Call for Papers: Diagrams 2021

The organization of Diagrams 2021 is making rapid progress. Five outstanding Keynote speakers have now been announced. Also, the free, online conference has adopted a novel approach to the program structure that is expected to provide fair access to the conference across multiple time zones.

 Find more details in the 2^nd call for papers attached below or on the webpage www.diagrams-conference.org/2021 - and do pass on the information if you know researchers or students for whom it may be relevant.

Best,

Mikkel Willum Johansen 

Publicity Chair

Diagrams 2021

 

*** Call for Papers: Diagrams 2021 ***

12^th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams

September 28 – 30, 2021

Virtual Event

www.diagrams-conference.org/2021

 

*** Highlights ***

 

- FREE REGISTRATION

- Proceedings published by Springer

- Three Tracks: Main, Philosophy, and Psychology and Education.

- Graduate Symposium

- Best Paper and Best Student Paper awards

- Submission dates in April 2021.

 

***************** Keynote Speakers Announced *******************

Shaaron Ainsworth, University of Nottingham

Daniel Rosenberg, University of Oregon

Katarina Scheiter, University of Tubingen

Atsushi Shimojima, Doshisha University

Frederik Stjernfelt, Aalborg University of Copenhagen

 

Francesco Bellucci, University of Bologna, is the Inspirational ECR Speaker for Diagrams 2021

******************* Novel Program Schedule *********************

Diagrams 2021 will adopt a novel approach to scheduling talks, to accommodate different time zones across the globe. See

http://www.diagrams-conference.org/2021/index.php/program/

for more details.

*************************************************************

Diagrams is the only conference series that provides a united forum for all areas that are concerned with the study of diagrams and has a multidisciplinary emphasis.

For 2021, *MAIN TRACK* conference topics include, but are not limited to:

– applications of diagrams,
– computational models of reasoning with, and interpretation of, diagrams,
– design of diagrammatic notations,
– diagram understanding by humans or machines,
– diagram aesthetics and layout,– evaluation of diagrammatic notations,
– graphical communication and literacy,
– heterogeneous notations involving diagrams,
– history of diagrammatic notations,
– information visualization using diagrams,
– nature of diagrams and diagramming,
– novel technologies for diagram use,
– reasoning with diagrams,
– semiotics of diagrams,
– software to support the use of diagrams, and
– usability and human-computer interaction issues concerning diagrams.

In addition to the main track, Diagrams 2021 will have two further tracks: Philosophy, and Psychology and Education; for their topics of interest, see

http://www.diagrams-conference.org/2021/index.php/calls/main-track/

http://www.diagrams-conference.org/2021/index.php/calls/philosophy/

http://www.diagrams-conference.org/2021/index.php/calls/psychology-of-diagrams/.

 

If the main research contribution of your submission is considered to fit either of the other tracks then you are strongly encouraged to submit to the respective special track, each of which has a dedicated program committee.

Authors of accepted submissions will be expected to be in attendance at the virtual conference to present their research and respond to questions presented by delegates. All presenters must accept that it is not within the power of the organisers to prevent delegates from recording  talks. However, when registering, delegates will be asked to confirm that they will not record any part of the conference.

*****************************************************************

Submission Categories

The conference will include presentations of refereed Papers, Abstracts, and Posters, alongside a graduate symposium.

We invite submissions for peer review that focus on any aspect of diagrams research, as follows:

- Long Papers (16 pages),

- Abstracts (3 pages),

- Short Papers (8 pages),

- Posters (4 pages – this is both a maximum and minimum requirement).

More details and all important dates can be found on at www.diagrams-conference.org/2021.

*****************************************************************

________________________________

Mikkel Willum Johansen

Associate professor

Department of Science Education

University of Copenhagen

Q. "How can Technology Save the NHS?"

A. It can't - on its own.

Image: Sept 18 2018 The Times Tech Summit Supplement
https://the-dots.com/projects/google-cloud-tech-summit-cover-249662

"On 20th October 2008 50 members of the UK Faculty of Health Informatics attended a master class entitled: "10% Technology 90% Business change - Maximising the added value of new technology for the NHS."




"At the event itself, and afterwards using a post-event wiki, members tried to address the question of: What should be done to make, what is often called a "sociotechnical" or "user-centred" approach to the delivery of technology projects the norm in Health and Social Care?"



Ref.UK Faculty of Health Informatics.(2008) 10% technology, 90% business change; maximising the added value of new technologies for the NHS. Discussion Paper, NHS, London.

A. Anyway, if by 'save' you really mean 'save' then pay and support the necessary staff first then consider the 'technology': socio-technically.

"For portals, speak patients' language" c/o Healthcare IT News

Mike Miliard's 

For portals, speak patients' language 

in Healthcare IT News is a reminder of accessibility and engagement at the level of a communities languages.

This is one of the reasons why I am committed to using Drupal, to try to make use of its Internationalization capabilities amongst others. 

Thanks to Mike's post I'm now familiar with a 'full court press' as a hospital - enterprise wide no less - seeks to achieve defined patient engagement levels by accessing their electronic health record.

