News

Advanced Data Protection Control (ADPC) Released

 

 

As an outcome of our RESPECTeD project led by Soheil Human and conducted in collaboration with noyb, our researchers have developed the Advanced Data Protection Control (ADPC). ADPC is a proposed automated mechanism for the communication of users’ privacy decisions. It aims to empower users to protect their online choices in a human-centric, easy and enforceable manner. ADPC also supports online publishers and service providers to comply with data protection and consumer protection regulations.

The ADPC spec defines a method for expressing user decisions about personal data processing under the European Union’s data protection regulations, and similar regulations outside the EU. Currently, ADPC functions through the exchange of HTTP headers between the user agent and the web server, or through an equivalent JavaScript interface.

The mechanism serves as an automated means for users to give or refuse consent, to withdraw any consent already given, and object to processing based on legitimate interest. ADPC is an alternative to existing non-automated consent management approaches (e.g. ‘cookie banners’) which aims to reduce the overheads of the different parties involved in the protection of users privacy equation.

More information about ADPC can be found on: https://www.dataprotectioncontrol.org

CfP: Human-centricity in a Sustainable Digital Economy; The 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-55)

Human-centricity in a Sustainable Digital Economy

http://hicss.hawaii.edu | HICSS-55 | January 4 – 7, 2022 | Hyatt Regency Maui, Hawaii, USA
Paper Submission Deadline: June 15, 2021 | 11:59 pm HST

The internet and the global digital transformation have changed many different aspects of our lives. Not only the economies and the societies but also people’s personal lives have been influenced by this new and ever-emerging era of our history. While the digital age has made it possible to provide novel services and solutions for the end-users, it has also caused serious concerns in different individual and societal levels, such as issues regarding online privacy, algorithmic bias, fairness and accountability of information systems, transparency, governance, and explainability of information systems, end-user manipulations, fake news, traceability, etc. The development of human-centric and end-user empowering information systems can be one approach towards “digital sustainability” since they enable individuals to influence how their data is used, by whom, and for which purpose. Many novel and personalized services are emerging in this direction, which make the digital economy sustainable, i.e. a positive place that focuses on human users.  

This minitrack aims to attract research that advances the understanding of human-centricity and end-user empowerment in a sustainable digital economy. As the transformation is multidimensional in nature, the minitrack adopts an interdisciplinary perspective, which considers human-centricity and end-user empowerment across application domains (e.g. software development, digital commerce, healthcare, administration, mobile apps, social media, and online services) and disciplines (e.g. economics, computer science, sociology). Among the relevant topics are:

·Characteristics and design of sustainable human-centric information systems

·Evaluation of existing information systems from a human-centric perspective

·Co-creation and co-production of human-centric sustainable information systems

·Analysis and design of technologies (e.g. AI, Blockchain) that empower end-users

·Design of human-centric end-user agents, AI and machine learning

·Fairness, transparency, accountability and controllability of information systems

·Legal or economic aspects of human-centricity in information systems

·Identity, privacy and consent management systems  

·Business value of human-centric and/or user empowered solutions

·Sociotechnical studies of human-centricity in information systems

·Opportunities and challenges of digital behavior change, habit formation, and digital addiction

·Digital nudging for increasing social or ecological responsibilities

·Ethical concerns regarding human-centricity and/or sustainability

·COVID-19’s impact on human-centricity or sustainability of information systems

Publication of Papers

HICSS is the #1 Information Systems conference in terms of citations as recorded by Google Scholar. Presented papers will be included in the Proceedings of HICSS-54. Selected papers will be invited for a fast-track in Electronic Markets – The International Journal on Networked Business. 

A Special Issue on “Human-centricity in a Sustainable Digital Economy” at Electronic Markets is planned. 

Important Dates

June 15, 2021 | 11:59 pm HST: Paper Submission Deadline

August 17, 2021: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection

September 22, 2021: Deadline for Authors to Submit Final Manuscript for Publication

October 1, 2021: Deadline for at least one author of each paper to register for HICSS-55

January 4 – 7, 2022: Paper Presentations

Organizers

Soheil Human, Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Wien), Austria

Gustaf Neumann, Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Wien), Austria 

Rainer Alt, Leipzig University, Germany

About the HICSS Conference

Since 1968, the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) has been known worldwide as the longest-standing working scientific conferences in Information Technology Management. HICSS provides a highly interactive working environment for top scholars from academia and the industry from over 60 countries to exchange ideas in various areas of information, computer, and system sciences.

