT Division; and Patrick McCormick, GOCC. It was sponsored by the Open Source Computing Lab.

• R Statistical Software introduction, November 1, 2005 This research methods and tools workshop was led by Michael Ash (University of Massachusetts Amherst) and sponsored by the Open Source Computing Lab. R is an open source statistical computing and graphics software.

• Linuxfest, October 28, 2005 Linuxfest was a day long workshop designed to introduce participants to Linux and open source software. This workshop was sponsored by IBM and the Open Source Computing Lab.

• Time-Critical Information Services Workshop, April 1, 2005This invitation-only workshop addresses the impact that timely information can have on governmental service performance, with a research focus on emergency response. Researchers and expert practitioners from around the country will examine the concept of time-critical information services, alternative methods for analyzing organizational and technical dimensions, and implications for emergency response and broader e-governmental polices and research. The workshop is supported by the Digital Government Program, National Science Foundation. Co-Sponsored with: Claremont Graduate University and University of Minnesota

• Gimp Graphics Software, February 1, 2005 This research methods and tools workshop was led by Kristian Hermansen and Charlie Schweik, and sponsored by the Open Source Computing Lab. Gimp is an open source graphics manipulation software that allows users to "touch-up" photos and create graphics.

2004

• Legible Networks - Mapping Issues on the Web, May 21, 2004 Introduce the theory, methods, claims and politics behind the Issue Crawler, server-side network location software that maps and analyses networks on the Web based on hyperlink analysis.

Richard Rogers, Professor in Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

• Digital Government in the Americas, November 4, 2004 An invitation-only workshop with a small group of US researchers, program managers from the National Science Foundation and staff of the Organization of American States (OAS) at the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC. This one-day meeting will be the start of an NSF-OAS collaboration in support of efforts towards the creation of a Digital Government initiative across the countries of the Western Hemisphere. The meeting participants will discuss research and education challenges, and the major policy, technology and social issues that should be the focus of the planned initiative.

-> Workshop homepage

Additional informaiton about the workshop is available through the OAS. Click here.

• Research Methods Workshop: Sequence Analysis, April 13, 2004
  with David Stark, Columbia University, Center on Organizational Innovation
  -> Stark's social times paper
  -> Stark's organization of responsiveness paper
  -> Stark's tools trade paper
  -> Stark's organizing technologies paper

• Hungarian US R&D Workshop, Budapest, March 21-24, 2004
  Sponsored by NSF and ELTE Ithaka. See the workshop website for research papers and reports.

• The Virtual Citizen: Identity, Autonomy, and Accountability: A Civic Scenario Exploration of the Role of Identity in On-Line Governance, April 28-29, 2003 This was a national workshop organized and led by Prof. Jean Camp. Sponsored by NSF and the National Center for Digital Government. View the Workshop report here

• E-Rulemaking: New Directions for Technology and Regulation Conference, January 21-22, 2003 This was a national workshop, sponsored by the Regulatory Policy Program, Kennedy School of Government, and led by Cary Coglianese from the Kennedy School of Government. View the Workshop report here.

• Workshop on Deliberation and Representation in the 21st Century, January 10, 2003 Participants in this workshop included Kenn Cukier (KSG), Kevin Esterling  (Brown University), Jane Fountain (KSG), Kath Goldschmidt (Congressional Management Foundation), David Hart (KSG), Matthew Hindman (KSG and Princeton), Nancy Katz (KSG), David King (KSG), David Lazer (KSG), Michael Neblo (Ohio University), Maria Scharf (KSG and University of St. Gallen), and Richard Shapiro (Congressional Management Foundation). Held at the Kennedy School of Government.

2002

• The E-government Barometer for Switzerland, November 14, 2002 This was a research method workshop presented by Prof. Kuno Schedler from the University of St. Gallen. Held at the Kennedy School of Government.

• Computer Networks are Social Networks, September 19, 2002 This was a research method workshop presented by Prof. Barry Wellman from the Kennedy School of Government.

• Information, Institutions and Governance: Advancing a Basic Social Science Research Agenda for Digital Government, June 2002 This was a national workshop, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and led by Jane Fountain from the Kennedy School of Government. Visit the Workshop homepage and view the Workshop report.