This begs the question of what constitutes the patients' language? I don't just mean the purely linguistic forms of Chinese, Korean, Russian and Greek mentioned in the article. The effort is driven by the statutory demands of meaningful use, but what of the patient's general literacy, IT and health literacies? How do patients make sense of their own health (or another in the role of a carer) not just in a given language, but culturally from a medical sociological and public health perspective? What is the community's vocabulary when it comes to health?

How can we assure that meaningfulness? How can we affirm that use and critically translate use into patient benefits and self-efficacy?

You could also entitle Mike's article as

4 portals speak patients' language

individual

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

group

Health Literacy, Accessibility	Measures (health literacy, patient engagement, health and well-being, clinical outcomes)
Cultural Diversity, Languages, Carer	Internationalization 'Meaningful Use', Standards, Legislation, Policy

When we focus on languages we must remember that listening is a great gift. Whether as health and IT professionals, educators, patients and carers, listening to the care domains can help us integrate diverse social, clinical, policy and technical objectives.

What do these portals say to you?

https://twitter.com/MikeMiliardHITN
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/author/mike-miliard

From: Slow is beautiful (Bloomstein, net, July 2014)

The quotes below are from a one page article in the July issue of net magazine. The message is that while efficiency in online experiences is critical especially in ecommerce and business there is still a place for 'slow' and content that asks questions (I hope so):

"Second thoughts undermine efficient ecommerce experiences. But if we only value efficiency, we ignore opportunities for learning and validation that characterise effective, less transactional experiences.

... (How several brands - "Foster Good Decisions")

DESIGN FOR QUESTIONS

These content types and design patterns aren't necessarily the fastest way for users to complete transactions. Instead, they help users engage with purchases with greater confidence, satisfaction and certainty. When content pushes us to weigh options and wrestle with difficult concepts, it pushes us to ask questions - and place greater weight on their answers."

It does not take a giant leap of imagination to consider this in health and social care contexts?

Margot Bloomstein, .net, July 2014, Issue 255, p. 42.

Drupalcon Portland session: Collaborative Learning Systems in Drupal & tpm

I'm still following Drupal here in NW England and around Europe since version 4.7. The next Drupalcon is in Prague next month and I'm all set. As what seems a lifelong learner of Drupal there are usually many sessions of relevance to me. There's repetition creeping in too (at Munich last year), which is a good sign for me. Perhaps it's a sign of Drupal's maturing but there are sessions of specific interest in health and education. This week the program for Drupalcon Prague starts to really emerge.

Until the 13th when the program appears, there was an educational-learning example from Portland in May 2013 embedded below, by Avram Sand and Fabian Franz. The introduction for which begins...

How can you use Drupal to add value to a Learning Management System? In this case study we will show how Trellon helped Population Services International (PSI), a leading global health organization, build a collaborative learning environment using common Drupal modules.

There are some great pointers in this session, modules to consider and insights into functionality.  Whatever TLA is employed - LMS (learning management system), VLE (virtual learning environment), TEL (technology enhanced learning) ... the lessons are transferable.

In the latest edition of the philosopher's magazine tpm 3rd Quarter there's a paper on TEL by David Mossley and Clare Saunders: A revolution in philosophy teaching? (pp. 40-45). Mossley and Saunders argue the case for tempering our expectations of TEL, framing their article around constructivism:

... TEL, presents entirely new and exciting learning environments which students can engage with in more ways, with greater self-motivation, and with more creative possibilities than ever before. If constructivist pedagogy is right, the more "engagement" with a perfectly modelled environment of ideas in a virtual space a student can enjoy, the higher the quality of their learning experience will be; for they will be presented with just the "optimal" set of experiences needed to create their won meanings appropriately. However, once we start to analyse what the word "appropriately" might mean in this context, we suggest this starts to point us toward a different way of thinking about epistemology and pedagogy. p.42

More positively, they conclude that technology enhanced learning:

... can and does furnish new spaces and opportunities for social learning - it opens up new avenues for us both to practise and enhance further our philosophical knowledge and capabilities and (thereby) to co-create the future of philosophy and of knowledge more broadly. p.45.

Mossley and Saunders also refer to Hegel's idea of Bildung:

describing education as the bringing into harmony of all one's thoughts, experiences, activities and practices in existing contexts; that is, education as shared approaches to ways of making meanings, of gaining competence, based on the meanings explored by others before us. p.43.

Here is another avenue to support the role of Hodges' model in education and practice.

Sheffield, UK: Critical Writing Bursary - re. Design4Health Conference

Interface @ a-n The Artists Information Company is pleased to offer a Critical Writing Bursary to visit and write about the Design4Health Conference at Sheffield Hallam University. The bursary includes £150 and a free three-day conference pass (worth £495). It includes lunch on all three days, plus the conference networking dinner on Thursday evening) to enable one writer to visit and review Design4Health Conference at Sheffield Hallam University.

Full details at ...

To apply, please email ... by 5pm on Monday 10 June with a short statement of no more than 200 words outlining your interest in the conference and exhibition.

Apologies for cross posting. Please circulate to students and colleagues.

