Re: Newsletter & Call for Papers WebSci'18

Sarven, I definitely envy the amount of free time that you have.

On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 3:35 PM, Sarven Capadisli <info@csarven.ca> wrote:

> re "newsletter", a quote from my in-progress PhD thesis:
>
> “The past went that-a-way. When faced with a totally new situation we
> tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the
> most recent past. We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We
> march backward into the future. Suburbia lives imaginatively in
> Bonanza-land” – Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage: An
> Inventory of Effects, p74-75, 1967
>
> http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/634760105
>
> I offer a brief reflection on spotting archaic practices:
>
> On 2018-02-17 13:04, Steffen Staab wrote:
> > Web Science is the premier interdisciplinary conference on understanding
> > the World Wide Web in all its facets - technological, social, cultural,
> > political. WebSci'18 is held 27-30 May 2018 at VU Amsterdam, The
> > Netherlands. Below are highlights of the program and call for papers.
>
> re "papers", what are the "effects" of this sort of mentality on the
> community?
>
> > ********************************
> > Tim Berner's-Lee: Turing Lecture
> > ********************************
>
> s/'//
>
> > ******************************************************************
> > PAPERS FOR THE MAIN CONFERENCE DUE FEBRUARY 25, 2018, Midnight UTC
> > ******************************************************************
>
> papers, papers, come get your papers in the electric age! Is it merely
> the lack of technology or know-how to use the "new" medium to its full
> potential, or are we simply attaching ourself to the past because some
> chose to speak for all?
>
> > The 10th International ACM Conference on Web Science in 2018 (WebSci�18)
> > is a unique conference where a multitude of disciplines converge in a
> > creative and critical dialogue with the aim of understanding the Web and
> > its impacts.
>
> The "impact", ie. the *effects* of the "paper" in practice is crystal
> clear. I argue that we haven't actually studied the *effects*, but the
> anecdotal evidence is clear. While the *content* of these Web
> conferences are about the Web (and no doubt that it has value to
> humanity), the message is delivered in is something no less than an
> enhanced version of a physical paper; better ink via faster horses. It
> has been more or less that way since the Web was conceived. That has set
> the tune on the rest of the workflow, anything from discovery, reuse,
> funding, policies, to our rights.
>
> > WebSci�18 welcomes participation from diverse fields
> > including (but not limited to) art, anthropology, computer and
> > information sciences, communication, economics, humanities, informatics,
> > law, linguistics, philosophy, political science, psychology, and
> > sociology. We particularly welcome contributions that seek to cross
> > traditional disciplinary boundaries. We are seeking papers that describe
> > original research, analysis, and practice in the field of Web Science,
> > as well as work that discusses novel and thought-provoking ideas and
> > important research-in-progress.
>
> The content is a by-product given the framework it has set itself. The
> *effects* of the requirement to participate *is* part of this
> conference's "impact".
>
> What is the impact of this conference on the Web and our society?
>
> Is it self-aware?
>
> > Possible topics for submissions include (but are not limited to) the
> > following:
> > Current theoretical, methodological, and epistemological challenges of
> > Web Science:
> > * Ethical challenges of technologies, data, algorithms, platforms, and
> > people in the Web
> > * Interdisciplinarity in Web Science
> > * Modeling Web-related structures, data, users and behaviours
> > * Impact of big data on the development of Web Science
> > * Web Science approaches to data science, data analytics, and the Web of
> > data
> > * Detecting, preventing and predicting anomalies in Web data
> > * Data curation and stewardship in Web Science
> > * Sharing Web research data, Web archiving, and scholarly uses of Web
> > archives
> > * The psychological, sociological, legal and technological aspects
> > related to the temporal and spatial dimensions of the web as a
> > repository of information
> >
> > Web practices of individuals, collectives, institutions, and platforms:
> > * The architecture and philosophy of the Web
> > * Social machines, crowd computing, collective intelligence, and
> > collaborative production
> > * Health and well-being online
> > * Humanities, arts, and culture on the Web
> > * Web Science and the Internet of Things
> > * Web economics, social entrepreneurship, and innovation
> > * Analysis of online social and information networks, social media
> analyses
> > * Governance, democracy, access, intellectual property:
> > * Personal data and privacy
> > * Anonymity, security and trust for Web access
> > * Web access, literacy, divides, and development
> > * Knowledge, education, and scholarship on and through the Web
>
> This is all fascinating.
>
> > Submission
> > **********
> > WebSci18 is a selective conference with a rigorous review process.
> > Reviewing will be single-blind (authors are identified on submissions;
> > reviewers are anonymized). To accommodate the distinct traditions of Web
> > Science�s many disciplines, we allow for two different paper submission
> > formats: full papers and short papers.
> >
> > Full papers are up to 8-10 pages long, ACM double column. Full papers
> > should present new and substantial theoretical, empirical,
> > methodological, or policy-oriented contributions to research and/or
> > practice. Full papers include an abstract, an introduction, sections and
