*** Preliminary Call for Papers *** 8th International Symposium on End-User Development (IS-EUD 2021): "Democratizing AI Development" July 6-8, 2021, Atlantica Miramare Beach Hotel 4*, Limassol, Cyprus http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/lm/lm.php?tk=YWlyLUwJCQlhaXItTEBsaXN0c2Vydi5... End-user development (EUD) aims at empowering end users to develop and adapt systems at a level of complexity that is adequate to their expertise, practices, and skills. EUD may occur along the entire software lifecycle, with the purpose of making users able to participate in their artifact development, not only at design time, but also during actual use. Originally, EUD was conceived as a more general concept than end-user programming; thus, scholars proposed methods, techniques and tools that allow end users to modify or extend software artifacts, such as spreadsheets, web applications, video games, and mobile applications. In the co-called Internet of Things era, end-user development moved on to address the problem of defining and modifying the behavior of smart environments, including smart objects, pervasive displays, smart homes, smart cities, and so on. Therefore, the term "end-user development" acquired a broader meaning covering approaches, frameworks and socio-technical environments that allow end users to express themselves in crafting digital artifacts that encompass both software and hardware technology. Recent research and technological trends like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, Cyber-Security, Robotics, and Industry 4.0, have contributed to renew the vision of end-user development, by providing tools and platforms that allow end users to harness the power of AI to create solutions involving Computer Vision, Image Processing, Conversational User Interfaces, as well as solutions for smart environments. Such developments lower the threshold for creating AI solutions, and expand the programmer base for such solutions, by extending AI application both for professional and discretionary use. IS-EUD is a bi-annual event for researchers and practitioners with an interdisciplinary approach to EUD, including: Human-Computer Interaction, Software Engineering, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Human-Work Interaction Design, and related areas. IS-EUD 2021 Theme: Democratizing AI Development The 2021 edition of IS-EUD focuses on EUD for AI-based systems, where end users are called on to become end-user developers of intelligent agents, digital twins, collaborative and social robots. This edition would like to discuss the adoption of EUD in new fields, the proposal of novel EUD paradigms, and the impact of AI-based EUD in terms of user acceptability and appropriation. One of the most interesting topics in human-AI interaction is explainability of AI-based systems: research submissions presenting end- user oriented solutions to this problem will be particularly welcome. Theoretical and empirical work analyzing pros and cons of this new EUD wave, identifying requirements for end-user development of AI and acceptance of related solutions is invited. Software infrastructures and eco- systems supporting the reuse of solutions and the emergence of meta- design practices are of particular interest to this community, linking the challenges relating AI to topics central to the IS-EUD community. Conference Topics The conference welcomes contributions that: · describe new, simple and efficient environments for end-user development · describe new processes, methods and techniques for empowering users to create, modify and tailor digital artifacts · present case studies and design implications on challenges and practices of end-user development · develop theoretical concepts and foundations for the field of end-user development Specific topics include (but are not limited to) the following ones: · User-oriented orchestration of AI-based devices · Conversational interfaces for end-user development · End-user development for big data visualization and exploration · End-user development for collaborative robotics · End-user development for social robotics · End-user development in Industry 4.0 · End-user development and explainable AI-based systems · Cybersecurity and end-user development · End-user development in daily life · Technologies and infrastructures for end-user development · Empirical studies of end-user development · Recommender systems to support end-user development · Cultures of participation and meta-design approaches · Technology acceptance and adoption studies of end-user development technologies · Evaluation of end-user development technologies · Supporting creative work through end-user development Submissions We invite two types of paper submissions: 1. Long papers, up to 16 pages, describing original unpublished research making a substantial contribution to the research field 2. Short papers, up to 8 pages, describing original unpublished research, making a small but solid contribution to the field All submissions will be reviewed by the Program Committee. Accepted papers (both long and short) will appear in the archival proceedings of IS-EUD 2021, published by Springer in the Lecture Notes on Computer Science (LNCS) series, and will be presented in plenary sessions of the conference. Work in Progress submissions (max 4 pages) and Demonstration papers (max 4 pages) are also welcomed. A Demonstration paper should be structured according to the following: · Abstract (150 words maximum) · Topics to be covered and their relevance to the EUD community · Detailed description of the planned demonstration activity · Diagrams or screenshots (if relevant) · Supporting documentation (e.g., project website) · References Work in Progress submissions are intended for presenting preliminary results or tentative findings and position papers. The authors of accepted contributions will have the opportunity to give an oral presentation during parallel sessions. Workshop proposals are invited (max 4 pages) aligned to the themes of the conference. Workshops provide an informal setting where participants have the opportunity to discuss specific topics in an atmosphere that fosters the active exchange of ideas. Workshops can be half day or one-day long. Finally, the IS-EUD Doctoral Consortium is intended to bring together PhD students working on theory and application of EUD. We particularly encourage students that are about half-way through their doctoral research to submit doctoral consortium abstracts (max 4 pages) describing the topic of their PhD, their approach and a summary of their progress. Submissions of all types should be carefully formatted according to the Springer LNCS format: http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/lm/lm.php?tk=YWlyLUwJCQlhaXItTEBsaXN0c2Vydi5... and should be submitted according to the submission instructions (detailed information will appear soon on the conference web site). Important Dates · Long and Short papers submission: March 8, 2021 · Notification: March 30, 2021 · Camera-ready: April 30, 2021 · Workshop proposal submission: March 8, 2021 · Notification: March 15, 2021 · Camera-ready: April 30, 2021 · Demonstration and Work in Progress submission: April 7, 2021 · Notification: April 21, 2021 · Camera-ready: April 30, 2021 · Doctoral Consortium submission: April 7, 2021 · Notification: April 30, 2021 · Camera-ready: May 15, 2021 Organizers General Chairs · Panos Markopoulos (Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands) · George A. Papadopoulos (University of Cyprus, Cyprus) Program Chairs · Daniela Fogli (University of Brescia, Italy) · Daniel Tetteroo (Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands) Short papers Chairs · Barbara Rita Barricelli (University of Brescia, Italy) · Simone Borsci (University of Twente, The Netherlands) Work in Progress Chairs · Jelle Van Dijk (University of Twente, The Netherlands) · Carmen Santoro (ISTI-CNR, Italy) Demonstration Chair · Stefano Valtolina (University of Milan, Italy) Workshop Chairs · Styliani Kleanthous (Open University of Cyprus, Cyprus) · Simone Stumpf (City University London, UK) Doctoral Consortium Chairs · Monica Maceli (Pratt Institute, USA) · Antonio Piccinno (University of Bari, Italy)