 

Kirsty Christer - Research Publications and Events Officer

Art and Design Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

e: k.a.christer at shu.ac.uk 
www.design4health.org.uk

H5P framework: rich content and applications in Drupal

If I ever get to create a new site devoted to Hodges' model it will be an enjoyable experience. A couple of weeks ago I learned of a framework H5P (also a file format) that can be integrated into Drupal to create content types for educational purposes.

In addition to the archive material on the model, it is important to offer students a means to test their knowledge. This might involve a trial of several modules, including H5P:

H5P is a framework for creating HTML5 content and applications that can be easily moved between web-sites. H5P facilitates sharing and reuse of code used in rich content and applications. H5P also includes an authoring tool so that H5P content may be created and edited using a web-browser.
Organizations and governments spend millions of dollars creating rich Internet content, games and applications. The code used may be shared here on h5p.org as libraries so that others may fill in their own content and reuse the code.

Drupalcon Portland is now underway and I'm looking forward to tuning in live and following sessions, starting with Dries' keynote. This should begin at 7.30pm here in the UK. Drupalcon Munich seems ages ago now (4.7 even longer ..! ) and suddenly Prague is on the horizon.

Additional link:

Quiz Questions Import for Drupal 7 released

Drupalcon Munich 2012 [i]

Drupalcon Munich 2012 Group Photo

Well another European Drupalcon has been and gone. It was an awesome event in Munich; the venue, sessions, organisation and the community. It all proved a brilliant experience even without the night time thunder and lightening.

I'm not sure if this particular sponge is saturated to its limited capacity, but compared with previous years I took fewer notes and haven't posted as yet. The (glaring) take home lesson for me remains the same. Write less: do!

The notes I do have started after the first keynote by Dries Buytaert on the State and future of Drupal. Personally, I prefer a presentation rather than the interview format. A change in format must be a relief for Dries and for circuit regulars, but despite a visual interlude the social negotiation seemed for me to get in the way of the show and tell. Given that though Drupal is a year aware from the next release, so this reduces the 'news'. Portland 2013 will no doubt be literally more telling.

I did scribble some ..., on Entities and Properties and attending How to Dominate the Theme Layer. Useful to consider that the visual hierarchy may not match the outline of your site in terms of information architecture. The idea of styling now and injecting classes later has much appeal. I am enthralled by the prospect of font selection, colour and other site design aspects.

There were several sessions on Multilingual sites in D7 & D8. The pros and cons of node level translation vs. field level translation were explained, the latter being considered the best model for most use cases and set to be the likely default in D8. Given the cons of translation and the need to keep it simple I would set about limiting translation to Brian Hodges' original course notes and a new introduction to h2cm. Another key question referred to the type of experience you are building - is it totally symmetrical or asymmetric?

More to follow.  
Photo source:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/drupalassoc/7893709730/

Personal Health Records: Part II - revisiting Kim and Johnson 2002

Part I continued ...

What Kim and Johnson reveal is a level of transience that can be quite scary in this context. True, electronic health records can be archived and printed, but the latter surely defeats the purpose of the 'e'. Printing undermines the credentials. The virtual landscape presented in part I by checking the current status of these domains highlights the issue of ownership of data in a way that has provoked much debate in social media and the transferability of a person's data - information. If I want to move to another vendor, system, company (however the 'entity' is described) there needs to be standards and a degree of interoperability to facilitate this. 

Next, we have to bow to the notion of a year on the internet compared with 'real time'. M-health was a dream a decade ago. Here is another pressure on the PHR and its family members. A public-facing health record, whatever its nomenclature, must not only be responsive to the public and professional users and the 'total stakeholder community'. Now the record must be responsive according to device: from desktop, to tablet through to mobile phone.

In 2002 the PHR project was set to run and run. It had a slow, strong pulse with speedy recovery after exertion. The PHR looked fit for Olympic^* endeavors.

But then the algorithms set to change personal health care (to fuse ill-health and well-being) suffered a major arrhythmia. The fate of those who became the new PHR frontrunners, the heavyweights no less: NHS's Healthspace, the initiatives of Google and Microsoft suffered the same fate. This post is from 2009:

Self-care in e-space and the need to Impress

Given the changes since Kim and Johnson you have to wonder what the next decade will bring. Whatever there will still be fog, but that just adds to the excitement as we climb the trees. Then we realise that to all of the users of health information systems (remember the user and stakeholders?), whichever TLA is employed, they are all X-HRs by proxy.

Kim MI, Johnson KB. Personal Health Records: Evaluation of Functionality and Utility. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 2002. Mar-Apr; 9(2):171-180. Selected for inclusion in the IMIA 2003 Yearbook of Medical Informatics. 

 ^*All trademarks acknowledged.

Oxford Drupal 'Education' Camp 22 - 23 June 2012

I have booked a holiday for Friday 22 June because as their website announces -

Oxford Drupal 'Education' Camp is happening!

Venue: St Catherine’s College, Oxford.

