Manfred Hauswirth
2018-12-01 17:37:14 UTC
Call for Papers for the 2nd Weizenbaum Conference
Challenges of Digital Inequality: Digital Education | Digital Work | Digital Life
http://weizenbaum-conference.org
The Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society is organising a conference on Thursday, 16 May
and Friday, 17 May 2019 on the subject of Challenges of Digital Inequality: Digital Education, Digital
Work, Digital Life and invites you to submit short and regular papers for presentation at the
conference. The aim of the conference is to bring together different disciplinary perspectives (e.g.
education and social sciences, legal studies, communication science, computer science, economics
science and engineering science) to highlight the challenges, drivers and consequences of inequality
in the age of digitalisation. In this context, we strive to identify viable solutions to ensure the
creation of a self-determined society.
Digitalisation transforms the society we live in today: It changes the way we communicate, learn,
work, and live. Digital technologies provide access to information anytime and anywhere and
promise to empower users around the world by delivering more and easier opportunities for
transparency and social participation. Despite this potential, modern societies are increasingly
witnessing a gaping chasm of inequality as social actors experience differential results of ubiquitous
digitalisation around the world. Understanding and finding ways to solve this paradox is a primary
motivation for the Weizenbaum Conference 2019.
For example, the question of whether the digital transformation of education reduces or exacerbates
inequalities remains open. Indeed, while popular online learning platforms allow global access to
educational materials for anyone, their use is highly dependent on appropriate Internet access and a
certain level of Internet skills. Furthermore, many existing online learning platforms are designed for
specific cultural contexts and frequently fail to account for users with special needs. As a result,
existing inequalities might be further solidified instead of mitigated. For instance, many refugees
struggle with a stable Internet connection upon their arrival to a host country which slows down
their progress of learning the language and impedes social inclusion. In the context of school
education, available equipment, Internet access, the curriculum, teaching methods as well as
teachers competencies could be contributing factors for inequality. While demands for more
inclusive ways of education have reached schools, practice reveals pressing challenges that need to
be overcome. In this context, digital tools may offer solutions, but can also build barriers.
The world of research is also not immune to inequality struggles. Digitalisation is a prerequisite when
it comes to research collaboration, as well as the production and presentation of research findings.
Nonetheless, access to research output varies from institution to institution, as does the researchers
ability to publish in the open access format. To address these issues, open access and open research
data are currently on everyones lips, with other aspects of open science, such as citizen science, also
on the rise.
As labour markets are witnessing tremendous digital transformation, more and more workers choose
to leverage digital tools to engage in the new platform economy, promising more autonomy and
flexibility. These developments are challenging traditional approaches to the welfare state as well as
open new gateways for discrimination, which calls for new approaches to address these
developments. Furthermore, as companies actively embrace digital solutions and automation,
demands for new digital skill sets and qualifications are pressing. Large enterprises have already
focused their strategies on developing new competencies in their workforce. However, small and
medium-sized enterprises are still in the orientation phase and are often lost when it comes to
developing digital skill strategies for their employees.
On the individual level, digitalisation is blurring the boundaries between personal life and work,
dividing workers between those who can and those who cannot accommodate to the new realities of
constant availability. Furthermore, usage patterns, contextual and personality characteristics all
contribute to the outcomes users obtain online. For example, while active participation on social
media has been linked to beneficial outcomes such as social connectedness, social capital, and gains
in social support, passive use of these technologies has been associated with negative outcomes like
decreased life satisfaction and negative affectivity. Untangling these complexities is a critical research
challenge to ensure beneficial uses of emerging technologies for all.
Finally, with the growing popularity of automated algorithmic decision-making, there are concerns
that existing inequalities are solidified as a result of data-driven decisions and inherent biases. Many
life-changing decisions like whether to keep someone in preventive detention are already relying on
automated algorithms. Existing inequalities can be aggravated for example if biased data is used as
the ground truth to train algorithms. At the same time, a lack of transparency impedes the detection
of inbuilt moral assumptions, biases, and priorities underlying the algorithm. Hence, it is very difficult
or even impossible for systematically disfavoured groups or individuals to question decisions and
demand fair re-evaluation.
