From a colleague, David McDonald:
Call for Participation 2013 Social Computational Systems (SoCS) Community Meeting June 28-29, 2013 Seattle, Washington The Social Computational Systems (SoCS) program, funded and managed by the National Science Foundation, was called out as a model Social Computing program in the January 2013 PCAST Report "Designing a Digital Future: Federally Funded Research and Development in Networking and Information Technology". Given this recent attention, it is important to identify key attributes that serve to make research programs successful and valuable. Further, the attention provides the opportunity to consider future research trajectories in Social Computing to begin informing the trajectory of any potential follow-on programs. The SoCS Community Meeting will be part of the 2013 SoCS PI Meeting to be held June 28-29 in Seattle, Washington. The goal of the Community Meeting is to spur conversations about what has made SoCS successful and what might serve to make future programs intellectually challenging and interesting to the growing research community. Individuals who would like to participate in the 2013 SoCS Community Meeting should submit a 4 page position paper on one of the two following topics: 1. The Best of Social Computing Research - Position papers in this topic should consider 1-3 outstanding research contributions that should be promoted as exemplary research contributions to Social Computing (broadly construed). The position paper should describe which technologes, methods, features, attributes, insights, or measures contribute to each papers status as a "best" in Social Computing. 2. Future Challenges for Social Computing Research - Position papers addressing this topic will focus on describing 1-3 research challenges that cannot be solved today, but which, if studied and solved, would drive the area of Social Computing to make critical advances to Computing and at least one other research discipline (e.g., psychology, sociology, political science, behavioral economics, social networks, cultural studies, communications, organization science, etc.). For each challenge the position paper should outline what would likely need to be provided as infrastructure, what types of research collaborations would be necessary, and how the broader impacts of the challenge could be realized. Position papers should be submitted in email as PDF attachments to <socs.meeting.2013@gmail.com<mailto:socs.meeting.2013@gmail.com>> by MONDAY MAY 6, 2013. Participation will be competitive based on review of the position papers. We anticipate extending between 12 and 20 invitations to attend. Invited attendees will be provided travel support that should cover the majority of their expenses to attend the meeting.