[NORSLIS] CfP: "Exploring Information-as-Potentiality: Methods for Design and Evaluation" (SIG-USE)

[Isto Huvila]

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

"Exploring Information-as-Potentiality: Methods for Design and Evaluation"  (SIG-USE) 

A symposium co-located with ASIS&T 2025, Saturday 15 November 2025, 8AM-12PM, Washington, DC 

Understanding how people interpret and use digital information is an essential part of building capable, 21st century knowledge systems. At the same time, information science/studies has called for attention to the mediating role that technology plays in informational processes. Both strands of thought converge on the need for new approaches that support inquiry into the dynamic modes of information-making and taking (Huvila, 2022) and their consequential relations within spaces of knowledge production. 
In service towards the conference theme of ASIST 2025 "Difficult Conversations", this half-day symposium will collectively explore and showcase methods, theories, techniques, metatheories, frameworks, and prototypes that conceptualize the use of information as a generative, unfolding set of practices - an approach we are calling information-as potentiality (Chassanoff and Chen, 2025). We suggest that approaches that frame information as situated (Suchman, 1987; Taylor, 1991;Bishop et al., 2000), experienced (Bruce et al., 2014; Chassanoff, 2016; Gorichanaz, 2019),  participatory (Huvilla, 2008; Greyson, 2014), and/or embodied (Dourish, 2001; Chen, 2015; Olsson & Lloyd, 2017; Bates, 2018) practices are useful vantage points for observing dimensions of information use within larger systems of dynamic and mediated information flows. Such perspectives can offer valuable insights into evolving literacies, necessary contingencies, and possible affordances and can help inform the design and evaluation of capable knowledge infrastructures.
We seek participation from information science/studies researchers and practitioners interested in iterative, multidisciplinary perspectives on information use environments and its many generative forms and practices.  We welcome contributions of short (3-5 pages, not including references) research papers to be presented in the first half of the symposia, with the goal of showcasing either completed research or sharing research-in-progress.  Examples of topics that symposium presenters might address include: 
    • Experiential interfaces and/or navigation
    • Designing for epistemic justice/awareness
    • Information-as-capta
    • Provenance-aware computing 
    • Situated and/or participatory action models
    • Embodied and/or enacted information 

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
Register for the Conference and Symposium: https://www.asist.org/meetings-events/am/am25/  
Submit a Short Research Paper: Symposium participants are invited to submit a short research paper (3-5 pages max, not including references).  Participants will present 10 minute talks describing, sharing or envisioning how particular approaches to information use provide opportunities for addressing research problems.  While we welcome submissions that reflect actively "in progress" research, we also encourage participants to submit papers that identify a research area or problem, its empirical consequences, and potential pathways to explore for moving forward. https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=am25symposia Review and Notification: All submissions will be peer-reviewed by symposium organizers and evaluated based on two main criteria: a) significance of submission topic to the goals and objectives of the symposium and b) clarity and description of the research problem and (where applicable) proposed solutions. 

IMPORTANT DATES
Short Research Papers due: August 8, 2025
Notifications: September 15, 2025
For more information, visit the full CFP at https://easychair.org/cfp/AM25Symposium

Symposium Organizers
Alexandra Chassanoff | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | USA
Annie T. Chen | University of Washington | USA
Isto Huvila | Uppsala University | Sweden
Zack Lischer-Katz | University of Arizona | USA
Travis Wagner | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | USA
Rhiannon Bettivia | Simmons University | USA