Taking the lens of digital inequality, this conference seeks contributions that help to steer self-
determined digital transformation in digital education, digital work, and digital life. In line with the
mission of the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, we set to explore possibilities to
shape digital change in a meaningful way.
We invite short papers of 2 pages and regular papers of 7 pages. Conference updates will
continuously be posted on the Conference website: https://weizenbaum-conference.org
KEY DATES
STEP 1 (mandatory): To ensure that your paper fits the overarching theme of the conference, please
submit a short abstract (300 words) by 5 January 2019 or before per email at: weizenbaum-
***@wzb.eu.
Notification on the theme fit will be issued by 10 January 2019 at the latest.
STEP 2 (contingent on the decision at STEP 1): short (2 pages) and regular (7 pages) papers must be
submitted by 1 February 2019. All submissions should follow the provided template and be
submitted via the abstract submission system
Decision notification will be issued by 1 March 2019.
STEP 3: Authors of accepted papers are given the opportunity to revise their submissions based on
reviewers feedback by 1 April 2019. Both short and long papers will be published in the proceedings.
Authors of long papers will be given the opportunity to present their paper at the conference, while
authors of short papers will be asked to present their work as a poster.
Thematic Priorities of the Conference:
Perspectives on Marginalized Groups in the Digital Society
Digital Inequality and Digital Divide
Inclusion and Digital Education
Adoption of Digital Education in Schools and Higher Education
Digital Teaching and Digital Learning
Designing Engaging Learning Experiences
Legal Aspects of Open Education, Learning Analytics, and Educational Data Mining
Ethical Challenges of Digital Education and Learning Analytics
Digital Science and Research Lifecycle in the Digital Age
Open Science, Open Access, and Open Research Data
Citizen Science and Automatization of Science
Critical Perspectives on Measuring Research Productivity
Digital Work: Skill Change, Education, and Learning
New Forms and Dynamics of Work in the Digital World
Digital Transformation of the Labour Market
Competencies for Participation in the New Platform Economy
Discrimination in the Sharing Economy
Algorithmic Governance: Using Data Intelligence at the Workplace
Work-Life Balance and Work-Life Integration
Labour Law and Legal Aspects of Digital Surveillance
Dark Sides of Digital Work: Stress, Overload, Social Isolation, Exclusion, Surveillance
Digitised Individual, Health, and Well-Being
Digitised Individual, Work, and Performance
Digitised Individual, Society, and Policy Implications
Legal Issues of Digital Self
ABOUT THE WEIZENBAUM INSTITUTE
The Weizenbaum Institute investigates the current changes in all aspects of society occurring in
response to digitalisation. Our goals are to develop a comprehensive understanding of these changes
based on rigorous academic analysis and to offer informed strategies to address them at a political
and economic level. The Weizenbaum Institute is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and
Research with 50 million over 5 years. The consortium is coordinated by the Berlin Social Science
Center (WZB) and includes the four Berlin universities Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, Universität der Künste Berlin as well as the
Universität Potsdam and the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS).
The Berlin-Brandenburg Consortium focuses on the interaction of the social sciences, economics and
law with design research and computer science. Interdisciplinary basic research and the exploration
of concrete solutions in practice-based labs are combined with knowledge transfer into politics,
business, and society. The conceptual design of the Institute aims to achieve scientific excellence
with a nationwide and international impact, as well as networking with cooperation partners from
civil society, business, politics, and the media.
The institute is named after the computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum, who was born in Berlin in
1923 and passed away in 2008. His entire lifes work was concerned with the socio-critical dialogue
between man and machine.
More information: www.weizenbaum-institut.de
_______________________________________________
Please do not post msgs that are not relevant to the database community at large. Go to www.cs.wisc.edu/dbworld for guidelines and posting forms.
