/* apologies for cross-postings */ Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government CeDEM 2017 17-19 May 2017, Danube University Krems, Austria http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/cedem17 Call for Papers --------------- Submission deadline for all papers, workshop proposals, reflections: 12 December 2016 The international Conference for e-Democracy and Open Government (CeDEM) brings together e-democracy, e-participation and open government specialists working in academia, politics, government and business to critically analyse the innovations, issues, ideas and challenges in the networked societies of the digital age. We invite individuals from academic and applied backgrounds as well as business, public authorities, NGOs, NPOs and education institutions to submit their papers, reflections as well as workshop proposals to the topics addressed in the tracks. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches to the conference topics/tracks: • Research papers/Case studies/Project papers: 12 pages maximum (double-blind peer-reviewed); • Reflections: 6 pages maximum (selected by the chairs); • Workshops: 4 pages maximum (selected by the chairs); • PhD Colloquium papers: 3 pages maximum (excluding literature list; selected by the colloquium track directors); Full papers submitted are peer-reviewed in a double-blind process, and published in IEEE Proceedings. Workshop proposals, PhD colloquium papers and Reflections selected by the chairs are published in the Edition Donau-UniversitätKrems Proceedings. The CeDEM offers a PhD Colloquium in cooperation with the Danube University Krems’ Platform for Political Communication and netPOL (www.netpol.at). The PhD Colloquium provides PhD students the opportunity to present their work and gain feedback from experts as well as meet other PhD students. Students from any stage of their PhD are invited to submit their work and apply for the CeDEM PhD Bursary.The CeDEM also provides an Open Space, where participants can submit proposals, then democratically choose and organise their own presentations, workshops, birds of a feather, events, meetings etc..Since 2014, the CeDEM conference presents the author/s of the best paper with the “CeDEM Best Paper Award”. Papers are nominated for this award by the reviewers during the peer-review process; the best paper is then selected by the CeDEM’s track directors.Authors of the best peer-reviewed papers will be asked to re-submit their revised and extended papers for the autumn issue of the Centre for E-Governance’s Open Access eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government (www.jedem.org). Important Dates =============== • Submission deadline for all papers, workshop proposals, reflections: 12 December 2016 • Notification of acceptance: 13 February 2017 • Camera-ready paper submission and author registration: 6 March 2017 • Conference: 17-19 May 2017 Conference Chairs ================= NoellaEdelmann & Peter Parycek (Danube University Krems, AT) noella.edelmann@donau-uni.ac.at peter.parycek@donau-uni.ac.at CeDEM17 Tracks ============== Track: E-Democracy and E-Participation ====================================== Chairs: Fiorella De Cindio (University of Milan, IT), Mauri Kaipainen (Södertörn University, SE), AlonPeled (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, IL) The explosion of social media is fuelling new and unanticipated directions in e-democracy and e-participation - from increased pressure for direct democracy, new ideas to engage citizens in service and/or policy co-design, co-delivery and co-evaluation. This session will explore the latest trends and ongoing challenges facing this evolving field, trying to outline the emerging traits of a new model of inclusive e-participation for local/territorial and global/virtual communities. We welcome papers presenting case studies and papers with a more theoretical focus, but encourage in particular authors to combine them for challenges, analyses and elaborations on further developments. Typical issues might be, but are not limited to: • Sustainability of e-participation and citizen engagement; best practices and key factors for success; motivational factors and the impact of participation; • Participatory and communication platforms; ICT for e-participation; mobile media and new forms of participation; applications for citizens; • New kinds of interactions between citizens and other societal stakeholders, citizens and government interaction, business and government interaction; different perspectives held by citizens, government, NGOs, NPOs, practitioners, service providers; • Citizen inclusion and digital divide: gender, age, education, etc.; • New approaches to direct democracy, new forms of democracy enhanced by ICT and the impact of new technologies, in particular block chains, to the development of e-participation; • Inclusive e-governance in the context of Regional Smart Specialisation; • Living Labs and Social Innovation; • E-participation and cooperation for development; • Business and e-participation; • Critical perspectives: wrongdoings, bad and worst experiences, hype but not reality, fringe groups; Track:Social Media, Public Administration and Citizen Engagement ================================================================ Chairs: Marko Skoric (Nanyang Technological University, SG), Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen (Tallinn University of Technology, EE), Natalie Pang (Nanyang Technological University, SG) Social media integrate Web 2.0 technologies, user-generated content creation, and social interactions in the domains of public administration and citizen engagement. It encourages innovations within governments towards organizational benefits (such as reducing transaction costs, efficient