According to Microsoft Academic, HICSS ranks the 36th in terms of citations among 4,444 conferences in all fields worldwide. The Australian Government’s Excellence in Research project (ERA) has given HICSS an “A” rating, one of 32 Information Systems conferences so honored out of 241 (46-B and 146-C ratings). Data supplied by the Australian Research Council, December 2009.

Unique characteristics of the conference include:

·A matrix structure of tracks and minitracks that enables research on a rich mixture of cutting-edge computer-based applications and technologies.

·Three days presentations of peer-reviewed papers and discussions in a workshop setting that promotes interaction leading to revised and extended papers that are published in journals, books, and special issues as well as additional research.

·A full day of Symposia, Workshops, and Tutorials.

·Keynote addresses and distinguished lectures which explore particularly relevant

·topics and concepts.

·Best Paper Awards in each track which recognize superior research performance.

·HICSS is the #1 IS conference in terms of citations as recorded by Google Scholar.

·A doctoral consortium that helps participants work with senior scholars on their

·work-in-progress leading to journal publications.

·HICSS panels that help shape future research directions.

Author Instructions

·http://hicss.hawaii.edu/authors/

CfP: Special Issue on Accountability Mechanisms in Socio-Technical Systems in the Journal of Responsible Technology

There are growing demands for greater accountability of socio-technical systems. While there is broader research on a range of issues relating to accountability such as transparency or responsibility, more concrete proposals for developing accountability mechanisms that reflect the socio-technical nature of information systems are less discussed. A key challenge in existing research is how to imagine information systems which promote accountability. While this is part of the wider debate on fairness accountability and transparency principles in the FAccT community and around explainability and bias in artificial intelligence, more concrete proposals for developing socio-technical accountability mechanisms are seldom discussed in detail.

This need for accountability should be reflected both at technical levels, as well as in the socio-technical embeddedness of the systems being developed. By trying to specifically isolate the accountability mechanism within socio-technical systems, we believe it is possible to systematically identify and compare such mechanisms within different systems, as well as push for a debate about the effectiveness of such mechanisms.

This special issue focuses on the mechanisms for tackling issues of accountability in socio-technical systems. The goal is to provide a forum for proposing, describing and evaluating specific accountability mechanisms; exploring the challenges of transforming more abstract notions of accountability into practical implementations; for critical perspectives on different accountability approaches; highlighting the successes as well as challenges from practical use-cases; and so forth.

Recognizing that the challenges are socio-technical, we solicit papers from a range of disciplines. Given the practical focus of this special issue, we specifically encourage papers that discuss accountability from a technical, organisational, legal or STS perspective. We see this special issue as a way to close these gaps by engaging with the existing debate on accountability.

Potential areas of interest for submissions include, but are not limited to:

- user cognition and human behaviour in relation to the design of interfaces that promote accountability
- increasing the accountability of automated decision-making systems and decision-support systems
- ensuring accountability in public sector systems
- perspectives to accountability in the context of real-world technologies
- contributions that bring together technical and non-technical perspectives
- critical examinations of existing accountability technologies and mechanisms aimed at gaining new insights about their socio-technical characteristics and implications.

In all these and further areas, accountability in socio-technical systems needs to be addressed more systematically. The concrete implementation of such accountability mechanisms has so far received only limited attention. Similarly, the challenges arising during such transformations of abstract accountability concepts into concrete implementations as well as the critical evaluation of respective implementations are only rarely covered by existing research. We see this special issue as a way to close these gaps by engaging with the existing debate on accountability.

Submission Guidelines

CfP: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-responsible-technology/call-for-papers/accountability-mechanisms-in-socio-technical-systems

Authors should follow the Journal guidelines for paper submission. Full details are available here: https://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-responsible-technology/2666-6596/guide-for-authors

Submissions must be made through the Editorial Manager submissions system via the following link: https://www.editorialmanager.com/jrtech/default.aspx

For questions about special issue submissions or the review process, please don’t hesitate to contact the Guest Editors here: b.wagner@tudelft.nl

Relevant Dates

- Submissions open from 1 February 2021

- Submissions due by 30 June 2021

Guest Editors
- Ben Wagner, TU Delft
- Jat Singh, University of Cambridge
- Frank Pallas, TU-Berlin
- Florian Cech, TU Vienna
- Soheil Human, WU Vienna

Call for Papers: Special Issue on Semantic Technologies for Data and Algorithmic Governance

Technology is playing a progressively important key role in enabling
effective governance structures, processes, and frameworks. As society
becomes increasingly dependent on complex systems ranging from simple
‘decision support systems’ to ‘systems of systems’ and ‘semi autonomous
systems’, data and algorithmic governance are of utmost importance.