To unsubscribe, go to https://lists.cs.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/dbworld
Challenges of Digital Inequality: Digital Education | Digital Work | Digital Life
http://weizenbaum-conference.org
The Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society is organising a conference on Thursday, 16 May
and Friday, 17 May 2019 on the subject of Challenges of Digital Inequality: Digital Education, Digital
Work, Digital Life and invites you to submit short and regular papers for presentation at the
conference. The aim of the conference is to bring together different disciplinary perspectives (e.g.
education and social sciences, legal studies, communication science, computer science, economics
science and engineering science) to highlight the challenges, drivers and consequences of inequality
in the age of digitalisation. In this context, we strive to identify viable solutions to ensure the
creation of a self-determined society.
Digitalisation transforms the society we live in today: It changes the way we communicate, learn,
work, and live. Digital technologies provide access to information anytime and anywhere and
promise to empower users around the world by delivering more and easier opportunities for
transparency and social participation. Despite this potential, modern societies are increasingly
witnessing a gaping chasm of inequality as social actors experience differential results of ubiquitous
digitalisation around the world. Understanding and finding ways to solve this paradox is a primary
motivation for the Weizenbaum Conference 2019.
For example, the question of whether the digital transformation of education reduces or exacerbates
inequalities remains open. Indeed, while popular online learning platforms allow global access to
educational materials for anyone, their use is highly dependent on appropriate Internet access and a
certain level of Internet skills. Furthermore, many existing online learning platforms are designed for
specific cultural contexts and frequently fail to account for users with special needs. As a result,
existing inequalities might be further solidified instead of mitigated. For instance, many refugees
struggle with a stable Internet connection upon their arrival to a host country which slows down
their progress of learning the language and impedes social inclusion. In the context of school
education, available equipment, Internet access, the curriculum, teaching methods as well as
teachers competencies could be contributing factors for inequality. While demands for more
inclusive ways of education have reached schools, practice reveals pressing challenges that need to
be overcome. In this context, digital tools may offer solutions, but can also build barriers.
The world of research is also not immune to inequality struggles. Digitalisation is a prerequisite when
it comes to research collaboration, as well as the production and presentation of research findings.
Nonetheless, access to research output varies from institution to institution, as does the researchers
ability to publish in the open access format. To address these issues, open access and open research
data are currently on everyones lips, with other aspects of open science, such as citizen science, also
on the rise.
As labour markets are witnessing tremendous digital transformation, more and more workers choose
to leverage digital tools to engage in the new platform economy, promising more autonomy and
flexibility. These developments are challenging traditional approaches to the welfare state as well as
open new gateways for discrimination, which calls for new approaches to address these
developments. Furthermore, as companies actively embrace digital solutions and automation,
demands for new digital skill sets and qualifications are pressing. Large enterprises have already
focused their strategies on developing new competencies in their workforce. However, small and
medium-sized enterprises are still in the orientation phase and are often lost when it comes to
developing digital skill strategies for their employees.
On the individual level, digitalisation is blurring the boundaries between personal life and work,
dividing workers between those who can and those who cannot accommodate to the new realities of
constant availability. Furthermore, usage patterns, contextual and personality characteristics all
contribute to the outcomes users obtain online. For example, while active participation on social
media has been linked to beneficial outcomes such as social connectedness, social capital, and gains
in social support, passive use of these technologies has been associated with negative outcomes like
decreased life satisfaction and negative affectivity. Untangling these complexities is a critical research
challenge to ensure beneficial uses of emerging technologies for all.
Finally, with the growing popularity of automated algorithmic decision-making, there are concerns
that existing inequalities are solidified as a result of data-driven decisions and inherent biases. Many
life-changing decisions like whether to keep someone in preventive detention are already relying on
automated algorithms. Existing inequalities can be aggravated for example if biased data is used as
the ground truth to train algorithms. At the same time, a lack of transparency impedes the detection
of inbuilt moral assumptions, biases, and priorities underlying the algorithm. Hence, it is very difficult
or even impossible for systematically disfavoured groups or individuals to question decisions and
demand fair re-evaluation.
