Call for Papers (CFP): The Serendipity Factor: Evaluating the Affordances of Digital Environments SEADE (pronounced ‘seed’) Workshop at CHIIR 2016 (ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval) http://sigir.org/chiir2016/ March 17, 2016, 9:00am-5:00pm, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States For two decades, research has sought to understand serendipity and how it may be facilitated in digital environments such as information visualization systems, search systems, and social media. The motivation for investigating serendipity comes from its association with positive outcomes that range from personal benefits to global rewards. To date, research has made significant headway in defining and mapping the process of serendipity and new tools are emerging to support it. But we lack robust methods of evaluating new or enhanced features, functions, and tools. The goal of the Workshop is to examine how we balance the tension between diversity and novelty in designing digital environments and subsequently how we evaluate the ‘serendipitousness’ of those environments. We invite participants from a range of disciplines (e.g., information science, HCI, digital humanities, cognitive science) and research perspectives to help us solve this wicked problem. How to participate Submit a 2-page paper using the ACM SIG Proceedings Template<http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates> about your ongoing work, recent results, or study methods related to serendipity, either published, or work in progress. Possible themes for these papers may include, but are not limited to: Evaluating whether or how digital environments enableserendipity 1. Use of qualitative methods such as interviews and think-aloud to evaluate user perceptions 2. Modifications to quantitative evaluation methods such as controlled experiments and log file analyses to test designs 3. Identification of factors other than the environment (e.g., context, individual differences, strategies, emotions, attitudes) that influence serendipity that should be taken into consideration during evaluation Designing elements and functions in digital environments so that serendipity is facilitated 1. Application of theory and models in the design (or evaluation) of affordances related to serendipity 2. Design of serendipitous digital environments (e.g., information visualization systems, recommender systems, digital libraries, search engines) Authors of selected papers will be asked to A) give “lightning talks” on their work through a 5-minute presentation; or B) participate in a “show and tell event” to demonstrate their project or prototype. In addition, just prior to and during the workshop we will be conducting a whirlwind Delphi study to identify essential and novel measures for assessing “serendipitousness.” The results of the group effort will be discussed at the Workshop to highlight pertinent measures. At least one author of each accepted paper must attend the workshop and all participants much register for the workshop. **Submissions and inquiries can be sent to Lori McCay-Peet [mccay@dal.ca<mailto:mccay@dal.ca>]** Important dates * Submission Deadline: December 1, 2015 * Notification: December 15, 2015 * Workshop date: March 17, 2016 Conference Organizers Lori McCay-Peet, Dalhousie University, Canada Elaine G. Toms, The University of Sheffield, UK Anabel Quan-Haase, The University of Western Ontario, Canada Program Committee Members Naresh Argawal, Simmons College, USA Jamshid Beheshti, McGill University, Canada Lennart Björneborn, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Sanda Erdelez, University of Missouri, USA Jannica Heinström, Åbo Akademi University, Finland Christoph Lutz, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland Stephann Makri, City University London, UK Kim Martin, University of Western Ontario, Canada Xu Sun, The University of Nottingham Ningbo China Simon Wakeling, University of Sheffield, UK — Lori McCay-Peet, PhD Assistant Professor School of Information Management Faculty of Management Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building 6100 University Avenue PO Box 15000 Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4R2 (902)494-6119