dissemination, cooperative and cross-organizational work etc.) and also fosters citizens' engagement with their governments. Topics include, but are not limited to: • Social media and social networks in public administration and government: practical experiences, theoretical approaches, legal frameworks: country reports; • Information provision, new services, service delivery, and service quality; • Social media platforms and applications to foster the interaction between public administration and citizens: e-consultation, participatory budgeting, participatory city planning, online petitions; • Inclusion, accessibility, legal obstacles, dos and don'ts, transparency and control: exploring the opportunities, risks and challenges of socialmedia platforms and applications in the public administration; • Types of citizens' social media use (informational, expressive,relational, entertainment, identity-building, etc.) and theirparticipatory outcomes/consequences; • Unintended consequences of social media uses and other emergingbehaviours such as polarisation, exposure to disagreement, echo chambers,and unfriending/unfollowing; • Social media use by political parties and citizen mobilisation duringthe elections; • Government surveillance of social media; surveillance as citizenfeedback. Track: Open Collaborative Government ==================================== Chairs: MuneoKaigo (University of Tsukuba, JP), Sylvia Archmann (Austrian Chancellery, AT) Collaboration across organizational boundaries can significantly increase the quality, the efficacy, and also the efficiency of government. However, it also faces many hindrances. In some situations the organizational reality reads "My agency is my castle". Particular objections exist against collaboration across different levels of government, and even more against collaboration between government and civil society or between government and industry. We are interested in research papers, which study the problems, present case studies, design innovation solutions, identify success and failure factors, or provide overviews of existing research results. Papers should highlight the role of information and communication technology, but they should equally discuss political, organizational, and/or cultural aspects. Topics ofinterestsinclude, but are not limited to: • Innovative collaboration platforms and tools; • The use of social media, collaboration, or decision making tools; • The role of interoperability as an enabler of collaboration, e.g. EIF and CEF infrastructure support collaboration; • The implementation of cross-organizational collaboration or decision making processes; • Informal or formal collaboration between government and civil society, PPPs (private-public-partnerships), shared funding, etc.; • Evaluation methods for collaboration initiatives; • Success or failure criteria, empirical observations of success; • Semantic, legal, organisational, contextual or other hindrances for collaboration. Track: Open Data, Transparency and Open Innovation ================================================== Chairs: Anneke Zuiderwijk (TU Delft, NL), Johann Höchtl (Danube University Krems, AT),Ramon Gil-Garcia (University at Albany, US) Open data can provide a platform for many forms of democratic engagement: from enabling citizen scrutiny of governments, to supporting co-production of public data and services, or the emergence of innovative solutions to shared problems. This track explores the opportunities and challenges to open data production, quality assurance, supply and use across different levels of governance. Key themes include: • Open data policy and politics: opportunities and challenges for governments; the global spread of open data policy; transparency and accountability, economic innovation, drivers for open data; benefits and challenges for developing countries; • Licensing and legal issues: copyright vs. open licenses & Creative Commons; Freedom of Information and the ‘right to data’; information sharing and privacy; • Open data technologies: technical frameworks for data and meta-data; mash-ups; data formats, standards and APIs; integration into backend systems; data visualisation; data quality; data end-users and intermediaries; • Open data as a valuable resource towards the European data market: Open Data and Public Sector Information as a source for Business Intelligence; Open Data, closed data and data market intermediaries; New market models, roles and responsibilities; • Open data as a social movement: How can the global trend towards open data be conceptualized as a form of collective action? How do challengers and incumbents organize and change? How is the data branch embedded in the field of open movements? • Open innovation and co-production: open data enabled models of public service provision; government as a platform; making open data innovation sustainable; data and democracy; connecting open data and crowdsourcing; data and information literacy; • Evidence and impacts: costs and benefits of providing or using open data; emerging good practices; methods for open data research; empirical data measuring open data impacts, public value generation and open data. Track: Citizens’ Participation in Democratic Governance Processes through ICT in Africa ======================================================================================= Chairs: Johnstone Baguma – Kumaraki (Toro Development Network, UG), WakabiWairagala (CIPESA, UG), Wilfred Warioba (Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance, TZ) InformationCommunication Technologies (ICT) offer concrete opportunities for local and national governments to improve their performance in terms of transparency, participation and decentralization (Guchteneire and Mlikota, 2008). Many other