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WikiSym 2012 - Call for Participation

8th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration
August 27-29, 2012 | Linz, Austria

The International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym) is the premier conference on open collaboration and related technologies. In 2012, WikiSym celebrates its 8th year of scholarly, technical and community innovation in Linz, Austria.  We are excited this year to be collocated with Ars Electronica, the premier digital art and science meeting that attracts over 35,000 attendees per year.

Submissions are invited for the following categories:

*As determined at the International Date Line. In other words, as long as it's still April 13th or April 27 somewhere on Earth, the system will accept your submission.

The conference program will include a peer-reviewed research track, experience reports, workshops, posters, demos, a doctoral consortium, invited keynotes and panel speakers. As always, the participant-organized Open Space track will run throughout the conference. Evening social events will follow, because wiki folks know the value of a good party for sparking conversation and collaboration. Finally, WikiSym co-occurs with Ars Electronica, and we are arranging experiences where conference attendees can enjoy this innovative and unusual event.

Topics appropriate for submissions include all aspects of the people, tools, contexts, and content that comprise open collaboration systems. For example:

• Collaboration tools and processes
• Social and cultural aspects of collaboration
• Collaboration beyond text: images, video, sound, etc.
• Communities and workgroups
• Knowledge and information production
• New media literacies
• Uses and impact of wikis and other open resources, tools, and practices in fields and application areas, for example:
  Open source software development and use
  • Education and Open Educational Resources
  • E-government, open government, and public policy
  • Law/Intellectual Property (including Creative Commons)
  • Journalism (including participatory journalism)
  • Art and Entertainment (including collaborative and audience-involved art)
  • Science (including collaboratories)
  • Publishing (including open access and open review models)
  • Business (including open and collaborative management styles)

In addition to research and development topics, WikiSym also invites innovative proposals for open, collaborative art and performance.  These proposals should be made directly to the conference chairs.

General submission instructions and information

All accepted submissions will be published in the WikiSym proceedings and archived in the ACM Digital Library. Long and short research papers will be rigorously peer reviewed and treated as archival publications. Submissions to other tracks will also be reviewed and appear in the ACM DL, but they are considered to be non-archival and may be used as the basis for later publications. Authors of research papers and notes should use the ACM/CHI SIG Proceedings Format, and other contribution types should use the ACM/CHI Extended Abstracts Format. 

General submission instructions will be posted and the conference submission site opened around March 1. Instructions for the various contribution types are below.

Research Papers – Long (1 to 10 pages) and Short (1 to 4 pages)

Research papers present integrative reviews or original reports of substantive new work: theoretical, empirical, and/or in the design, development and/or deployment of novel systems.
Research papers will be reviewed by the Program Committee to meet rigorous academic standards of publication. Papers will be reviewed for relevance, conceptual quality, innovation and clarity of presentation. They should be written in English and must not exceed 10 pages (for full papers) or 4 pages (for short papers). At least one author of accepted papers is required to attend the conference in order to present the paper. Papers may be short (4 pages max) or long (10 pages max), and should follow the standard

Papers should be submitted via EasyChair by April 13th. Papers may be short (4 pages max) or long (10 pages max), and should follow the standard ACM papers template.

Workshops (1 to 6 pages, Extended Abstracts format)

Workshops provide an opportunity for researchers and practitioners to discuss and learn about topics that require in-depth, extended engagement such as new systems, research methods, standards, and formats.

Workshop proposals should describe what you intend to do and how your session will meet the criteria described above. It should include a concise abstract, proposed time frame (half-day or full-day), what you plan to do during the workshop, and one-paragraph biographies of all organizers. Workshop proposals will be reviewed and selected for their interest to the community. Each accepted workshop will be provided with a meeting room for either a half or full day. Organizers may also request technology and materials (projector, flip pads, etc).

Please submit your workshop proposals to Jude Yew (jyew@umich.edu) by April 13th. These should be submitted with the CHI Extended Abstracts template.

