Mapping child–computer interaction research through co-word analysis

This paper employs hierarchical clustering, strategic diagrams, and network analysis to construct an intellectual map of the Child–Computer Interaction research field (CCI) and to visualize the thematic landscape of this field using co-word analysis. This approach assumes that an article’s keywords constitute an adequate description of its content and reflect the topics that the article covers. It also assumes that the co-occurrence of two or more keywords within the same article indicates a linkage between those topics. This study quantifies the thematic landscape of the CCI field and elaborates on emerging topics as these are manifested in publications in the two primary venues of the CCI field, namely the proceedings of the annual IDC conference and the International Journal of CCI. Overall, a total of 1059 articles, and their respective 2445 unique, author-assigned keywords, are included in our analyses — all papers have been published between 2003 and 2018. The results indicate that the community has focused (i.e., high frequency keywords) in areas including Participatory Design, Tangibles, Design, Education, Coding, and Making. These areas also demonstrate a high degree of ”coreness” (i.e., connection with different topics) and ”constraint” (i.e., connection with otherwise isolated topics). The analysis also highlights well-structured yet peripheral topics, as well as topics that are either marginally interesting, or have the potential to become of major importance to the entire research network in the near future. Limitations of the approach and future work plans conclude the paper

Editorial introduction to Designing for Play as Cultural Production in Childhood:Seeking new grounds

In 2021 the BIN network (Børneforskere i Norden - [Children’s Culture Researchers in the Nordic Countries]) invited researchers from all over the world to meet in order to explore potential relationships and bridges between two research areas, childhood studies and design, that share an interest in play as a topic of research.The conference invited both practitioners and scholars to participate to empower and enrich a landscape for conversation and development in order for the areas to inspire each other. Over 400 people from all over the world participated in sessions during the two-day conference.Based on the conference, we invited authors to contribute to this special issue of Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation with the title Designing for Play as Cultural Participation in Childhood. Seeking new grounds

Editorial introduction to Designing for Play as Cultural Production in Childhood:Seeking new grounds

In 2021 the BIN network (Børneforskere i Norden - [Children’s Culture Researchers in the Nordic Countries]) invited researchers from all over the world to meet in order to explore potential relationships and bridges between two research areas, childhood studies and design, that share an interest in play as a topic of research.The conference invited both practitioners and scholars to participate to empower and enrich a landscape for conversation and development in order for the areas to inspire each other. Over 400 people from all over the world participated in sessions during the two-day conference.Based on the conference, we invited authors to contribute to this special issue of Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation with the title Designing for Play as Cultural Participation in Childhood. Seeking new grounds

A close look into the storytelling process: the procedural nature of interactive digital narratives as learning opportunity

Differently from traditional narratives, which focus on the output, i.e. the oral or written text, interactive digital narratives provide a more holistic view of the storytelling process, considering as integral part of it the system, the user, the process and the output. In this framework, the procedural nature of IDN as a reactive and generative system becomes prominent. Such an approach is particularly interesting when considering educational appli- cations of IDN and how they can support early literacy practices in pre-and primary school children. Here, we take a close look into the procedural nature of IDN, presenting observations and results from two pilot studies carried out with six to seven-years old children, arguing that interactive digital narratives can provide a window into (i) how the children plan their story, (ii) how, along the storytelling process, the children learn the rules and constraints provided by the IDN system, which they appropriate and incorporate in their storytelling to achieve a certain output, (iii) how the children empathize with the story characters, diving into the story world and (iv) how the system provides opportunities for mediating new knowledge in a meaningful way, which was visible e.g. in the way the children immediately appropriated and used the new conveyed vocabulary.This work has been financed by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) - and by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program under the reference POCI/01/0145/FEDER/032580

The impact of risk-taking and creativity stimuli in education towards innovation: A systematic review and research agenda

Academic research on educational stimuli of risk-taking and creativity to foster innovation can contribute to overcome the challenges faced by organizations in the marketplace. To explore the contributions provided in this field, this study developed a bibliometric and systematic review on academic production in the domain of creativity, risk-taking and innovation through an educa- tional perspective. The bibliographical databases adopted were Web of Science and Scopus and outcomes were analysed using the Bibliometrix tool in R software. Research findings point to three main clusters of academic production: (i) Tools and techniques to boost creativity; (ii) Educational interventions towards innovativeness; and (iii) Antecedents of entrepreneurial ac- tivity. This study pictures entrepreneurial education as a field that is still in its infancy and, thus, provide opportunities for research and education policies and programs design. It was revealed that there are two relevant fields that can be envisaged as motor themes for policies and programs design: (i) “social innovation, design education, and design thinking” and (ii) “education, design, and design process”. Both fields point to the dominance of multidisciplinary approaches and design as a central vehicle to creativity, risk-taking, and innovation diffusion.Campus Lima Centr

The role of CCI in supporting children’s engagement with environmental sustainability at a time of climate crisis

Today’s children will live life navigating the impacts of climate change triggering new questions about their environmental education and how we can prepare them to take active roles that shape our ecological futures. The aim of our paper is to reflect on the role that the Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) community can play to this end. We do this by analysing thirteen years of HCI research concerned with the application of children’s digital technology to environmental sustainability (ES). Content analysis of the 25 papers identified shows that climate change is not a motor theme, with half of the papers using ES as an application area that drives other aims. Our analysis contributes a novel research agenda proposing to expand the domains, theories and user groups researchers have thus far focused on. Examining the distinctive design properties of previous research, we advance new insights into the role technology can play for children’s ES