scholars globally, have echoed related statements previously. However, the greatest challenge is that many are anecdotal and coming across empirical case studies to support such conclusions becomes difficult. For instance, this track will present evidence-based experiences of ICT-enabled, citizen-led democratic engagements for good governance in the Eastern and Southern African regions. The track will provide more normative than positive knowledge to practitioners, public sector, service providers and academic researchers. With comparison to other initiatives in Africa and the developing world, submissions should focus, for example, on: • How simple, affordable, and cost effective ICT tools are used to activate and facilitate local citizens’ participation in governance issues; • Electronic virtual platforms for citizens’ participation and e-participation; • Model discussions of how local citizens’-led advocacy forums, Voluntary Social Accountability Committees (VSACs), human rights networks and other initiatives in the region are using these platforms; • Initiatives that use the ICT tools convergence approach, that combine online social, broadcast media and mobile technology to mobilize local citizens for offline physical meetings, to democratically engage local and central government leaders; • Improving accountability for essential service delivery at the grassroot level; Track: Open Access ================== Chairs: Antonio Vetró(NexaCenter for Internet & Society, IT), Lorenzo Canova (NexaCenter for Internet & Society, IT) Open Access (OA) is a concept that applies to both scientific publications and other related entities, including scientific data, thatare freely accessible and reusable. The Berlin Declaration, one of the milestones of the Open Access movement, states that OA contributions must satisfy two conditions: that “a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works” is granted by the author(s) and rights holder(s) of such contributions and that a “complete version of the work and all supplemental materials” in a “standard electronic format” is available online, to ensure “unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving”.While we welcome any innovative contribution concerning OA, the focus of the track is on emerging models grounded on cooperation, defragmentation of resources, knowledge sharing and non-rivalrous reuse of significant amounts of content, with the aim of paving the path toward a “networked science”. In particular, we encourage the submission of papers on: • Robust methodologies and empirical analysis that are able to provide evidence about the benefits of OA; • Proposals concerning the use of OA repositories for innovative purposes, such as new forms of research assessment and evaluation; • Open scientific data, i.e., scientific data whose usage is unrestricted, or placed under permissive terms that guarantee the free access and reuse of data. Track: Communities, Participation and Civic Engagement ====================================================== Chairs:JakobSvensson (Uppsala University, SE), Judith Schossböck (Danube University Krems, AT), Peter Mambrey (Universität Duisburg-Essen, DE) Civic engagement in communities or in single-issue formations relies on the utilisation of ICT and the internet (in combination with traditional and offline methods) to mobilise, to coordinate activities and to organise discourse. This track welcomes papers that studies how so-called „new“ media facilitates, constrains, affords and influences such civic engagement and participation. We are interested in issues such as the logic of connective and collective action, aspects of peer production and a focus on communities, participation and citizens in different fields: from science (citizen science) to politics (bottom-up movements and activism). We welcome theoretical as well as empirical papers and are open to different types of methodological approaches including qualitative and innovate solutions to data-gathering. Topics include, but are not limited to: • The formation of communities and (collective) identities; • Bottom-up movements, grassroots activities and the counter-public sphere; • New media activism, hacktivism and modern forms of civic online engagement; • The study of social and cultural capital in new media or social media; • The study of power and (in)equality within bottom up movements as well as in relation to society at large; • The effects of new media usage on identities and behaviour of online groups and communities; • The logic and nature of civic online engagement and NGOs/NPOs in a network society; • Online spaces for self-organisation and the negotiation of (collective) identities; • User generated content, peer production and crowd-sourcing (including online research communities); • Citizen and group driven innovation (including citizen science and open innovation); • The methodology for the study of online communities (nethnography). Track: Information Visualization for the People =============================================== Chairs: Michael Smuc (Danube University Krems, AT), Florian Windhager (Danube University Krems, AT) From its early days to its current mass application as statistical charts or interactive infographics, information visualization has been striving for academic elaboration and the broadening of its target audiences. With specific regard to both of these aspects, the track is looking for contributions where information visualization meets political data and content in the public communication domain. Submissions may focus on case studies, evaluations, as well as conceptual or theoretical contributions on: • Translational work between academic and application oriented communities of practice; • Optimization of representations to provide