2011 DTMD: What is information?

The Difference That Makes a Difference 2011 was held at The Open University in Milton Keynes 7-9 September 2011. There were 25 presentations, including 7 keynote talks, by speakers from a wide range of disciplines, and with around 45 participants from 10 different countries.

It was co-chaired by David Chapman and Magnus Ramage, along with a programme committee of four other academics from across The Open University.

The theme of the workshop was to examine information as a distinct concept, prominent in a range of fields, but different in each of them, and to expose participants from different disciplines to each others' concepts of information. The workshop consisted of five sessions:

• What is information?

• Understanding with information

• Engaging with information

• The impact of information

• Synthesis

There are a number of ways to view the outcomes of the conference:

• The full programme and proceedings (including abstracts, presentation and podcast for each speaker).

• The full abstracts booklet as a PDF.

• A special issue of the journal TripleC, including extended and revised versions of some papers.

And there are photographs of the conference.

The workshop was financially supported by the Communication & Systems Department (Faculty of Maths, Computing and Technology) at The Open University, and by the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change.