WikiSym, the 9th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration
OpenSym, the 2013 International Symposium on Open Collaboration

August 5-7, 2013 | Hong Kong, China

ACM In-cooperation with SIGWEB and SIGSOFT. Archived in the ACM Digital Library.

Research paper submission deadline: April 2, 2013 (March 17, 2013).

The 2013 Joint International Symposium on Open Collaboration (WikiSym + OpenSym 2013) is the premier conference on open collaboration research, including wikis and social media, Wikipedia, free, libre, and open source software, open access, open data and open government research. WikiSym is in its 9th year and will be complemented by OpenSym, a new conference on open collaboration research and an adjunct to the successful WikiSym conference series. WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 is the first conference to bring together the different strands of open collaboration research, seeking to create synergies and inspire new research between computer scientists, social scientists, legal scholars, and everyone interested in understanding open collaboration and how it is changing the world. Read more about the conference at wikisym.org/wsos2013.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: WIKIPEDIA RESEARCH TRACK

Topics of interest to the Wikipedia research track include, but are not limited to:

• What do particular articles or groups or articles tell us about the norms, governance and architecture of Wikipedia and its impact on media, politics and the social sphere? How is information on Wikipedia being shaped by the materiality of Wikipedia infrastructure?
• What is the impact of all/some of Wikipedia’s 211 language editions having on achieving the project’s goal to represent the “sum of all human knowledge”? Do smaller language editions follow the same development path as larger language editions? Can different representations in different languages tell us anything about cultural, national or regional differences?
• What are the gendered dimensions of Wikipedia editing? How are issues around power, knowledge and representation drawn into focus by gender, geography and other gaps and imbalances in Wikipedia editing?
• What skills/competencies/connections/world views are required to become an empowered member of the Wikimedia community? What does a Wikipedia literate person look like? How are those skills/competencies/connections/world views obtained and enacted?
• Does Wikipedia enact an open source of authoritative knowledge that impacts learning in formal and informal settings? For instance, how do students employ Wikipedia as a covert/overt source in their papers or as a generative site for problem formulation? Or how is Wikipedia being used as a serendipitous experience of knowledge acquisition? What methods can be employed to understand these varied utilizations?
• What is the effect of outreach initiatives involving the growing institutionalisation of Wikipedia activities? As galleries, libraries, archives and museums hire Wikipedians-in-residence to digitize, showcase and/or represent their collections, is Wikipedia able to fill some its key knowledge gaps? Or are there unintended effects of this institutionalization of knowledge?
• What are the methodological challenges to studying Wikipedia? How are researchers engaging with innovative methodologies to solve some of these problems? How are other researchers using traditional or well-established methods to study Wikipedia?
• How are wiki projects other than Wikipedia evolving? What are the benefits to studying other wiki projects and can comparisons and generalisations be made from our observations of these systems?
• How does information contained in Wikipedia shape our understanding of broader social, economic, and political practices and processes? What theoretical frameworks in social, economic, legal and other relevant theoretical traditions can be applied to enrich the academic discourse on Wikipedia?

SUBMISSION INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS

The following types of submissions are invited:

• Long research papers (5 to 10 pages)
• Short research papers (1 to 4 pages)
• Research posters (1 to 2 pages)
• Research presentations (1 to 10 pages)

Research papers present integrative reviews or original reports of substantive new theoretical or empirical work. Research papers will be reviewed by the research track program committee to meet rigorous academic standards of publication. Papers will be reviewed for relevance, conceptual quality, innovation and clarity of presentation. They must be written in English. At least one author of accepted papers is required to attend the conference in order to present the paper.

Research presentations present integrative reviews or original reports of substantive new theoretical or empirical work. This is a new format is specifically aimed at the requirements of social science researchers enabling those researchers to use WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 (WS+OS) as a pre-publication venue before journal publication. Only the abstracts of these papers will be published as part of the proceedings thus leaving open the opportunity for journal publication at a later date. Research presentations will be reviewed by the research track program committee to meet rigorous academic standards just like research papers.

Research posters enable researchers to present late-breaking research results, significant research work in progress, or research work that is best communicated in conversation. WS+OS’s lively poster sessions let conference attendees exchange ideas one-on-one with authors, and let authors discuss their work in detail with those attendees most deeply interested in the topic. Successful applicants will display their posters, up to 1x2m in size, at a special session during the event.

Submissions for experience reports (long and short), tutorials, workshops, panels, non-research posters, and demos are also sought but are handled through the community track, please see the community track call for submissions. Submissions to WS+OS’s Doctoral Symposium are also sought but are handled separately, please see the doctoral symposium call for submissions.

Submissions should follow the standard ACM SIG proceedings format. For advice and templates, please see http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates. All papers must conform at time of submission to the formatting instructions and must not exceed the page limits, including all text, references, appendices and figures. All submissions must in PDF format.

All papers and posters should be submitted electronically through EasyChair using the following URL: https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=wikisym2013.

Continue reading Call for Papers: Wikipedia Research Track at WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 →