A bibliometric study of human–computer interaction research activity in the Nordic-Baltic Eight countries

Human–computer interaction (HCI) has become an important area for designers and developers worldwide, and research activities set in national cultural contexts addressing local challenges are often needed in industry and academia. This study explored HCI research in the Nordic-Baltic countries using bibliometric methods. The results show that the activity varies greatly across the region with activities dominated by Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, even when adjusting for differences in population size and GDP. Research output variations were larger for the top-tier conferences compared to entry-tier conferences and journals. Locally hosted conferences were associated with local increases in research activity. HCI research longevity appears to be an indicator of research maturity and quantity. HCI researchers typically collaborated either with colleagues within the same institution or with researchers from countries outside the Nordic-Baltic region such as US and the UK. There was less collaboration between national and Nordic-Baltic partners. Collaboration appeared especially prevalent for top-tier conference papers. Top-tier conference papers were also more frequently cited than regional-tier and entry-tier conferences, yet journal articles were cited the most. One implication of this study is that the HCI research activity gaps across the Nordic-Baltic countries should be narrowed by increasing the activity in countries with low research outputs. To achieve this, first-time authors could receive guidance through collaborations with experienced authors in the same institution or other labs around the world. More conferences could also be hosted locally. Furthermore, journals may be more effective than conferences if the goal is to accumulate citations.publishedVersio

Uma análise bibliométrica do sociometabolismo (1991-2020)

O trabalho tem a finalidade de compreender o potencial bibliográfico em torno da pesquisa sociometabólica por meio da construção de um portifólio bibliométrico. O levantamento contou com cinco palavras chaves, resultando em 890 produções científicas publicadas entre 1991-2020, disponíveis no banco de dados Web Of Science (WOS). Usando os softwares VOSviewer e Biblioshiny, foram mapeados os dez principais autores, artigos e países; além de cocitações e coocorrência de palavras. Os resultados indicam uma relevante rede de pesquisa em torno do sociometabolismo na Europa, a expansão da China como tema-chave e uma carência de artigos em inglês vindos da América Latina, o que representa um potencial fronteira de expansão. Os periódicos Journal of Cleaner Production (maior índice G) and Ecological Economics (maior índice H) são os veículos mais relevantes para a publicação da pesquisa sociometabólica. Muito embora os temas sejam conceitualmente interligados, advoga-se por uma maior aproximação de colaboração de pesquisa entre economistas ecológicos e pesquisadores do sociometabolismo.El trabajo tiene como objetivo comprender el potencial bibliográfico en torno a la investigación sociometabólica a través de la construcción de un portafolio bibliométrico. La encuesta contó con cinco palabras clave, resultando en 890 producciones científicas publicadas entre 1991-2020, disponibles en la base de datos Web Of Science (WOS). Usando el software VOSviewer y Biblioshiny, se mapearon los diez principales autores, artículos y países; además de co-citas y co-ocurrencia de palabras. Los resultados indican una red de investigación relevante en torno al sociometabolismo en Europa, la expansión de China como tema clave y la falta de artículos en inglés de América Latina, lo que representa una potencial frontera de expansión. El Journal of Cleaner Production (índice G más alto) y Ecological Economics (índice H más alto) son los vehículos más relevantes para la publicación de investigaciones sociometabólicas. Aunque los temas están interconectados conceptualmente, se aboga por una aproximación más estrecha de la colaboración en investigación entre economistas ecológicos e investigadores del sociometabolismo.This paper is aimed at understanding the bibliographic potential around sociometabolic research, through constructing a bibliometric portfolio. The survey had five keywords, resulting in 890 scientific productions published between 1991-2020, available in the Web Of Science (WOS) database. Using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny softwares, the top ten authors, articles, and countries were mapped besides the co-citations and co-occurrence of words. The results indicate a relevant research network around sociometabolism based in Europe, the expansion of studies related to China, as well as the shortage of paper in English coming from Latin America, which represents a potential expansion frontier. Although these themes are conceptually interconnected, it is advocated for a closer approximation of research collaboration between ecological economists and sociometabolism research

Evaluating Digital Creativity Support for Children: A Systematic Literature Review

Creativity, the process of creating something new and valuable, benefits children by improving their skills and development, encouraging interaction and engagement, and enabling the generation and expression of novel ideas. In recent years, interactive digital tools have emerged to support the user’s creativity in the open-ended creation of new artifacts. However, the question of evaluating the creativity happening in the interplay between children, digital tools, and products is still open. This systematic literature review investigated the evaluations of digital creativity support tools for children and identified 81 peer-reviewed relevant articles from the last 10 years. This research contributes to practitioners and researchers by providing an overview of the evaluations in a framework based on 10 factors (value, novelty, fluency, enjoyment, user feeling, collaboration, expressiveness, immersion, flexibility, and interaction), nine product areas, three approaches, and five methods. The review demonstrated that the evaluations differ widely, and the area lacks a standard evaluation framework. We propose the dimensions of our analysis as an initial framework for situating the evaluation of digital creativity support tools for children that the child–computer interaction community can further refine