I'm hoping to meet people from other Drupal events and specifically from Drupalcamp Cambridge. Although Drupal is far from a dedicated educational platform - either for authoring materials and managing learners / learning - there are many contributed modules that can be adapted and extended.

One of the three papers mentioned last week will be published by an online journal in June. News of the other two must wait, one is an end-of-year prospect. Although an abstract and preparation for the ICN Congress (if accepted!) is a non trivial undertaking, further writing must fit in with future web developments. This Drupalcamp will help bring several threads together.

Personal Health Records: Part I - revisiting Kim and Johnson 2002

When I was at HC2004 or 2005 I was given a copy of the Medical Informatics Yearbook 2003 from the British Computer Society - Nursing Specialist Group stand. Within this volume of key papers for the year April 2001 - March 2002 I found the following:

Kim MI, Johnson KB. Personal Health Records: Evaluation of Functionality and Utility. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 2002. Mar-Apr; 9(2):171-180. Selected for inclusion in the IMIA 2003 Yearbook of Medical Informatics. 

The paper identified candidate Personal Health Records [PHRs], then developed criteria examining the entry and display of data elements necessary for the PHRs to serve as adequate representations of information. Then in the final third phase a selected group of PHRs were assessed for their functionality and utility (p.370). Of the 12 PHRs assessed I thought it would be interesting to check  their current status (this was a quick visit to the published domains).

Several Personal Health Records 2002 - 2012

Web Site	Record	URL	Findings
Dr. I-Net	My Medical Record	www.drinet.com/	A good start! Still operational domain redirects from original www.aboutmyhealth.com Continues to offer a PHR.
HealthCompass:	Lifelong Health Record	www.healthcompassnet.com	While there are several site using 'Health Compass' the original version was not obvious.
MedicalEdge	Medical Register	www.medicaledge.com/	Domain currently offers support to physicians, so a PHR may be part of a package?
MedicalRecord.com	Your Medical Record	www.medicalrecord.com	This now appears to be a directory to electronic medical records.
MedicData	MedicData	www.medicdata.com/	This does not appear to offer a PHR and the homepage is 'under construction'. It looks like the domain may have a new owner.
Medscape AboutMyHealth	Personal Health Record	www.aboutmyhealth.com/	Now leads to GE Healthcare.
myhealthnotes.com	Personal Health Manager	www.myhealthnotes.com/	Server not found.
PersonalMD	My Medical Records	www.personalmd.com	Retired - leads to: www.eheandme.com/personalmd_announcement.html
TheDailyApple	Health Records	www.thedailyapple.com/	Social networking is vital to well-being but no PHR here.
VistaLink	Health Profile	vistalink.com	Domain for sale.
WebMD	WebMD	www.webmd.com/	Very much alive and kicking commercially, but my health record / PHR not in immediately in evidence.
Wellmed.com	Health Record	www.wellmed.com	This site leads to http://www.webmdhealthservices.com/

Kim and Johnson provide several lessons as a high quality contribution to the medical informatics literature. From the above we see that while we talk about timeliness in terms of the written record, time takes on a series of new meanings when it comes to electronic records, media, commercial companies and clearly the internet.

As I read the paper and reflected on the past decade other things fell into focus. At the end of the day a PHR should be what it says - personal. Reading Kim and Johnson this did not stop them looking at the PHRs from the perspective of doctors and informatics practitioners. There is nothing wrong with this. Although developers and political masters quite rightly seek to engage with the user, espouse usability and user testing - a system is aimed at a community.

If title [personal] follows function [record] and form [electronic] follows function then what do we have?

Don't worry if you're lost, me too (I'm musing again); let's add the fog....

It's crucial to know what's going on over the fence (similarly sometimes it helps to climb a tree). In this case the person in the form of patient is not the only consumer of the information in the record.

This is the point: systems are about a user AND a stakeholder community. Stakeholder is a much maligned word, found on the lips of those seeking to reach and engage remote ('difficult' to reach) community groups. It has a definite role here though.

Every health discipline has its record, that is a professional must. So in effect you have a series of 'X' -HRs. On paper they were - and remain in many cases - a mess. What we should have then is a hybrid health record that depending on the user morphs itself accordingly. But what is the point in pointing to users and stakeholders? Well, conceptually how far is personal from medical (nursing...) and how far again to personality? Add to the mix the question of where patient, well-being and health fit in to the management of long term medical conditions as per the critieria of Kim and Johnson, accurate entry of medicines, medical conditions, lab tests, monitoring ... and you see what is frequently a record breaking task.

This is (or was*) the challenge: to transform something that is generically personal (with the potential contradiction this implies) to something that is personalised as in 'I'.

*Part II to follow.

