[Air-L] How's My Feedback? - One-day Conference at Oxford, 28 June 2011

[Malte Ziewitz]

*How's My Feedback? - The Technology and Politics of Evaluation*

A one-day international conference at Saïd Business School, supported by an
ESRC Knowledge Exchange Small Grant and the Institute for Science,
Innovation and Society.

Tuesday, 28 June 2011, 9.00 - 17.30
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/insis/events/Pages/howsmyfeedback.aspx


*About the conference:*

There is hardly anything these days that is not being evaluated on the web.
Books, dishwashers, lawyers, teachers, health services, ex-boyfriends,
haircuts, prostitutes and websites are just some examples targeted by novel
review, rating and ranking schemes. Used in an increasing number of areas,
these schemes facilitate public assessment by soliciting and aggregating
feedback and distributing it as comments, ranks, scales and stories. While
some have greeted this development as an innovative way of fostering
transparency, accountability and public engagement, others have criticized
the forced exposure and alleged lack of accuracy and legitimacy, pointing to
the potentially devastating consequences of negative evaluations.

Now research is under way to tackle these issues head-on and evaluate the
various types of review, rating and ranking schemes in a collaborative
design experiment. Under the title ‘How’s my feedback?’, a group of experts,
including designers, managers, reviewers, policy-makers, consumer
spokespeople, academics and users have explored the idea of a website that
allows users to publicly assess their experience with review and rating
schemes – a feedback website for feedback websites.

The goal of the conference is to reflect on this process and the emerging
prototype. How are we to judge the effectiveness of these schemes? What
modes of governance are implicated in their operation? What counts as a
'good' scheme, what as a 'bad' one? What strategies and methodologies are
employed in their development, maintenance and use? How successful is this
project as a design intervention? What is it to evaluate the evaluators –
and will this business ever end?

*Speakers include:*

Malcolm Ashmore, Loughborough University
Andrew Balmer, University of Sheffield
Stefan Schwarzkopf, Copenhagen Business School
Ian Stronach, Liverpool John Moores University
Alex Wilkie, Goldsmiths, University of London
Steve Woolgar, University of Oxford

*Organisers:*

Malte Ziewitz and Steve Woolgar, University of Oxford, in cooperation with
James Munro, Patient Opinion

*Registration:*

The event is free of charge, but registration is required. Places are
limited, so please sign up early:
http://legacy.sbs.ox.ac.uk/html/sbs_event_register.asp?eventID=182

Project website: www.howsmyfeedback.org
Twitter: twitter.com/howsmyfeedback
How to find us: goo.gl/maps/hLW8

For more information, please visit
http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/insis/events/Pages/howsmyfeedback.aspx
or contact malte.ziewitz at sbs.ox.ac.uk.