WebSci '22

14th ACM Web Science Conference 2022 (WebSci'22)

27-30 June, 2022

Hybrid conference: Barcelona, Spain, and online (co-located with Hypertext 2022)

Deadline for paper submissions: Feb 10, 2022

https://websci22.webscience.org/

We invite you to submit your contributions to our articles for the 14th ACM Web Science Conference on 26 - 29 June 2022 (WebSci'22, Hybrid Conference: in Barcelona, Spain, and online).

The 14th International ACM Conference Web Science in 2022 (WebSci’22) is an interdisciplinary conference where a multitude of research disciplines converge with the purpose of creating greater insight into a complex global Web than the sum of their individual parts. We invite participation from diverse fields including computer and information sciences, communication, economics, informatics, law, linguistics, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology.

Contributions may be analytical, conceptual, creative, critical, predictive, theoretical (or all of the above) and should aim, wherever possible, to cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. The conference provides a platform to a range of practitioners from Ph.D. students to experienced researchers and ideas ranging from early work through projects as well as final analysis and completed publishable work. We look to evaluate and value the impact of the Web Science approach, its current theoretical, methodological, and epistemological challenges as well as Web practices of individuals, collectives, institutions, and platforms.

The ACM Web Science Conference 2022 will run as a hybrid conference, where authors will present their work either in-person or remotely to participants gathering at the conference venue in Barcelona, or online. The conference will be co-located with ACM HyperText, which is scheduled for June 29th to July 3rd, 2022 - https://ht.acm.org/ht2022/.

THE OLD VS. THE NEW NORMAL

Web-based technologies have proven to be playing a vital role in enabling us to cope with the global pandemic. Having experienced two years of “crisis,” many new norms have been forming, both socially and technologically. While some people long to return to how things were before the pandemic, others are questioning whether that is a state worth returning to. The main theme of this year’s conference, therefore, is the old vs. the new normal. Even though the conference accepts a wide range of topics (see below), papers discussing this overall issue would be particularly welcomed.

Web Science is an interdisciplinary field dedicated to understanding the complex and multiple impacts of the Web on society, and vice versa. As such, the field of Web Science is particularly well situated to address pressing issues of our time.

Methodologically, Web Science is a discipline that is agnostic to specific methods. We welcome quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research, including methods from the social sciences and computer science. In addition, we welcome work that explores the ethics of Web-based data collection and research and those which have a broader perspective on the Web and that combine analyses of Web data and other types of data (e.g., from surveys or interviews) to better understand user behaviour (i.e., online and offline).

Building on our theme for 2022, we especially welcome contributions on:

* Successful cases of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary Web research

* Trends in globalisation, fragmentation, rejoining, and Balkanisation of the Web

* Automation and AI in all its manifestations relevant to the Web

* Interrogate questions of discrimination, representation and fairness

* Bring lenses such as intersectionality or design justice to questions of marginalisation and inequality

* Ethical challenges of technologies, data, algorithms, platforms, and people in the Web

* Modeling Web-related structures, data, users and behaviours

* Impact of AI and machine learning on the development of Web Science

* Detecting, preventing and predicting anomalies in Web data (e.g., fake content, spam, algorithmic and data biases)

* Data curation, Web archives and stewardship in Web Science

* Safeguarding and governance of the Web, including anonymity, security and trust

* Temporal and spatial dimensions of the Web as a repository of information

* The architecture and philosophy of the Web

* Social machines, crowd computing and collective intelligence

* Analysis and modeling of human vs. automatic behaviour (e.g., bots) and their influence on the structure of the Web and responding behaviour

* Critical analyses of the Web and Web technologies

* Web economics, social entrepreneurship, and innovation

* Analysis of online social and information networks

* Legal issues including rights and accountability for AI actors

* Humanities, arts, and culture on the Web

* Inclusion, literacy and the digital divide

* Politics and social activism on the Web

* Online education and remote learning

* Health and well-being online

IMPORTANT DATES

Thu, February 10, 2022 Paper submission deadline

Thu, March 31, 2022 Notification

Thu, May 12, 2022 Camera-ready versions due

Sun-Wed, June 26-29 Conference dates

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE CHAIRS

Oshani Seneviratne (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Ingmar Weber (Qatar Computing Research Institute)

Taha Yasseri (University College Dublin)