Call for chapters - Human centric visualization: Theories, methodologies and case studies

[Shortened for length from original post to ubicomp.org]

*** CALL FOR CHAPTERS  ***
Proposal due: Feb 24, 2012
Notification due: March 09, 2012
Full chapter due: June 15, 2012

A book edited by Tony Huang (CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia), to be published by Springer: www.springer.com
Web: http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/servlet/event.showcfp?eventid=19780%A9ownerid=14065

1. Introduction

Visualizations (diagrams) are produced for people to make sense or interact with them. Rapid advances in display technology and computer power have enabled researchers to produce visually appealing pictures or compelling visual environments to end users. However, the effectiveness of those pictures in conveying embedded information to the users and impact of visual environments on humans have not been fully understood.
This book addresses issues related to design, evaluation and application of visualizations from a human centric perspective. This cutting-edge book is an edited volume whose contributors include experts worldwide, from diverse disciplines including psychologist, artists, engineers and scientists.
Academics, students, engineers and consultants will find this book useful for both research and engineering purposes.

2. Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

Part I: Introduction and overview

Current status and future challenges of visualization methods
Current status and future challenges of human centric visualizations research
Survey of evaluation methods in visualization
Survey of theories, frameworks, models, heuristics and design principles for visualization

Part II: Theories, models, frameworks, heuristics and design principles for human centric visualization

Theories of visual thinking, diagram perception, cognition and reasoning and their applications
Latest developments toward theories of visualization
Latest development of frameworks, models, heuristics and design principles for visualization
Applications of the theories, frameworks, models, heuristics and design principles
Adaptations and applications of theories from other domains in visualization

Part III: Methodologies for design, development and evaluation of human centric visualization

Approaches and practices of visualization design
Evaluation methods
Measurement metrics
Taxonomies of tasks
Design and evaluation frameworks
Development and validation of methodologies
Application of methodologies
Lessons learned and experience obtained in developing and applying methodologies

Part IV: Case studies of human centric visualization

Human factors (e.g., memory, cognitive ability, gender, individual differences)
Visual perception and cognition
Visual analytics
Social, cultural aspects of visualization
Implications of new technologies (e.g., displays, new media) on humans
User experience
Implications of interactive methods on humans
Implications of new visualizations on humans
Roles of human in collaborative visualization
Use of visualizations for decision making, learning, business, software engineering, science, security, biology, design, construction, cartography, etc.
Visualization in virtual reality/mixed reality/augmented reality
Case studies and evaluations of interfaces, systems and prototypes of visualizations
Lessons learned and experience obtained in evaluating and designing visualizations
....

4. Important dates

Proposal due:  February 24, 2012  (Proposal has no length limits, usually should include motivations, method, contributions and a brief outline of the full chapter)
Notification: March 09, 2012
Full chapter due: June 15, 2012
Full manuscript due to publisher: August 1, 2012
Book publication: October 1, 2012

5. Contact

All submissions and inquiries should be sent to:
Tony Huang ...

Drupalcon London - Day 4 Thur. A Keynote heralds Wedding Bells & Fashion

The final keynote Designing the Sustainable Web was delivered by two guys gents Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson, they teach interactive design at the University of Ulster at Belfast.

The Web Standardistas covered design, fonts and resources both online and books. Like Tom Standages' presentation they talked history. I think I lapsed into an awake, but non-note taking mode; but on their site they provide resources. There's a full and good review on Ubelly. Given the way the web struggles to re-invent rip-the-paper with grids still preeminent in design the books mentioned inc. HTML5 for Web Designers, Responsive Web Design and Ordering Disorder. There's hours of reading and visual delight at http://www.thegridsystem.org/ and Subtraction.

Two things I did spot in the keynote; one a site design, it was quite minimal on the graphics side - apart from a black header with text logo - but using fonts + and as described information architecture to emphasize the content and indeed the overall semantics of the page (and site). I must catch the video again. The other was a slide drawing on newspaper design and proportions that makes me wonder about switching things around.

After the keynote it was another look for me at mobile and theming: Adaptive, Responsive, Mobile First and Drupal Theming for the Future with HTML5, CSS3 and Omega. This session included a surprise for a young lady - a marriage proposal. Congratulations! The Omega theme was a topic at BarCamp in Leeds and I've looked at it for the DJ site. There I've settled on Black Piano. Omega is definitely worth a revisit. Many visitors to the old site arrive c/o mobile devices (possibly as an example of poor design?). Mobile first! indeed.

The Organics Groups session commenced with the lift pitch and the 2nd Drupal fashion show. Organic groups and panels make a lot of sense for a Hodges' model site. The model is a grid, the domains are panels. The links pages are currently tables. So... (whatyawaiting4)! Somebody mentioned - their first Drupalcon - that with this being my 4th a lot of the session content should be familiar.

The documentation BoF did not quite go as planned over dinner time - at least for me. This is a vital project as support, help and documentation does matter in people voting with their feet. I think the project will get a real fillip as some higher level dependencies kick-in and the potential of DITA.

As I write this it's Friday the last day and the code sprint. I'm not coding, but helping review an issue associated with #drupalEdu. (So not coding but still learning and trying to help a little.) This tag covers Drupal training, mentoring, support and general education - K12, Higher Education...

It's been great here in London. Heading North soon. I'll see if I can add a photo or two over the w/e. Tomorrow I will unpack and check the PC which has arrived home apparently, now with working graphics cards? Also to sort hosting. Liverpool on Sunday: the Matthew St Festival. 

Drupalcon London - Day 3 Weds. Tom Standage keynote, sessions, + BoF ...

