Computational Visualistics, Media Informatics, and Virtual Communities

In recent years there has been a rising awareness within the international scientific commu nity that there is a need to study the various aspects of the integration of images and new me dia both from the point of view of computer science as well as from other areas which deal with users' interface to information sources, in particular design, psychology, education, po litical science, sociology, and philosophy. To a certain extent the view of the topic from any single one of these disciplines leads to a one-sided analysis. Indeed, interdisciplinary approaches involving two or more of them ap plied to selected research problems have emerged. Examples of scientific conferences which embody such approaches are CHI and the German "Mensch und Computer" Conferences, where in particular the collaboration between disciplines is furthered. Truly interdisciplinary research involving pairs of disciplines, or even triplets or quadruples of these areas, are still few and far between.

The study of images and new media from a technical point of view is a subject for computer science, which needs to be complemented with that of other disciplines reflecting on and producing media and images, in particular design, psychology, education, political science, sociology, and philosophy. Interdisciplinary approaches involving two or more areas applied to selected research problems are therefore more and more common.A number of research universities world wide have installed degree programs in which experts from the different areas lead the next generation of scientists toward interdisciplinary research. Such degree programs place a large burden on their students, as they are to integrate in their minds the teaching of various different subjects - often with the goal of achieving a deeper understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of the subjects than their professors from any one of the contributing subjects might have.In April, 2003 representatives of a group of mostly German research universities offering degree programs in the areas of Computational Visualistics and Media Informatics met for the first time in Magdeburg, Germany. Their goal is to collaborate in research and research-oriented teaching through the exchange of ideas, information and experience. This volume collects information on their views of their own degree and research programs as a starting point for discussions. First examples of interdisciplinary research being carried out in the area are also included.

Digital Media Studies Medieninformatik: Facts, Questions, and Comments.- Media Informatics at the Technical University of Dresden.- Media Informatics at the University of Munich.- New Degree Programmes at Augsburg University: Bachelor's/Masters for "Informatics and Multimedia".- Virtual Communities: Cooperation and Awareness Support.- Virtual Institutes: Between Immersion and Communication.- Computational Visualistics at the Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg.- Virtual Communities: Trust, Identity, Participation, and Technology.- Towards an Understanding of the Psychology of Non-Photorealistic Rendering.- Dynamic Visualisation for Feedback-driven Online Aggregation.- The Representation of Shape for Retrieval of Pictures by Semantic Means.- Specialisation in Media Technology at the University of Rostock.- An examination of the use of Web-based Resources in an on-site M.Sc. Course in Multimedia Technology.- Development of a Master's of Science Degree within Multimedia Management.- Media Informatics at the University of Ulm.- Contributors with Papers.- Contributors without Papers.