Aylin Ilhan

Informational Urbanism. A Conceptual Framework of Smart Cities

Contemporary and future cities are often labeled as “smart cities,” “digital cities” or “ubiquitous cities,” “knowledge cities,” and “creative cities.” Informational urbanism includes all aspects of information and (tacit as well as explicit) knowledge with regard to urban regions. “Informational city” (or “smart city” in a broader sense) is an umbrella term uniting the divergent trends of informationrelated city research. Informational urbanism is an interdisciplinary endeavor incorporating on the one side computer science and information science as well as on the other side urban studies, city planning, architecture, city economics, and city sociology. In this article, we present both, a conceptual framework for research on smart cities as well as results from our empirical studies on smart cities all over the world. The framework consists of seven building blocks, namely information and knowledge related infrastructures, economy, politics (e-governance) and administration (e-government), spaces (spaces of flows and spaces of places), location factors, the people’s information behavior, and problem areas.

Motivations to Join Fitness Communities on Facebook: Which Gratifications Are Sought and Obtained?

Activity trackers are providing their users data on health and fitness. They measure, for instance, heart rates, record exercises and sleeping quality, and display burned calories. On Facebook, there are many activity tracker- and fitness-related groups. Why are users of activity trackers joining and consequently using such groups? In order to answer this basic question two theoretical approaches are adapted. Firstly, the Uses and Gratifications Theory (U>) identified gratifications, which are sought and obtained – in our case within those Facebook groups. Secondly, the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is used to understand if the activities of users are caused by extrinsic or intrinsic motivations. For the purpose of this study an online survey was developed and distributed in 20 activity tracker- or fitness-related Facebook groups. All in all, data from 445 participants, who all are group members and are using an activity tracker, were evaluated.

Inter-country Differences in Breaking News Coverage via Microblogging: Reporting on Terrorist Attacks in Europe from the USA, Germany and UK

The micro-blogging service Twitter proved to be a suitable social media platform for (breaking) news dissemination and commentary. Its immediate penetration and strong ability to spread such news was already investigated by several researchers. Breaking news themselves play an important role in the “24-hour news culture” we live in today. In less than two years several terrorist attacks stroke Europe. Twitter was one of the live reporting tools that kept people from all over the world in the loop on the attacks as well as on the proceeding investigations. Did news agencies from three different countries report in a similar manner on all these attacks? Did their follower disseminate the breaking news through re-tweets on the same scale? Are tweets on terrorist attacks more likely to be retweeted?

Breaking News Commentary: Users’ Reactions to Terrorist Attacks in English-Speaking Twittersphere

The micro-blogging platform Twitter is increasingly applied for breaking news dissemination and commentary. The users become so-called citizen journalists, as in some cases they are the first ones to report on breaking events. This paper investigates the tweeting behavior of Twitter users in view of three terrorists’ attacks that stroke Europe in 2015 and 2016, the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, in Paris in November 2015, and in Brussels in March 2016. These attacks were triggering events for a wave of tweets showing support (#PrayForParis, #PrayForBelgium), solidarity (#JeSuisCharlie, #JeSuisBruxelles) or promotion of values like freedom of speech and press (#FreedomofSpeech). This study sheds light on the basic information behavior of English-speaking Twitter users participating in the information exchange on these three events.

Do Car Drivers Really Need Mobile Parking Payment

apparkB is a mobile parking payment application, which has been developed and implemented in the city of Barcelona, Spain. We empirically analyzed the awareness of Barcelona’s citizens of this service, the users’ satisfaction with it and their need to use it. Mobile applications are important services in smart cities, as they support citizens’ daily tasks. To critically evaluate apparkB we deployed the information service evaluation (ISE) model. In order to get data on apparkB we applied an online survey, conducted interviews with Barcelona’s smart city authorities, and performed rapid ethnographical field research in April 2016. Only a minority of Barcelona’s citizens use this service, as they do not know it or do not use a car in the city. However, those who really use it articulate a need and are satisfied with apparkB.

Informationswissenschaft in der Urbanistik

Zusammenfassung Zeitgenössische und zukünftige Städte der Wissensgesellschaft werden oft als „smarte Städte“, „digitale Städte“ oder „ubiquitäre Städte“, „Wissensstädte“ und „kreative Städte“ bezeichnet. Die informationelle Urbanistik umfasst alle Aspekte von Information und (implizitem wie explizitem) Wissen in Hinblick auf städtische Regionen. „Informationelle Stadt“ (oder „smarte Stadt“ im weiteren Sinne) ist ein Sammelbegriff, der die unterschiedlichen Trends der informationsbezogenen Stadtforschung vereint. Die informationelle Stadtforschung ist ein interdisziplinäres Unternehmen, das einerseits Informatik und Informationswissenschaft sowie andererseits Stadtforschung, Stadtplanung, Architektur, Stadtökonomie und Stadtsoziologie vereint. In diesem Artikel präsentieren wir einen konzeptionellen Rahmen für die Forschung zu informationellen Städten. Dieses Framework besteht aus sieben Bausteinen, nämlich Informations- und Wissensinfrastrukturen, Wirtschaft, Politik (eGovernance) und Verwaltung (eGovernment), Räume (Räume der Ströme und Räume der Plätze), Standortfaktoren, das Informationsverhalten der Menschen und die Problembereiche.

Case studies on open innovation in libraries: Case Studies on Open Innovation in Libraries

Open innovation (sometimes also called design thinking, user participation or co‐creation) means the participation of an institutions stakeholders (customers, suppliers, competitors, etc.) in its innovation processes. Concerning libraries, open innovation integrates the views of users (as customers), software houses or design companies (as suppliers) as well as other libraries (as competitors) into the development strategy of a library. Innovation processes include information inflows (application of external knowledge in the innovating library) and information outflows (dissemination of internal knowledge for reuse in other institutions). Innovations happen on a large scale (for instance, planning new library buildings) as well as on a small scale (e.g., modifying an existing library service). The poster will present the open innovation framework, methods used, results of a questionnaire and will introduce paradigmatic case studies of open innovation in libraries. In addition, we will use the poster to invite conference attendees to share their own experiences and opinions.

Citizens’ Acceptance of U-Life Services in the Ubiquitous City Songdo

As prototypical cities of the twenty-first century, “smart” and “ubiquitous” cities (u-cities) are planned and constructed all over the world. A paradigmatic example of a u-city built from scratch is Songdo in South Korea. U-cities are concerned with the application of the Internet of Things (IoT) in all spaces of the city—including households (with u-life services integrated in the apartments). A crucial aspect of newly built u-cities is the urbanity as it is perceived by the citizens. Our two leading research questions are as follows: Do Songdo’s citizens really accept the u-life services as parts of their households (as the centers of their private lives)? Do Songdo’s inhabitants recognize this new city as “urban?” The making of Songdo is highly dependent on political decisions and on the activities of the construction and the ICT companies, but not on the people living in Songdo. How is it possible to integrate the people, i.e., the actual and future inhabitants, into planning activities of further development of the u-city? We argue that participatory urbanism is in need of survey tools to collect the citizens’ opinions.