Wednesday was a funny day at Drupalcon - literally. The cuppa tea at break was truly divine and delivered with that quintessential British style - very traditional.

At the morning's keynote Tom Standage of The Economist gave us an insightful and historical perspective on social media. This took in the Romans and their scribes (photo below and video), Martin Luther and English Civil War and America's fight for independence. There's  a book to follow. Given the emphasis on ethnography and anthropology in successful informatics - IT we should always be open to the lessons of history, but not constrained by it.

(Videos are appearing online now). My session pick started with Multilingual Drupal Solutions: Use Cases and Modules. This isn't the first session on this topic I've attended, but it was a helpful update - especially the use cases and modules. After dinner Jeff Noyes is clearly clued in on Creating and Measuring the User Experience. This is a must do, with a real potential dividend, but for hobbyists like me it was encouraging to hear Jeff describe a range of resources that included DIY testing.

Early on Jeff noted  the benefit of having a project charter - so last evening I started  one. Basically, what are my projects aims. Actually a things other things emerged from doing this.

I slipped up with node.js and Drupal, great stuff I'm sure but rather beyond me in terms of need and understanding. The principles were a good take home. For the final session the meeting on theming was packed out, so I headed to a BoF pivotal for the Drupal documentation team:

Doing Multiformat publishing & single source content with DITA in Drupal - status and roadmap

It's been a bit more than a year now that we started working on a DITA module for Drupal. In this session we'll review the current status, talk about the good & the bad and look forward to what we are going to be doing in Drupal 7.

DITA (Darwin Information Type Architecture) is an Oasis XML standard started at IBM that has become a major standard in enterprise technical communication. It's used in industries with modular products to publish documentation in a range of formats in minutes in stead of days while saving up to 60% of translation costs.

My new site requires new data items and on Tuesday after Entities - Emerging Patterns of Usage this was given as a key use case for entities. Of course 'entities' have been around ages in RDBSes (1969), but in Drupal they have a specific status now (a dialogue that also seems to bring in nodes, fields and taxonomy). The DITA BoF proved very relevant to me and h2cm as a health and social care -

• website;
• learning experience;
• application (!) 

- demands documentation. Not only that but standards based documentation (and classification system(s)). There's another BoF this dinner time - I'll try and get there.

Drupal's documentation is a recognised mess, hence the investment in DITA and seeking a solution. Back in Szeged 2008 I remember sitting down on that final code sprint day. I had it in mind to read some stuff and try and contribute. I do have an eye for docs. Well, I've been Editor here since April 2006. Previously (1995 - 2007) I read through and reviewed data definitions and information standards (and not just proof reading). In 2008 though I couldn't focus (really as I found out a year later). Maybe it wasn't just me! One thing: the next monitor I purchase will be optimised for text and portrait, or is that old hat these days? 


With RDF, translation, and modules like Features, Panels, Entities, DITA, Organic Groups, Context ... there are so many lucky dice to play; but there is no single roll that proves a winner: there are several!


My photo: c/o the keynote speaker Tom Standage who stated the image has not been altered in what it represents.

Top 5 worst EMR myths: c/o Healthcare IT News

I came across this post by Molly Merrill, Associate Editor and thought I could add some comments.

I'm usually wary of posts of the list of ... and top 5, top 10 variety. You see much of social media is cordial - not the concentrate form - but the dilute as observed in many of the comments. Anyway ....

You can read the original full text for each of the five on Healthcare IT News, here are some additional thoughts:

1. EMRs are bad for “bedside manner".

They can be BAD it all depends on usability, engagement, attitude, requirement, the overall environment and the extent to which the EMR is considered in all its socio-technical glory. Whatever the research does show item #2 admits the qualitative differences that exist in the marketplace - some EMRs are easier-to-use. If we expand the engagement beyond the professionals then the bedside equation demands the patient is factored in.

With the right care philosophy and conceptual framework (#h2cm?) e-health records of all varieties (EHR, PHR, EMR, Summary ....) can also support a positive, person centered bedside manner - transforming it to one that chomps at the bit ;-) to become a community based manner.

2. You can't teach old doctors new tricks.

Continuing professional development (or its equivalent) dictates that older doctors and other senior members of the multidisciplinary health and social care team can (should and must!) learn new tricks right up to retirement. Lifelong learning applies to all.

3. Only hospitals use EMRs.

I've little experience here working in the community (and in mental health), but judging from the applications and the infrastructure that an older EMR may demand, I suspect that they are indeed hospital (organisational) centered. That clearly is changing as mobile, mhealth applications mature to meet the rigorous demands of this market.

4. Having my data stored in an EMR is a security risk.

The security of electronic records cannot be assured. Data on devices that is not encrypted - is an open door, especially when those devices are portable. (If the use of encryption leads to complacency then I am uneasy.) Disciplinary measures may follow, but they are not a remedy. The human link in the chain aside - electronic records can be security assured to international standards. Far better than paper records and the photographs (anybody?) of paper hospital files sitting at the side of a corridor and other horror stories.