When it comes to data and algorithmic governance tools and techniques
there are still many open questions. For instance, to what extent do
these systems safeguard against privacy violations and honor
intellectual property rights? Can granular consent be granted, and will
the consequences be understood by its users? How can biases,
discrimination, and censorship be identified and acted on? Do
transparency and explainability lead to greater accountability? How can
trust be woven into the fabric of these systems?

Towards this end, this special issue aims to explore the development and
evaluation of semantic technologies with respect to the data and
algorithmic governance mechanisms, processes and methodologies that are
critically needed to support the development of trust-centric social and
business applications alike.

*Topics of interest*

We welcome original high quality submissions on (but are not restricted
to) the following topics:
-Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data management
-Techniques for enabling ownership, control, and access
-Identifying fake news and misinformation
-Managing bias and ensuring fairness
-Enabling transparency, explainability, and accountability
-Methods for policy governance
-Information flow control and accountability
-Measuring data quality
-Managing the data life cycle
-Metrics for assessing the effectiveness of governance algorithms
-Data privacy, regulations and compliance
-Provenance, trust and metadata for authoritative sources
-Privacy and security enforcement
-Methods for information flow control and accountability
-Frameworks and systems for personal data storage and control
-Ensuring data authenticity and integrity
-Privacy-preserving data mining and machine learning methods
-Protecting against identity theft and data falsification
-User-friendly interface design for data and algorithmic governance
-Standards for data and algorithmic governance
-Tackling legal issues with respect to data and algorithms
-Law and governance in e-democracy and e-participation
-Benchmarking approaches to data and algorithmic governance
-Building trust and transparency mechanisms in the fabric of the Web
-Participatory frameworks for fair and efficient algorithmic governance

*Deadline*

The new deadline is: January 29, 2021 (extended!). Papers submitted before the deadline will be reviewed upon receipt.

*Author guidelines*

Submissions shall be made through the Semantic Web journal website at
http://www.semantic-web-journal.net. Prospective authors must take
notice of the submission guidelines posted at
http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/authors. Note that you need to
request an account on the website for submitting a paper. Please
indicate in the cover letter that it is for the Special Issue on
Semantic Technologies for Data and Algorithmic Governance. Submissions
are possible in the following categories: full research papers, surveys,
application reports and case studies. While there is no upper limit,
paper length must be justified by content.

*Guest editors*

Michel Dumontier, Maastricht University, The Netherlands
Sabrina Kirrane, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
Oshani Seneviratne, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA

The guest editors can be reached at swjgovernance@googlegroups.com.

Researcher of the Month: Sabrina Kirrane

Data misuse and misinformation are key problems associated with the use of the internet today. As part of the PENNI project (Policy Enabled Next generation Internet), WU Senior Assistant Professor Sabrina Kirrane is working to build a new, decentralized internet that is based on transparency and allows users to keep more control over their data. Computer scientist Sabrina Kirrane is Researcher of the Month October.

Sabrina Kirrane earned her PhD in computer science from the National University of Ireland Galway, with a PhD thesis entitled “Linked Data with Access Control.” After working at the Galway Mayo Institute for Technology as an assistant lecturer from 2013 to 2015, she came to WU Vienna as a post-doc researcher in September 2015. Her research interests include the Next Generation Internet (NGI), distributed and decentralized systems, big data, and data science. Sabrina Kirrane has published her work in prestigious international computer science journals (e.g. Semantic Web, IEEE Security & Privacy, Knowledge Engineering Review, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Künstliche Intelligenz) and has presented her research at numerous international conferences. Her results have been widely discussed. In 2020, Sabrina Kirrane became a senior assistant professor at WU.

As Researcher of the Month, Sabrina Kirrane shares in her video interesting insights into her research and addresses a question that concerns all of us: What are the technological foundations needed to create an internet where citizens, companies, and organizations have more control over where their data are stored and how they are processed?