Panels (1 to 6 pages, Extended Abstracts format)

Panels provide an interactive forum for bringing together people with interesting points of view to discuss compelling issues around open collaboration. Panels involve participation from both the panelists and audience members in a lively discussion. Proposals for panels should describe the topics and goals and explain how the panel will be organized and how the Wikisym community will benefit. It should include a concise abstract and one-paragraph biographies of panelists and moderators. Panel submissions will be reviewed and selected for their interest to the community. Each panel will be given a 90-minute time slot.

Please submit your proposals to Jude Yew (jyew@umich.edu) by April 13th. Panels should be submitted with the CHI Extended Abstracts template.

Experience Reports (1 to 16 pages, Extended Abstracts format)

Experience reports are an integral part of the conference program. These are opportunities to discuss how ideas that sound good on paper (and at conferences!) work in real life projects and deployments. Many attendees want to learn from people on the front lines what it is like to do things like start a company wiki, use open collaboration tools in a classroom, or build a political campaign around open collaboration systems. Experience reports are not research papers; their goal is to present experience and reflections on a particular case, and they are reviewed for usefulness, clarity and reflection. Strong experience reports discuss both benefits and drawbacks of the approaches used and clearly call out lessons learned. Reports may focus on a particular aspect of technology usage and practice, or describe broad project experiences.

Experience reports should be submitted by April 13th via EasyChair. Experience reports may be up to 16 pages and should follow the CHI Extended Abstracts template.

Posters (1 to 4 pages, Extended Abstracts format)

Poster presentations enable researchers to present late-breaking results, significant work in progress, or work that is best communicated in conversation. WikiSym'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. Poster proposals may describe original research, engineering, or experience reports. Successful applicants will display their posters, up to 1x2m in size, at a special session during the Symposium.

Posters should be submitted by June 13th via EasyChair. Posters may be up to 4 pages and should follow the CHI Extended Abstracts template.

Demos (1 to 4 pages, Extended Abstracts format)

No format is better suited for demonstrating the utility of new collaboration technologies than showing and using them. Demonstrations give presenters an opportunity to show running systems and gather feedback. Demo submissions should provide a setup for the demo, a specific description of what you plan to demo, what you hope to get out of demoing, and how the audience will benefit. A short note of any special technical requirements should be included. Demo submissions will be reviewed based on their relevance to the community.

Please email demo proposals to Heather Ford (hfordsawikisym@gmail.com) by June 13th. Demos should follow the CHI Extended Abstracts template.

Doctoral Symposium

The WikiSym 2012 Doctoral Symposium is a forum in which Ph.D. students can meet and discuss their work with each other and a panel of experienced researchers and practitioners. The symposium will be held on August 26 in Linz, Austria to coincide with Ars Electronica.

Important dates:

We encourage participation from all doctoral students doing work related to open collaboration, regardless of their academic discipline. Relevant disciplines include (but are not limited to) computer science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, information science, cognitive science, rhetoric, communications, and economics. Applicants should be PhD students with a clear focus or programme of research. This workshop will help to strengthen and sharpen the research focus and implementation, rather than generate specific ideas for research. Preference will be given to students who already have begun their dissertations and are within two years of graduation.

The Symposium committee will select 8-10 participants. Participants will present their work at the Symposium; each student presentation will be followed by feedback from a faculty mentor and extensive group discussion. 

How to Apply: Applicants should submit the following items through the (EasyChair Conference System)

A two-page overview of your doctoral research that describes your research question, any work in progress, and expected contributions of the dissertation as well as expectations for this doctoral symposium. This overview should begin with an abstract of no more than 100 words. Please submit in the CHI Extended Abstract Format (Word Template from CHI 2010, please remove copyright notice)

• A half page biographical sketch, and a short paragraph about your current supervisor including contact information.
  *An up-to-date curriculum vita.
  *Optionally, one publication as an indicator of your progress in your research.

Open Space

For short and informal opportunities to organize discussion, brain-storming, and other collaborative activities, the Open Space track will run throughout WikiSym. Open Space is an entirely participant-organized track and requires no submission or review.

Note on Publications

Work submitted to Wikisym is published in the ACM digital library.  This means it is not open access.  However, ACM has a very new service called ACM Author-izer which allows authors to post official copies of their papers on personal websites for people to access, even if those people do not have access to the ACM digital library.  We see this as a step to open access and are pleased to support this service.

http://www.acm.org/publications/acm-author-izer-service