(Former link: The New York Times, 21 August 2011, New Data Spill Shows Risk of Online Health Records)


5. EMRs are expensive.

There are beholders, stakeholders, budget holders and tax payers. Despite the need for research findings I like the reflection of reality in item 5 that presages new players using new architectures and approaches. I've always felt that standards are essential and yet how do they relate to the scope for innovations? What is the relationship and how does that impact the market and in turn costs?

I've come across an item in .Net magazine that relates to EMRs - indeed all health informatics - I'll post on this while in London and attending Drupalcon.

Image source:
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/cwdn/2010/08/carry-on-doctor-your-electronic-patient-records-are-secure.html

h2cm: where does 'programming' begin and end?

On first impressions Hodges' model is a table. Its structure shouts "table!"
It is a table around which we can gather. It is political: a tabular rasa.

Since 1987 I've been fascinated by the potential that this basic construct, call it the 2 x 2 starter kit for holistic care has to conceptualise (as someone at the HEA Critical Reflection SIG meeting noted), represent, and explain nursing, health, social care and umpteen other situations.

It has great potential because of what we might do with the contents of the table.

This two x two table instructs.

It makes demands: "Initialise Me" with at least four care concepts.

It has critical reflective potential.

  
Nursing care problems, relapse prevention plans, strengths and steps to recovery can suddenly take on another dynamic form. The extent to which this transforms is still in human* hands (and minds!) but I am sure this informational potential and purpose is there; especially reading Fowler (2010):

This use of tables as source code is unusual, but it's an application that could be used more often. People like specifying things in tabular form, whether it's examples for test data or more general processing rules such as a Decision Table (495). Many domain experts are very comfortable with editing tables in spreadsheets, which can then be processed into source code. p.156. Fowler (2010) Chapter 10 A Zoo of DSLs.

You can see why nursing - health and social care are so complex:

- staff are busily 'programming' in at least two or three domains and constantly pressured to theorise and practice safely and effectively in four (*five when we include the spiritual).

Fowler, M. (2010) Domain Specific Languages: Addison-Wesley Signature Series, Addison-Wesley Professional.

HCI 2011 Health, Wealth and Happiness Call for Papers

The 25th British Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI2011)

July 4th - 8th, 2011 at Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK.

The HCI Educators conference, Workshops and Tutorials will be held on 4th and 5th July, 2011 and a Doctorial Consortium on the 5th July. The main conference runs from the 6th-8th July, 2011. HCI 2011 is organised by the PaCT Lab (Northumbria University) in cooperation with the British Computer Society.

This year we will be looking for papers to put in our alt.hci sessions. So if you think your work doesn't usually make it into this conference then maybe this year is your year.

Accepted papers will be published by BCS in the annual conference proceedings, freely available online in BCS Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC) and will also be included in the ACM digital library.

Important Dates:

• Full Paper and Workshop submission: 21st January, 2011
• Workshop notification of acceptance: 11th February, 2011
• Work in Progress and alt.chi submission: 18th February, 2011
• Short and Posters  submission: 18th February, 2011
• Demos and Experiences submission: 18th February, 2011
• Doctoral Consortium 18th February, 2011
• Panels: 18th February, 2011
• Notification of Acceptance for all other categories: 8th April 2011
• Camera-ready copy for proceedings required by 6th May 2011

Deadline for author registration: 4th May 2011

Conference: 4th July - 8th July, 2011

Conference Scope and Description:

Human Computer Interaction is a key area of computing. This is the leading conference in the field of Human Computer Interaction in the UK. It covers the design, evaluation and application of techniques and approaches for interacting with devices and services.  HCI is now on its 25th conference and at this anniversary we ask you to reflect on our theme of Health, Wealth and Happiness. Technology is posed to play a growing part in our health and maintaining well being into older age; wealth manifests itself in many ways, many of which we do not always recognise - relationships, richness of life experience, creativity and innovation, knowledge and qualities of character. Lastly is there a relationship between happiness and technology use, will more gadgets increase our well being? And as ever contributions in any aspect of HCI are welcome.

Suggested topics:

We solicit original research and technical papers not published elsewhere including the following topics:

• Affective interaction
• Aesthetic interaction
• Art and interaction
• Bodily interaction
• Cyber-relationships, sex and eroticism
• Design and Evaluation methods
• Ethnographic and field studies
• Ethics and HCI
• Experience Design
• Fun and Play
• Health informatics and technology
• Human values
• Information visualization and presentation
• Interaction Criticism
• Moods, meditation and relaxation
• Musical and audio interaction
• Novel interaction techniques and devices
• Privacy, Security and Trust
• Social networking
• Spirituality and Beliefs
• Sustainability and HCI
• Ubiquitous, pervasive, and mobile interaction
• Universal design
• Usability studies
• User Experience
• Wearables and fashion
• Wellbeing and technology

Keynote Speakers

• Abigail Sellon, Microsoft Research, UK
• Gregory Abowd, Georgia Tech, USA

Paper Submission:

Submissions must be in an electronic form as PDF format. All submissions should be formatted to the ACM standard, see http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates , and will appear on-line in the BCS EWiCS series and the ACM Digital Library.