insights into complex subject matters; • Non-expert audiences, casual infovis contexts and strategies for visual literacy development; • Transparency and critical reflection of design choices for visual representations; • Developments in the emerging field of data journalism or other public communication domains; Track: Connected Smart City =========================== Chairs: Carlos E. Jiménez Gómez (IEEE Computer Society e-Gov STC&estratic, US), Francisco Falcone (UPNA/IEEE STC e-GOV, ES), GabrielaViale Pereira (Danube University Krems, AT), Jörn von Lucke (Zeppelin University, DE), Norbert Kersting (University of Münster, DE) This track provides a platform for the various living labs, initiatives and projects that work on or with concepts of "Smart Cities". It aims at sharing experiences as well as test results and to further investigate relations of innovative technologies and democratic societies. Government & Governance, Citizenship & Cities as well as Information & Knowledge Society are key elements of a new view of the world as a “system” in which the aim should be to achieve the highest degree of governance within a city, where benefits are maximized and disadvantages are minimized. Contributions are especially appreciated on the following topics: • Becoming a smart city: Best practices, failures & practical challenges; • Successful technologies for encouraging citizen participation; • Successful technologies for integrating all dimensions of human, collective, and artificial intelligence within the city; • Smartness vs. Openness? Open data & Big data, Usability &Accessability, the internet of things and co-production; • Do smart cities need smart people? Relations of innovative technologies, democratic societies & concepts of "Smartness"; • The 4 incremental stages where ICT transform the public organizations and produce better services to the citizens: e-Administration, e-Government, Open Government and Smart Government; • The social implications of technology, social cities, the best options for citizens, avoiding the negative impacts of technology; • The Interoperability Principle as a part of the Open Government concept and linking this concept with the Smart Cities view; Track: E-Voting =============== Chairs: Robert Krimmer (Tallinn University of Technology, EE), Jesus Cano (IEEE eGovernment Co-chair, UNED, USPCEU, EU) Exploring a holistic approach to e-voting. Specifically, we aim to explore e-voting issues, gather perspectives and present practical solutions. Discussion of emerging technologies and their application to e-voting (kiosk and remote), often following outside-of-the-box thinking are particularly welcome: • Discussion of all forms of electronic voting: including, but not limited to, polling station, kiosk or remote voting by electronic means; • Interdisciplinary issues (e.g. technology, law, politics and society) in the design and implementation of e-voting; • Presenting new ways of solving the voting paradigm: the unequivocal identification of the voter and the full anonymity of the vote; • Implementations, their legal, organisational and technical framework, project experiences; • Analysis of the interrelationship between the effects of e-voting on democratic institutions, processes and voter behaviour; • Conducting social and political analysis on the effects of electronic voting; • Practical experiences in implementing and conducting elections with electronic voting parts; • Discussion of security requirements and testing in accordance to international security standards i.e. Common Criteria or ITSEC; • Evaluation of e-voting: the effects and how to evaluate experiments; • Verifiability of e-voting: individual and/or universal approaches to verification of e-voting; • Usability of e-voting: user interface evaluation and criteria for usability scales; • Future trends; Track: Political Communication & Public Spheres in a Digital Age ================================================================ Chairs: Christina Hainzl (Danube University, AT), Jonas Kaiser (Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Hardvard University, US), Francisco Seoane Perez (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, ESP), Cornelius Puschmann (Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet & Society and Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research at the University of Hamburg, DE), Markus Rhomberg (Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, DE) Digital communication is affecting all areas of political communication on a macro-, meso- and micro-level. Studying current phenomena like the UK referendum to leave the European Union, the campaign of Donald Trump, or other populist attempts to use migration, terrorism or security issue are challenging not only political actions, but also researchers. It is paramount to critically (re-)assess traditional models of democracy, the (transnational) public sphere, to analyse and compare the changing structure of the media environment and its impacts on discourse, participation, the effects of digital media on its users in a political context, as well as communication strategies of political organizations. We invite empirical and/or theoretical contributions, as well as case studies on the changing nature of the relationship between citizens, the public, political actors and the media in a digital environment.Typical issues might include, but are not limited to: • The implications of a (transnational) networked public sphere on the quality of modern democracy, discourses and political decision making; • Policy debates in a digital environment; • The role of experts in digital policy debates; • New agents and actors in the digital sphere; • Discourse structures, strategic framing, and issue careers; • Interactions and