Ellen van Oost - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Ellen van Oost

Around the world there is a flourishing of innovative workshop spaces that allow people to access... more Around the world there is a flourishing of innovative workshop spaces that allow people to access tools freely and make things in collaborative projects. FabLabs, Hackerspaces and Makerspaces are all examples. A World Café event held in Copenhagen discussed possibilities for creativity, inclusion and sustainability in FabLabs, Hackerspaces and Makerspaces RESEARCHBRIEFING 23 May 2014 Adrian Smith and Sabine Hielscher (SPRU), Sascha Dickel (Technical University Munich), Ellen van Oost (University of Twente), Johan Søderberg (IFRIS) Makerspaces allow people to experiment with grassroots digital fabrication

Existing and new information and communication technologies form the backbone of an emerging new ... more Existing and new information and communication technologies form the backbone of an emerging new type of society: the Information Society. The European IST (Information Society Technologies) programme aims to "increase innovation and competitiveness in European businesses and industry and to contribute to greater benefits for all European citizens". 1 Emphasizing all citizens, the possible poor inclusion of certain groups of people is a relevant issue within the context of this programme. Knowledge of and access to these technologies are crucial for one's inclusion and chances in the Information Society. Discussions and statistics on the so-called Digital Divide, illustrate that ICT can widen social inequalities or even construct new types of inequalities. 2 Gender is-next to age, social class and ethnicity-one of the most discussed and researched dimensions of digital inequality. Clearly, in recent years the girls and women have caught up on computer and Internet use, although significant differences remain in the time spent on, and in the type of use of ICT. On the other hand statistics show a very persistent gender gap with respect to educational and professional ICT-careers. At the start of the 21sth century, women still are relatively absent from computer science and the design of ICT products. But the underrepresentation of women in ICT use and design clearly is not only a social issue. This theme is also economically and commercially of eminent relevance. Female consumers are an interesting and growing target group for commercial ICT products. Awareness of diversity of users when designing new technologies for the Information Society is an important prerequisite for high quality products that fit the needs of different types of consumers. And last but not least, it is ultimately relevant for companies to stimulate women to dedicate their talent and skills to the development of high quality ICT products. These considerations have led the committee of the European Commission IST programme to decide to fund an international project, the SIGIS project. SIGIS was directed at the study and analysis of public and commercial initiatives to include diverse groups of women in the design and use of ICTs. This report is one of the products of this project. It is directed at commercial and private organizations and aims to provide knowledge and tools to help designers and relevant practitioner communities improve their efforts to attract more women and girls to the use and design of Information Society technologies.

Tijdschrift voor genderstudies, Mar 1, 2011

The notion of inverse infrastructures – that is, bottom-up, user-driven, self-organizing networks... more The notion of inverse infrastructures – that is, bottom-up, user-driven, self-organizing networks – gives us a fresh perspective on the omnipresent infrastructure systems that support our economy and structure our way of living. This fascinating book considers the emergence of inverse infrastructures as a new phenomenon that will have a vast impact on consumers, industry and policy. Using a wide range of theories, from institutional economics to complex adaptive systems, it explores the mechanisms and incentives for the rise of these alternatives to large-scale infrastructures and points to their potential disruptive effect on conventional markets and governance models.

Amsterdam University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2005

In this chapter, we shall present our study of the design process of a videocommunication system ... more In this chapter, we shall present our study of the design process of a videocommunication system that enables parents of premature babies to visit, in a  Diversity and Distributed Agency

Technology and Culture, 2002

DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of t... more DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal. If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the "Taverne" license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement:

Springer eBooks, 2000

The new field of computer occupations has acquired a masculine character in a very short time, ev... more The new field of computer occupations has acquired a masculine character in a very short time, even in a period in which women's participation in the labour market increased significantly. In this article, I want to show how the computer on symbolic level became inextricably bound up with prevailing masculine values as early as the '50s and '60s. The empirical material is based on an analysis of newspaper articles on computers from this period. I will argue that the brain metaphor played an important role in transferring masculine values to the computer and to the computer worker. At the end, I will discuss other meanings that could have led to a less masculine image, but I suggest these meanings were less powerful than the brain metaphor.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Nov 18, 2010