Submissions should be made through the EasyChair system, which will open for submissions in November and will be linked from the conference website http://www.hci2011.co.uk/ with detailed instructions. We have put together an international review panel. Submissions will be peer-reviewed by at least 3 peer-reviewers, selected by the appropriate chairs. Additional guidelines can be found on the conference's website.

It is a condition of acceptance that at least one author must register for each accepted paper, no later than the early bird deadline of 4th May 2011.

Drupal(con) musings 14: design, UI, UX, thinking and care

In his funny and very engaging session 'Designing UI with Seven' at Drupalcon CPH Mark Boulton discussed four user experience (UX) principles and introduced us to ten user interface (UI) guidelines.

Mark highlighted the need for a mental model and the challenge within publishing of there being someone who has the big picture. Who knows exactly what is going on? The health career model provides a model and can provide a canvas to support the big picture.

What really caught my attention though was as soon as Mark asserted -
"Don't make people think." -

I immediately thought -
'Make people care instead'.

Well, I'm not sure if an interface can do what public (mental) health policy, government public funded education programmes and the concerted efforts of the health professions has largely failed to achieve. The users of e-health information systems do need the design of the system to be transparent to them. IT mustn't get in the way. Mark's point of course is the the user's should be free to focus on the problem the system is to help solve. In health this includes:

• recording of a health (and social) care record;
• secure information / file management and access;
• information governance, reporting and archiving;
• timely, ready access for those who need to know;
• ability to manipulate the record to obtain knowledge: from data > from information;
• to provide patient (carer as advocate) access and verification;
• remote access with rugged devices.
• ...

This does not mean that people are oblivious to design: far from it (iThis - iThat!). My point is that as we follow Mark and other design expert's advice then users should be able to focus on care design and the care outputs arising.

So in health we need interfaces and user experiences that DO encourage reflection, thought: thinking.

P.S. In another session (or magazine!?) on creating mobile versions of sites the advice included getting rid of the crap - the clutter, the >1000px width adornments. Rhetoric aside - my design thought would be not to include anything that could be described in this way whatever the media type (maybe I should lighten up!) ;-)

To follow: update on my Drupal efforts.

NT: Nurses urged to use checklists to reduce human error in practice

Last month Nursing Times included an item on checklists, highlighting work by the WHO in perioperative nursing and the 'Patient Safety First' campaign. Following surgery's lead is the realisation that similar checklists have the potential to improve communication and team working in other areas such as nutrition, situational awareness and pressure ulcer care.

Checklists are ubiquitous in our day-to-day lives, the dividend for using them is fairly obvious. What is less obvious is the fact that checklists alone are dead bureaucratic adornments. Checklists are animated by situations and thinking, reflective individuals in those situations. As Lomas reports there is a need to stop at an agreed key point in the patient pathway and ask the critical - checklist - questions. In team work this co-ordinated acknowledgement to complexity is essential for comprehensive, consistent and safe care.

What is interesting here is the emphasis on human factors. While checklists undoubtedly have a demonstrated - proven - role to play in safety, situational awareness is not a product of checklists alone. There is a need for learning and for the cultivation of cognitive lists. While human memory is fallibility incarnate - hence the role for checklists - there is also the need for skilled, knowledgeable professionals with the required communication and observational skills. The need for nurses to further develop observational skills has also been highlighted over recent months.

So as checklists are checked and logged: prepare a space for the mental checklist that is Hodges' model. The model is situated, person-centered and one of the original purposes was to help bridge the theory - practice gap. Try doing that with a checklist: alone

Clare Lomas, Safety checklists could cut 'human error' in clinical practice, Nursing Times, 106, 3, 26 January 2010, p.2.

16th Int. Reflective Practice Conference UK

Reflection in action: June 23-25th 2010

Date: 23-25 June 2010 (3 day event)

Venue: Bedford campus, Bedford, MK41 9EA, UK.

This cutting edge conference was conceived in 1994 as a forum to enable health care professionals undertaking study at the University of Bedfordshire to share with a wider audience how reflective practice had enabled development of both self and clinical health care practice. Since that event, the conference grew rapidly into an international conference hosted by different organisations world-wide.

In 2010 the conference, for the first time, becomes truly inter-professional spanning the breadth of the University’s portfolio from business to midwifery, from theatre to social work, from psychology to sports science and many places in between. What unites these professions is a common interest in reflective practice as professional practice, education and research. It makes a difference.

We live our lives through stories not theories. Through stories we find meaning and grow. It makes sense then that we teach and learn through stories and in doing so, pay attention to theories that meaningfully inform our lives no matter the nature of our practice.

Reflection in action

Convened by Prof Christopher Johns, University of Bedfordshire, this conference aims to engage individuals from multiple disciplines including health, education, business and creative sectors.

Call for papers

Click here (no longer) for more information.

How to submit abstracts

Please send your abstracts to ....

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It would be marvellous to co-author a paper for this or a similar conference. Hodges' model is ideal as a reflective resource, being one of its original purposes. Something for me to reflect on currently is World Usability Day.