Taking the lens of digital inequality, this conference seeks contributions that help to steer self-
determined digital transformation in digital education, digital work, and digital life. In line with the
mission of the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, we set to explore possibilities to
shape digital change in a meaningful way.
We invite short papers of 2 pages and regular papers of 7 pages. Conference updates will
continuously be posted on the Conference website: https://weizenbaum-conference.org
KEY DATES
STEP 1 (mandatory): To ensure that your paper fits the overarching theme of the conference, please
submit a short abstract (300 words) by 5 January 2019 or before per email at: weizenbaum-
***@wzb.eu.
Notification on the theme fit will be issued by 10 January 2019 at the latest.
STEP 2 (contingent on the decision at STEP 1): short (2 pages) and regular (7 pages) papers must be
submitted by 1 February 2019. All submissions should follow the provided template and be
submitted via the abstract submission system
Decision notification will be issued by 1 March 2019.
STEP 3: Authors of accepted papers are given the opportunity to revise their submissions based on
reviewers feedback by 1 April 2019. Both short and long papers will be published in the proceedings.
Authors of long papers will be given the opportunity to present their paper at the conference, while
authors of short papers will be asked to present their work as a poster.
Thematic Priorities of the Conference:
Perspectives on Marginalized Groups in the Digital Society
Digital Inequality and Digital Divide
Inclusion and Digital Education
Adoption of Digital Education in Schools and Higher Education
Digital Teaching and Digital Learning
Designing Engaging Learning Experiences
Legal Aspects of Open Education, Learning Analytics, and Educational Data Mining
Ethical Challenges of Digital Education and Learning Analytics
Digital Science and Research Lifecycle in the Digital Age
Open Science, Open Access, and Open Research Data
Citizen Science and Automatization of Science
Critical Perspectives on Measuring Research Productivity
Digital Work: Skill Change, Education, and Learning
New Forms and Dynamics of Work in the Digital World
Digital Transformation of the Labour Market
Competencies for Participation in the New Platform Economy
Discrimination in the Sharing Economy
Algorithmic Governance: Using Data Intelligence at the Workplace
Work-Life Balance and Work-Life Integration
Labour Law and Legal Aspects of Digital Surveillance
Dark Sides of Digital Work: Stress, Overload, Social Isolation, Exclusion, Surveillance
Digitised Individual, Health, and Well-Being
Digitised Individual, Work, and Performance
Digitised Individual, Society, and Policy Implications
Legal Issues of Digital Self
ABOUT THE WEIZENBAUM INSTITUTE
The Weizenbaum Institute investigates the current changes in all aspects of society occurring in
response to digitalisation. Our goals are to develop a comprehensive understanding of these changes
based on rigorous academic analysis and to offer informed strategies to address them at a political
and economic level. The Weizenbaum Institute is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and
Research with 50 million over 5 years. The consortium is coordinated by the Berlin Social Science
Center (WZB) and includes the four Berlin universities Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, Universität der Künste Berlin as well as the
Universität Potsdam and the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS).
The Berlin-Brandenburg Consortium focuses on the interaction of the social sciences, economics and
law with design research and computer science. Interdisciplinary basic research and the exploration
of concrete solutions in practice-based labs are combined with knowledge transfer into politics,
business, and society. The conceptual design of the Institute aims to achieve scientific excellence
with a nationwide and international impact, as well as networking with cooperation partners from
civil society, business, politics, and the media.
The institute is named after the computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum, who was born in Berlin in
1923 and passed away in 2008. His entire lifes work was concerned with the socio-critical dialogue
between man and machine.
More information: www.weizenbaum-institut.de
_______________________________________________
Please do not post msgs that are not relevant to the database community at large. Go to www.cs.wisc.edu/dbworld for guidelines and posting forms.
To unsubscribe, go to https://lists.cs.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/dbworld