GOAL  OF THE WORKSHOP

Conceptual advances have always been the driving force behind progress. This in turns relies on creativity and the ability to continue the production of new insights and novel ideas. For example, in science we can see many accounts of breakthroughs that dramatically affected our lives:

• Medical discoveries such as Fleming's Penicillin and Salk's Polio vaccine;
• Chemical discoveries such as Mendeleev's formulation of the Periodic Table of Elements;
• Cosmological discoveries such as Newton's formulation of the General Law of Gravitation, and Einstein's Law of Relativity.

The Workshop aims at the development of new areas where digital information and communication technologies were already having an increasing impact, for example, leisure, arts, education and social interactions. It covers a very wide cross-disciplinary range of subjects from novel programming paradigms to investigations into the nature of creativity. Subjects include, but not limited to, the arts, music, film and games, with a special emphasis on appropriate computer technologies to support and enhance their creativity.

THEME AND SCOPE OF THE WORKSHOP

Understanding and analysing creativity and the creative processes is hard and has been for a long time a major concern of many scholars across the spectrum, from the arts and literature to the sciences and engineering. Identification, cultural and evaluation are just a few of the challenges that characterise creativity and its processes.

The identification of creativity has been most commonly through its products. For example, in architecture, music, writing, fine art, puzzle solving and scientific discovery, the presence of a creative product(s) is a fundamental prerequisite for considering creativity.

Anecdotal descriptions have been also used to identify processes that are considered creative. Many discoveries (specially in the sciences) were linked to a sudden realisation or unexplained divine intervention associated with what is known as the AHA! response For example, Newton's falling apple, Archimedes' "Eureka" moment in a bath or Mendeleev's dream are well known examples of the AHA! factor. Outside of the creative product itself and the AHA! response, the kinds of concrete evidence that point to the process of creativity are indeed very few.

Both novelty and value have often been attributed to creativity. These attributes are very hard to evaluate. Two products/artifacts, for example, can be compared only if they have been intended for the same, or similar, purposes and had been created within appropriate context (including cultural context). One can easily and randomly put together a set of not previously seen shapes, words, tones, colours or chemicals and produce a product/artifact. Just because they are new, or have not been seen before, it does not make them valuable pieces of art, architecture, music, or synthetic compounds. The value of the creative product is measured by the society that receives the product.

Over the past century or so, there have been many models for creativity. Some dismiss the notion that creativity can be described as a sequence of steps in a model. But while such views are strongly held, they are in the minority.
In business, where models are used for quality improvement, strategic planning, re-engineering, and so on, are well-positioned to deal with this apparent controversy. Whilst models may appear to be useful and helpful in guiding our efforts, they should not be used too rigidly for that is perceived, by some, to constrain creativity. On the other hand, even if we deviate substantially from a model in a given situation, this does not render the model useless. It is also important to understand that we should not be too rigid about when one step of a model ends and the next begins.

Given the importance of creativity and creative thinking, this workshop addresses the important role of computer technology in assisting creators and enhancing their creative processes. Because creativity, at its core, is both subjective and domain-oriented render the engineering of supporting and supportive technologies rather challenging. One of the major outcomes of the workshop is to address all inter- and multi-disciplinary issues in the engineering of creative technologies. In doing so, we hope to shed some light on important questions. In particular, is it possible

• to map Human Creativity, in a way similar to that of, for example, the Human Genome?
• for the creative processes, behind a given discovery and within a given discipline, to rely on mechanisms that are similar across disciplines as diverse as art and science?
• to create optimal conditions in an (research) organisation with the aim of enhancing the creativity of its staff? and
• to discover the effect of cooperation/collaboration on creativity

TOPICS

PARTICIPANTS

Researchers, practitioners, and professionals working in the field.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

IMPORTANT DATES

March 30, 2009 (Extended)

Workshop paper submission due

April 10, 2009

Decision notification (electronic)

April 30, 2009

All final manuscript and author pre-registration due

SUBMISSION

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS

Hussein Zedan

Software Technology Research Laboratory (STRL),

De Montfort University,

Leicester, UK

Email: hzedan@dmu.ac.uk

Keno Buss

Software Technology Research Laboratory (STRL),

De Montfort University,

Leicester, UK

Email: kenobuss@dmu.ac.uk

Sascha Westendorf

Software Technology Research Laboratory (STRL),

De Montfort University,

Leicester, UK

Email: swest@dmu.ac.uk

GENERAL INQUIRIES

For QUORS’09, please contact the Workshop Organizers.
For COMPSAC’09, please visit http://conferences.computer.org/compsac/2009/