Online 360-degree Video Workshop (SEPA360)

2nd Learning and Teaching Training Event (held online due to pandemic)

This week (8th-10th September 2020) the partners of the SEPA360 project successfully held their second Learning and Teaching Training Event (LTTE) online, due to the ongoing pandemic crisis (Covid-19). The initial event was planned to be hosted in Thessaloniki, Greece and would have brought together over 30 digital champions from interdisciplinary backgrounds in higher education. Even though the SEPA360 team transitioned the complete workshop into an online mode more than 25 digital champions were able to join the 3-day workshop and participate in breakout sessions.

SEPA360 Virtual Group Photo (taken in July 2020).

The three day workshop was hosted by Prof. Dr. Kevin Burden (Coordinating Partner, University of Hull) and was split into an online morning and offline afternoon session. Each morning session included presentations of results and ongoing work, breakout sessions allowing national digital champions to work remotely on 360°-video scenarios as well as interactive feedback sessions collecting valuable input and feedback from participants. Day 1: Scoping Study and 360°-Video Scenario Development The first day of the workshop focused on presenting first results from the scoping study led by SEPA360 partner Italy from University of Florence. A broad spectrum of research has already been done in terms of exploring the use of 360°-video in higher education providing the digital champions some inspiration of how to apply 360°-video in their own scenarios. Also, recommendations were communicated and discussed focusing on the potential of activity-oriented and explorative scenarios.

Isabella Bruni (University of Florence) presenting results from the scoping study.

Another session focused on introducing the digital champions to an initial set of templates enabling them to systematically develop new 360°-video scenarios. A template for preparing a scenario was presented as well as a conceptual model to get an overview of relations between different parameters influencing the design of a 360°-video scenario. Based on this input breakout sessions were organised motivating the digital champions to start designing their first 360°-video scenarios. The afternoon session was an offline session aiming at giving the digital champions time and space to explore the use and application of their 360°-video cameras and scenarios.

Digital Champions from WU Vienna discussing 360°-video scenario options.

Day 2: Vivista 360°-Video Editor Tutorial and Feedback The second day focused on getting the digital champions involved with the Vivista 360°-Video Editor software developed as an open source project at the PXL Hasselt, Belgium. It enables users to enhance 360°-video with text, images or videos, as well as allowing users to integrate interactive components such as multiple choice questions, area highlights and more. In the course of the second day the features of the editor were presented giving the digital champions an idea of what kind of interactions they could integrate into a 360°-video. Also, it was a great opportunity to collect user feedback about features they were missing or improvements they had in mind.

Simon Verbeke (PXL) presenting the Vivista 360°-Video Editor.

Apart from showing how the Vivista 360°-Video Editor worked, some digital champions already could showcase their work done so far. This was an exciting opportunity to exchange ideas on possible 360°-video scenarios and get inspired by others.

Dominic Henri (UK) presenting a 360°-video on Thorne Moors Deer Survey.

Lapo Pierguidi (Italy) presenting a 360°-video tour at a food tasting lab.

Lapo Pierguidi (Italy) presenting interactions in a 360°-video tour.

Day 3: Future Steps and some more scenarios The last and third day focused on future steps for the SEPA360 project. Strategic concepts and thoughts on possible options for empirically evaluating 360°-video scenarios were discussed. This included break out sessions with digital champions brainstorming ideas about what is of interest to evaluate in their respective discipline. All input was collected and discussed and will prove useful for further developing scenarios and provide a concept for evaluating the effectiveness of 360°-video in terms of supporting and enhancing the learning of university students. Finally, another scenario, which was developed in the course of the three day workshop at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna) together with the digital champions was presented. The scenario focused on using a 360°-camera and was titled “How to setup your first in-class 360°-video recording”.

Scene with Michael Feurstein (WU Vienna) setting up a 360°-camera (Screenshot Vivista).

Follow Up The SEPA360 team is pleased to say that the 2nd Virtual Learning Teaching and Training Event was a success. Even though everything was held in an online and virtual mode, it was a very productive environment and digital champions could discuss ideas, learn about the Vivista software project involved and further push their development of new 360°-video scenarios. If you are interested in any future updates, stay up to date and subscribe to the SEPA360 newsletter or if you want to get involved in any way, don’t hesitate to either contact Michael Feurstein or contact the SEPA360 team directly.