Official reports, as well as all the necessary information, including the Nomination Form, may be found here.

Nominations for the 11th IFIP-WG9.2 Namur Award (to be awarded in 2012) must be sent before December 1st, 2010.

The winners:
1991: Prof. Joseph Weizenbaum, MIT, Cambridge, Massachussets (USA)
1993: Dr. Riccardo Petrella, Head of the FAST Programme, European Commission
1996: Dr. Carlos-Alberto Afonso, IBASE, Community of people AlterNex, Brazil
1998: Prof. Gunilla Bradley, Royal Institute of Technology, Kista, Sweden
2000: Prof. Simon Rogerson, CCSR, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
2002: Dr Deborah Hurley, Harvard Information Infrastructure Project, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. USA.
2004: Prof. Ian H. Witten, New Zealand Digital Library Project, University of Waikato, New Zealand
2006: Nigel Williams, Founder of Childnet International and Northern Ireland Commissioner for children and young people, UK
2008: Prof. Daniel Pimienta, Founder of FUNREDES, ICT4D, Santo Domingo
2010 Prof. Jeroen Van den Hoven

We are waiting for your nominations. Many thanks for your cooperation.

Download the nomination form here.

The Social Impact of Social Computing Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK Wednesday 14 September to Friday 16 September 2011 Call for Papers to the 12th ETHICOMP conference

The ETHICOMP conference series was launched in 1995 by the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility (CCSR). The purpose of this series is to provide an inclusive forum for discussing the ethical and social issues associated with the development and application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Conferences are held about every 18 months. There have been eleven previous conferences in Europe and beyond. Delegates and speakers from all continents have attended. Around 800 papers have been presented. Professor Terry Bynum and Professor Simon Rogerson are the founders and joint directors of the conference series, which this year comes to Sheffield Hallam University, in the north of England.

ETHICOMP 2011 has the overall theme of “The social impact of social computing”.

Wang et al (2007 p79) explain, “With the advance of Internet and Web technologies, the increasing accessibility of computing resources and mobile devices, the prevalence of rich media contents, and the ensuing social, economic, and cultural changes, computing technology and applications have evolved quickly over the past decade. They now go beyond personal computing, facilitating collaboration and social interactions in general. As such, social computing, a new paradigm of computing and technology development, has become a central theme across a number of information and communication technology (ICT) fields. It has become a hot topic attracting broad interest from not only researchers but also technologists, software and online game vendors, Web entrepreneurs, business strategists, political analysts, and digital government practitioners, to name a few.”

There can be many positive effects of social computing, and the use of so-called ‘social media’. For example, it can be used beyond socialising to seek advice and professional development as well as offering new business uses. It creates a collective intelligence across society through interactive collaboration across fast communication networks. Citizens may be empowered by access to low-entry publishing, such as blogs, and the chance to talk across networks that link all walks of society. There is potential for a rise in eDemocracy through new voting mechanisms. It may help in establishing positive relationships, such as those

between traders and consumers. It provides an opportunity to interact across cultures and countries, sharing perspectives and levelling playing fields.

However, there is considerable hype about the potential of networked media to lead change and some potentially harmful effects resulting from uses of social computing. For example, there are potential losses in privacy. There is increasing profiling of consumers and job applicants from information to be found on social media networks. Social computing, particularly when it is unregulated, provides platforms that have been used for harming children. Social interaction can become stilted through the use of media that are incapable of supporting all aspects of human communication in a flexible and adaptive manner.

The overall theme of ETHICOMP 2011 is the huge range of impacts on us all of advances in social computing. Under this theme, papers, with a social/ethical perspective, within the following areas are particularly welcomed.

APPLICA TIONS • Online communities – Blogs, wikis, social networks, collaborative

bookmarking, social tagging, podcasts, tweeting, augmented reality • Business and public sector – Recommendation, forecasting, reputation,

feedback, decision analysis, e-government, e-commerce • Interactive entertainment – Edutainment, training, gaming, storytelling

TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE • Web technology • Database technology • Multimedia technology

• Wireless technology • Agent technology • Software engineering

THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS • Social psychology • Communication and human-computer interaction theories • Social network analysis • Anthropology • Organisation theory • Sociology • Computing theory • Ethical theory • Information and computer ethics • Governance

Papers covering one or several of these perspectives are called for from business, government, computer science, information systems, law, media,

anthropology, psychology, sociology and philosophy. Interdisciplinary papers and those from new researchers and practitioners are encouraged. A paper might take a conceptual, applied, practical or historical focus. Case studies and reports on lessons learned in practice are welcomed.

How to submit

As in previous ETHICOMP conferences, papers written in English and not published nor submitted elsewhere will be accepted on the basis of an extended abstract of between 800 and 1000 words after a careful review by Programme Committee members. Whilst more than one paper from an author or co-authors is welcomed the final decision on which papers are accepted will probably lead to no more than three papers from a given author being accepted. This will give more opportunity for as many people as possible to participate in ETHICOMP 2011.