> > especially significant conclusions and should be well on top of the
> > current literature in the field as evidenced by appropriate referencing.
> > Full papers should be original work that has not been previously
> > published. Full papers are presented through regular talks. The program
> > committee may decide to recommend full papers that were rejected as such
> > to be accepted as short papers, if the authors agree.
> >
> > Short papers are 3-5 pages long, ACM double column. Short papers should
> > present new ideas and/or work in progress that may have significant
> > impact to or implications for the progress of the Web and Web Science.
> > Short papers should include an abstract, an introductory paragraph and
> > appropriate references. Short papers should be original work that has
> > not been previously published. Short papers are assigned short talks.
>
> "full", "short", US Letter, font-size 10pt, black ink, number of
> words... How does the print-centric format have any relevance on what's
> intended to be expressed? Why must the results be presented and consumed
> in a non-interactive, anti-social manner?
>
> What are the *effects*? What are the affordances?
>
> This is of course completely arbitrary and archaic in that this
> particular "publisher" requires academics to present their scientific
> results in a way that that "publisher's" platform can accommodate. At
> another time, in a galaxy far far away, for another "publisher", it will
> be completely different.
>
> Consider the *effects* of imposing knowledge to be squeezed into these
> static two dimensional containers.
>
> What is this conference's impact on the scientific community?
>
> How did it lead academia to use the Web towards its full potential?
>
> The "average" academic that studies or works with the Web is unaware of
> the medium it is using to express its knowledge simply because it is
> told not to really use it. We pretend to use it. We talk about the
> content, but we don't go further. Some will argue "change is slow",
> "that's how things are", but they only speak for themselves. Evidently
> the Web has taken off, but it is only them that are left behind.
>
> If you are an academic supervisor or a team lead of some sort, please
> take a moment to consider whether you want to grow your team with
> expertise in LaTeX/Word or the Web stack when it comes to
> publishing/consuming scholarly information. Whether you are a junior or
> senior researcher, the actions you take today matters.
>
> Have a look at the Web. What's stopping you from participating in that
> bazaar of ideas and exercising your freedom of expression? You need to
> go through a third-party? You think that's air you're breathing now?
>
> > Both types of accepted submissions will be included in the proceedings,
> > which will be archived by the ACM Digital Library. However, in order to
> > accommodate the publication priorities of different scientific
> > communities, we allow authors to opt out of having their contribution
> > appear in the published proceedings (thus allowing the authors to retain
> > the right to publish later in academic journals).
>
> >From the sounds of it, the former requires the publisher to have
> exclusive rights on the work. Why must (most likely) publicly funded
> research go through that torture? Why can't the knowledge producers
> retain "ownership"? What are the *effects* of academics giving up their
> hard earned rights?
>
> Having said that, the alternative sounds good! Get the "stamp of
> approval" from the scientific community, then proceed to self-publish
> and archive.
>
> > Furthermore, the WebSci18 Scientific Program Chairs intend to organize a
> > special issue of The Journal of Web Science. Authors of selected full
> > and short papers and extended abstracts will be contacted and invited to
> > submit a full-length journal paper for the special issue. All papers
> > invited to this submission will go through a peer-review process before
> > receiving final approval.
> >
> > Submission Instructions:
> > ************************
> > Full and short paper submissions should be formatted according to the
> > official ACM SIG Conference Proceedings,
> > see�http://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template�(From the zip
> > files provided, please select the SIGCONF version).
> > ***********************************************************
> > You can find the WebSci�18 paper submission pages at
> > Easychair:�https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=websci18
> > ***********************************************************
>
> What are the *effects* of using Easychair:
>
> * asking everyone to create (yet another) account at a third-party
> service in order to participate;
> * agree with the terms of service;
> * invest content (eg reviews) into a silo, with no comforting guarantee
> on its permanence.
> * maintain disconnection from the rest of the Web
> * ...
>
>
> Needless to say, none of this is meant to finger-point at any person or
> group. If anything, a reflection on the collective's practices. There
> are different stakeholders. One size does not fit all either. I think we
> just need to be a bit more mindful about what constitutes scholarly
> communication which is nearly non-detachable from the Web (today), under
> what conditions one can participate, and the *effects* that this sort of
> a conference (in the pursuit to share scientific knowledge) has on the
> community and the society.
>
>
> Bon week-end,
>
> -Sarven
> http://csarven.ca/#i
>
>


-- 
Dr. Mauro Dragoni
Researcher at Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK-IRST)
Via Sommarive 18, 38123, Povo, Trento, Italy
Tel. 0461-314053 <0461%20314053>

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