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Scope and Concerns | Editors and Advisory Board | Associate Editors | Journal Profile | Contact

ISSN 1832-3669 (Print)

The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society creates a place for the publication of innovative theories and practices relating technology to society. It is cross-disciplinary in its scope and provides a meeting point for technologists with a concern for the social and social scientists with a concern for the technological. The focus is primarily, but not exclusively, on information and communications technologies.

Equally interested in the mechanics of social technologies and the social impact of technologies, the journal is guided by the ideals of an open society, where technology is used to address human needs and serve community interests. These concerns are grounded in the values of creativity, innovation, access, equity and personal and community autonomy. In this space, commercial and community interests at times complement each other; at other times they appear to be at loggerheads. The journal will examine the nature of the new technologies, their connection with community, their use as tools for learning, and their place in a 'knowledge society'.

The perspectives presented range from big picture analyses which address global and universal concerns, to detailed case studies which speak of localised social applications of technology. The papers traverse a broad terrain, sometimes technically and other times socially oriented, sometimes theoretical and other times practical in their perspective, and sometimes reflecting dispassionate analysis whilst at other times suggesting interested strategies for action.

The journal is relevant for academics in the fields of informatics, computer science, history and philosophy of science, sociology of knowledge, sociology of technology, education, management and the humanities; research students; technology developers and trainers and industry consultants.

The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society is fully peer-reviewed with a rigorous refereeing process to ensure a high standard of quality. The editors and advisory board comprise leading scholars in the technology field.

For information on where the journal is listed/indexed, please visit this page.

Scope and Concerns

Technologies
 Over the past quarter century, digital technologies have become signature change agents in all aspects of our domestic, working and public lives. Whether it is our awareness of the world through the media, formal or informal learning, shopping, banking, travelling or communicating, digital technologies are everywhere. The hardware is getting less expensive relative to the power of the technology. Meanwhile, a battle is being fought in the domain of intellectual property between software that is proprietary and sometimes closed, and software that is open and sometimes free.

How do we understand and evaluate the workings of these technologies? To answer this question we need to recruit the disciplines of computer science, software engineering, communications systems and applied linguistics. We need to develop and apply the conceptual tools of cybernetics, informatics, systemics and the theory of distributed networks. And how do we understand their effects? Here we might consider the impact of the new media, intelligent systems or human-machine interfaces.

Communities
The earlier information and communications technologies of modernity centralised power, knowledge and culture. They were heavy on plant and physical infrastructure — the printing presses, the transmission stations and the transport and distribution systems that only the corporation or the state could afford. They were centralised, driven by economies of (large) scale and dominated on a day-to-day basis by those with economic resources, political power and elite cultural networks.

The new digital technologies are free or cheap, instantaneous and global. They are decentralised and distributed. And so, it is argued that they open out and provide broader access to the means of production and communication of meaning. They are the bases for an electronic democracy, participatory design and communities of practice. They allow a myriad of cultures, interests and knowledge communities to flourish. Or at, least, this is one interpretation. In bleaker views, they add a digital divide to older historical cleavages of inequality; they daze us into passivity; they place our every movement under surveillance; they enforce a sedentary compliance.

Learners
There is little doubt that 'e-learning' is destined to become a larger part of the experience of learning at school, in universities, on the job, at home — indeed, lifelong and lifewide learning. Technology is now a central concern of education, not only from the point of view of preparing students for a world of work where networked computers are pervasive, but also from the point of view of community participation and citizenship. Learners who are excluded from the new information spaces, will clearly be economically, socially and culturally disadvantaged.

At its best, e-learning is a refreshingly new medium with a pedagogically new message. However, as the critics of e-learning rightly point out, much of what passes for e-learning is lock step, mechanical and individualised (one user/one screen), reflecting and reproducing pedagogies that are best dubious and at worst regressive. On the other hand, a more optimistic view notes the capacity of the new information and communication technologies to transform learning relationships. Instead of being the recipients of transmitted knowledge (syllabuses, textbooks, 'information' resources), institutions of learning might become places where teachers and learners develop knowledge banks, and where traditional classrooms, dominated by teacher talk, are replaced by open learning in which groups of students work autonomously and collaboratively on knowledge projects within a structured 'content management' environment.

Knowledge
The world is moving into a phase that is widely, and perhaps too glibly at times, referred to as a 'knowledge economy' or 'knowledge society'. Information and communications technologies, and their human effects, play a central part in this development.

These digital technologies allow new, bottom-up structures of knowledge to emerge, building from the collaborative endeavours of knowledge creating communities — such as workplaces, schools and associations of common interest. In each case, they provide the means by which personal knowledge can be shared and transformed into common knowledge. From being receptors of knowledge, persons, organisations and communities become makers and publishers of knowledge, reversing at least in part the fundamental epistemic flows of modernity and replacing this with a new 'dialogics' of knowledge.

Editors and Advisory Board

Editors |Advisory Board

Editors of the International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society

  • Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.
  • Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.

International Advisory Board

  • Darin Barney, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
  • Marcus Breen, Northeastern University, Boston, USA.
  • G.K. Chadha, Jawahrlal Nehru University, India.
  • Simon Cooper, Monash University, Australia.
  • Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA, Common Ground.
  • Bill Dutton, The Oxford Internet Institute and Internet Studies, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
  • Amareswar Galla, The University of Queensland , Australia.
  • David Hakken, University of Indiana, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.
  • Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
  • Michele Knobel, Montclair State University, New Jersey, USA.
  • Jeannette Shaffer, Edtech Leaders, VA, USA.
  • Ravi S. Sharma, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
  • Robin Stanton, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
  • Telle Whitney, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology.

Associate Editors


The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, Volume 1 (Download PDF)

The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, Volume 2 (Download PDF)

The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, Volume 3 (Download PDF)

Journal Profile


STATISTICS/CITATIONS

Statistics/citations

At this stage we are unable to provide citation statistics as the journal is relatively new. However, we envisage a high impact factor insofar as the journal is both part of the conventional world of academic publishing and highly visible to internet search engines.

Abstracted/Indexed in

Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory - http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/

Genamics JournalSeek - http://journalseek.net/

Sociological Abstracts - http://www.csa.com


Contact

Email Address
journals at commongroundpublishing com
Mail Address
PO Box 463
Altona
Victoria
3018
AUSTRALIA