The first page of each submission must include the title, all of the authors’ names, affiliations, complete mailing addresses including email, telephone numbers, and a statement of commitment that one of the authors will present the paper at ETHICOMP 2011 in the UK.

A submission lacking any of the above information or outside the range of 800- 1000 word limit may not be considered by the Programme Committee for inclusion in the conference programme.

Please make submissions in the electronic form via email as embedded plain text or an attachment in RTF format.

Abstracts must be submitted no later than 07 February 2011 to ccsr@dmu.ac.uk. Authors will be informed of the decision of the Programme Committee by 04 April 2011.

Important Dates

30 September 2010 – Call for papers 07 February 2011 – Latest date to submit abstracts to ccsr@dmu.ac.uk 04 April 2011 – Authors informed of programme committee decisions 20 June 2011 – Last date for receipt of full papers from authors (electronic version) 14 September to 16 September 2011 – ETHICOMP 2011, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

(Download the PDF here)

/Special Issue: Trust and Privacy in Our Networked World/

“Smart networks” are becoming part of our daily life. For example, Web 2.0 and novel infrastructure networks, such as the “Smart grid,” publish and share semantically annotated data. As a result, machines are able to understand and process such data in order to enhance and increase the tasks that can be performed on today’s Web. Such networks have become more and more “social” – i.e., information contained in these networks no longer consists merely of data about business services and products, but it increasingly includes information about people. Although smart networks promise new exciting business opportunities, their general goal of combining distributed semantically annotated knowledge raises controversial issues affecting both trust and privacy. These questions include:

·        Are the sources trustworthy?
·        How can I be sure that the information is valid?
·        How can I ensure that my disclosed personal data are not misused?
·        How and when can I share personal data with trusted people only?

A special journal issue entitled “Trust and Privacy in Our Networked World,” to be published in /Information /(the new Open Access Journal of Information Science, Information Technology, Data, Knowledge and Communication), examines these and related questions.  This journal (ISSN 2078-2489 http://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/), is published by MDPI (Molecular Diversity Preservation International) in Basel, Switzerland. The special issue will include papers that consider a wide range of topics and issues affecting both trust and privacy – e.g., from questions about conceptual and theoretical aspects of (the nature) of trust and privacy to practical and technical concerns regarding how both privacy and trust can be maintained in light of our current technological infrastructure.

On behalf of the Guest Editors of this Special Issue, Dr. Dieter M. Arnold and Professor Herman T. Tavani, we would like to invite you to contribute a comprehensive review article or a full research paper for peer-review and possible publication. This Special Issue collects both scientific papers and philosophical essays in the area of trust and privacy in smart networks. Thus, we welcome contributions that contain theoretical results as well as present practical examples from daily life. The website for this Special Issue can be found at http://mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/trust-privacy-networked-world/. The deadline for manuscript submission is 30 November 2010. You may send your manuscripts now or by the deadline. Submitted papers should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere.

This Special Issue will be fully Open Access, with Article Processing Charges waived for well prepared manuscripts. However, a fee of 250 CHF may apply if English editing or extensive revisions must be undertaken by the Editorial Office. Open Access is supported by the authors and their institutes. More information is available at http://www.mdpi.com/about/openaccess/.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors before submitting a manuscript (http://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/instructions/). Manuscripts should be submitted by e-mail toinformation@mdpi.org with copies to the Guest Editors (Dr. Dieter M. Arnold, E-Mail:
dieter.m.arnold@albistechnologies.com ; Prof. Herman T. Tavani, E-Mail: htavani@rivier.edu ) and the Editor-in-Chief (Dr. Mark Burgin, E-Mail: mburgin@math.ucla.edu ). The subject title of the message should be “Manuscript for Special Issue on “Trust and Privacy in
Networked World”".

Please note that MDPI publishes several peer-reviewed, Open Access journals listed at http://www.mdpi.com/. The editorial board members, including several Nobel Laureates (http://www.mdpi.com/about/nobelists/), are all leading active scholars. All these journals maintain rapid, yet rigorous, peer-review, manuscript handling and editorial processes. All of our
journals have increased their impact factors, see the editorial “Full Open Access Journals Have Increased Impact Factors”, http://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/14/6/2254/.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Dieter M. Arnold and Herman T. Tavani

CEPE/2011 is hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and will take place in Milwaukee, WI from May 31 to June 3. The theme for the conference is “Crossing Boundaries: Ethics in Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Relations.”

Possible topics for papers/presentations:

• E-governance
• E-waste
• E-politics
• Intercultural ethics
• Professional Ethics
• International ethics, law and policy issues
• E-crime and security
• E-Research Ethics

Deadlines and Notification Dates:

• Extended abstracts of 2000 words due: December 15, 2010
• Notification by 30 January 2011
• Full papers in CEPE style guide due: March 15 2011

Please send abstracts, papers, and other inquiries to Jeremy Mauger at jjmauger [at] uwm [dot] edu.

(Full conference website forthcoming.)

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