5th International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age

5th International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age: Design Trade-offs for an Inclusive Society
In conjunction with AVI 2018

Organized by:

Barbara Rita Barricelli
Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy

Gerhard Fischer
University of Colorado at Boulder, USA

Anders Mørch
Department of Education, University of Oslo, Norway

Antonio Piccinno
Department of Computer Science, Università degli Studi di Bari, Italy

Stefano Valtolina
Department of Computer Science, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy

This one-day workshop edition addresses the theme "Design Trade-offs for an Inclusive Society". The United Nations defined social inclusion as "the process of improving the terms of participation in society, particularly for people who are disadvantaged, through enhancing opportunities, access to resources, voice and respect for rights".

To fully understand the extent to which inclusion has to be brought into society, the diversity concept should be analyzed. In particular, the groups of individuals who are often left out in an inclusive society that will be specifically addressed by this workshop are:

• disabled people (for whom progress should mean: growing competence in self-care rather than growing dependence);

• elderly people (with limited abilities and possibilities for socialization);

• learners of all ages (without opportunities to engage in interest-driven, self-directed learning opportunities);

• owner of problems (being dependent on high–tech scribes for making systems fit their needs);

• all groups that have to cope with non-convivial tools.

Four dimensions could be identified for defining Inclusion, they are: Empowerment, Socialization, Independence, and Learning. In such perspective, designing for Cultures of Participation and Social Inclusion means to take into account all the peculiar characteristics of stakeholders and the diversity of user differences to find out what trade-offs have to be dealt with for satisfying their expectations and reaching the desired outcomes. A trade-off is a situation that involves losing one quality or aspect of something in return for gaining another quality or aspect.

The workshop explores and discusses the design trade-offs that diversity (and thus the need for inclusion) may introduce in Cultures of Participation, including but not limited to:

• Usability versus accessibility;
• Usability versus usefulness;
• Customizable interfaces versus minimalist design and simplicity of use;
• Pervasive technologies and ubiquitous computing versus quality of life;
• Personalization versus privacy;
• One-size-fits-all versus tailored solutions (e.g. standardization versus flexibility);
• Involving end users as designers (e.g. participatory design) versus participation overload;
• Consumer cultures versus cultures of participation;
• Tools for living versus tools for learning;
• Independence versus overreliance;
• Independence versus scaffolding;
• Facilitation versus instruction;
• Independence versus the need for human involvement in case the technology breaks down.

Topics and Keywords

The workshop will provide a forum to discuss the following research questions:

- Information overload is a widely recognized problem — which techniques (providing promises and pitfalls) are available and should be developed to cope with it?

- If information overload is a problem, are participation and collaboration overload (as consequences that people are engaged EUD activities) even more serious problems as they require more time and engagement?

- If more and more people can contribute, how do we assess the quality and reliability of the resulting artifacts? How can curator networks effectively increase the quality and reliability?

- What is the role of trust, empathy, altruism, and reciprocity in such an environment and how will these factors affect cultures of participation?

Submissions

Authors are invited to submit a 2-4 pages position paper using the ACM article template "SigConf" available at: https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template

Papers will be selected by the Program Committee considering their quality, topic relevance, innovation, and potentials to foster discussion. We aim at an interdisciplinary meeting, thus each submitted paper will be reviewed by two reviewers with different backgrounds providing authors with the information to make their contribution relevant and appealing for the workshop’s audience.

At least one author from every accepted paper must plan to attend the workshop and present the work. Upon acceptance, position papers will be published on the workshop Website.

Authors can submit and update their submissions through the EasyChair system: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=avi2018

Important dates

April 10, 2018: Submission deadline
Notification of acceptance: April 25
Camera-ready submission: April 30
Registration: according to AVI 2018 registration policy

Organizing Committee

Barbara Rita Barricelli (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy) barricelli [at] di.unimi.it
Gerhard Fischer (University of Colorado at Boulder, USA) gerhard [at] colorado.edu
Anders Mørch (University of Oslo, Norway) anders.morch [at] iped.uio.no
Antonio Piccinno (Università degli Studi di Bari, Italy) antonio.piccinno [at] uniba.it
Stefano Valtolina (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy) valtolin [at] di.unimi.it

Program Committee

Jose Abdelnour-Nocera (University of West London, United Kingdom)
Federico Cabitza (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy)
Pedro Campos (University of Madeira, Portugal)
Torkil Clemmensen (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark)
Serena Di Gaetano (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy)
Ines Di Loreto (Université de Technologie de Troyes, France)
Simone Diniz Junqueira Barbosa (PUC-Rio, Brasil)
Rosella Gennari (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy)
Teemu Leinonen (Aalto University, Finland)
Arminda Guerra Lopes (Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco, Portugal)
Jo Herstad (University of Oslo, Norway)
Angela Locoro (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca)
Johan Lundin (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)
Monica Maceli (Pratt Institute, USA)
Panos Markopoulos (TU Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
Alessandra Melonio (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy)
Louise Mifsud (Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Norway)