In this third chapter on the broader perspectives of the Wi-Fi innovation journey, the role of th... more In this third chapter on the broader perspectives of the Wi-Fi innovation journey, the role of the user in community-based innovation is studied in detail. The domain of information and communication technologies has become one in which the boundaries between producers and users have become increasingly fuzzy. The availability of free and open source software is a clear example of how communities of computer users develop many varieties of software. In a similar vein, many popular web services build on the efforts of – often experienced and skilful – users. Examples include the many blogs, podcasts and videocasts; customer-written product reviews on Amazon; and the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia. Time magazine even put ‘You’ (the internet user) on its cover as Person of the Year 2006. At the physical layer of telecommunication infrastructures, however, user-initiated products and innovations are quite rare. This level is dominated by commercial telecom and cable operators, which finance, produce, install, maintain and innovate the expensive and often large-scale ICT infrastructures. Free access to radio frequency spectrum, originally intended for indoor use with Wi-Fi as a successful implementation of wireless local area networking, has inspired users to develop local wireless infrastructures themselves, however, challenging this organisational dominance.

The New Production of Users, 2016

Energy Storage technologies are going through great deal of public discourse, networking and expe... more Energy Storage technologies are going through great deal of public discourse, networking and experimentation. The decreasing cost of energy storage and increasing demand for local flexibility is opening up new possibilities for energy storage technologies deployment in community energy systems. In this context, community energy storage can help to better integrate the heat and electricity system at the local level and can positively contribute towards energy transitions while accommodating the needs and expectations of citizens and local communities. Yet, there are technological, societal and systemic challenges of integrating energy storage technologies in the largely centralized present energy system which demands for socio-technical innovation. This article aims to align technical, demand, regulatory and political articulation of new energy storage technologies with potential of application in community level such as DrTen and ECOVAT . In this regard, a number of tools has been a...

Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies, Mar 1, 2011

No Brasil, pesquisas realizadas nas ultimas decadas vem demonstrando o aumento do excesso de peso... more No Brasil, pesquisas realizadas nas ultimas decadas vem demonstrando o aumento do excesso de peso no grupo infanto-juvenil. Esse perfil impoe a adocao de iniciativas de promocao da saude no ambiente escolar por intermedio de acoes multifocais e intersetoriais. Nesta direcao, o objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar o efeito de um programa de intervencao no sobrepeso de escolares de uma instituicao publica de ensino do Estado de Minas Gerais. Para tal foram selecionadas 44 criancas em idade escolar. As criancas com excesso de peso foram selecionadas a partir do parâmetro do IMC proposto pelo Ministerio da Saude no Brasil. A intervencao foi realizada na propria escola no periodo de oito semanas e envolveu: oficinas de educacao alimentar e nutricional (EAN). Os resultados revelam que a intervencao foi bem-sucedida com o aumento do consumo de alimentos mais nutritivos tais como as frutas. E ainda, a diminuicao de alguns ultras processados, tais como: sucos artificiais, refrigerantes e bolos ...

ICT is een belangrijk instrument voor de realisering van maatschappelijke doelstellingen. Ze maak... more ICT is een belangrijk instrument voor de realisering van maatschappelijke doelstellingen. Ze maakt het mogelijk kleinschalige dienstverlening te organiseren binnen een grootschalige ondersteuningsstructuur. Zelfsturing van die kleinschalige dienstverleningsorganisatie is mogelijk binnen strakke kaders die centraal geformuleerd worden. Daarnaast is ICT van belang voor de verdere ontwikkeling van de netwerksamenleving. Netwerken ontwikkelen zich rond gemeenschappelijke belangen of interesses. Die gezamenlijke netwerken vormen een lappendeken van relaties, zijn verbindende schakels tussen mensen en bepalen zodoende de samenhang in de samenleving.

New ways of doing research: from explorative to transformative scenarios