interdependencies between digital and traditional media; • New journalistic practices in a digital age; • Propaganda and deception in online discourse; • Diffusion of political communication online; • Critical assessments and reflections on a networked public sphere; • The role of counter-publics and populist political actors; • Effects of digital communication on user perceptions, attitudes, and political orientation; • Digital communication strategies and news management of political organizations in national and supranational contexts (e.g. government communication, strategies of international organizations, populist political communication). Track: Identity, Privacy, and Security ====================================== Chairs: ReinhardRiedl (Bern University of Applied Sciences, CH), Bettina Rinnerbauer(Danube University Krems, AT) We are looking for papers dealing with: The design, modeling, standardization, and use of electronic identities and trust services and/or the development of the eID ecosystem as a whole – focusing on issues such as: • Take-up by users and relying parties; • eIDAS and cross-border usage; • Use of eIDs in e-participation; Critical privacy issues such as • Correlation of data across different domains; • Identity misuse, violation of privacy, or abuse of personal data; • Measures to ensure and protect privacy rights; • Fundamental discussions of government obligations and roles; Cybersecurity in a democratic society such as • The needs for government actions; • The collaboration of actors from different sectors of society; • Specific threats in the context of e-democracy; Challenges of policy making related to identity, privacy, and security such as • Use of blockchain technology and other disruptive technologies; • Non-government solutions created by civil society; Aspects of trust related to identity, privacy, and security, such as • Cultural, social, and contextual differences; • The role of institutions. Track: Emerging Issues in E-Democracy and Open Government ========================================================= Chairs: MartijnHartog (The Hague University of Applied Sciences, NL),Bert Mulder (The Hague University of Applied Sciences, NL), Josef Hörmandinger (SalzburgerLandtag, AT), Yuri Misnikov (St. Petersburg State University, RU) The interdisciplinary track ‘Emerging Issues’ aims to broaden and deepen analysis, strategic foresight and development, future studies, innovations and quality assessments on the broad adoption of E-Democracy and Open Government in governmental organizations. Submissions should clarify the benefits, opportunities and challenges of the adoption of information and communication technologies by (digital) citizens and (digital) governments. Material and initiatives should reflect on how governments, suppliers and other stakeholders could create optimal circumstances to support a participatory society. Applicable topics of interest are: • Open Government, Transparency, E-Democracy; • Open Spending, Open Data, Linked Data, Big Data; • E-Participation, Co-Creation, Co-Design, Self-Governance, Networks, Smart Cities; IT Infrastructures and Architectures, Standardizations, Design Theories, Methods and Frameworks. Reflections =========== Chair: Michael Sachs (Danube University Krems, AT) Reflections are for ideas, methods, results and outcomes that are in progress, in the early stages, novel or innovative. They must represent original work and must not have been published previously. They can, but must not, address topics addressed in the tracks, or they can represent interdisciplinary approaches to the conference topics. Reflections are short papers, and will not be peer-reviewed. • The submissions should have a maximum of 6 pages and will be selected by the chairs of the conference; • Length: 6 pages max. Workshops ========= Chairs: MalgorzataGoraczek(Danube University Krems, AT), Thomas Lampoltshammer (Danube University Krems, AT) Workshops should focus on latest scientific research, emerging technologies and breakthroughs in policy and programme. The workshop content should be current, supported by research and consistent with best practices. They should promote and enhance opportunities for knowledge transfer, skills development and collaborative learning. Workshop proposals need to communicate a clear sense of the workshop: the goals, objectives, and how to transfer knowledge or the skills to the participants. They must target smaller audiences and focus on audience participation and interaction. Formats can be discussion or small group work, case-studies, demonstrations, role play, small group activities, problem-based learning. Whilst workshops can include 2-4 discussion leaders, the workshop should not represent a collection of presentations with a short question&answer session at the end. • Workshops last 90 minutes; • Submissions are selected by the chairs of the conference; • Length: 4 pages max. PhD Colloquium ============== Chairs: Anneke Zuiderwijk (TU Delft, NL), Christina Hainzl (Danube University Krems, AT), Peter Parycek (Danube University Krems, AT) The CeDEM offers a PhD Colloquium in cooperation with the Danube University Krems’ Platform for Political Communication and netPOL (www.netpol.at). The PhD Colloquium provides PhD students the opportunity to present their work and gain feedback from experts as well as meet other PhD students. Students from any stage of their PhD are invited to submit their work in relation to any of the conference topics. The PhD paper should try to address: aim of the PhD, theory and/or models, hypotheses, results, analysis of data, the PhD’s contribution to the body of knowledge. • PhD students can apply for a bursary: http://tinyurl.com/cedem17phd • Length: 7 pages max. -- Dr. Johann Höchtl Zentrum für E-Governance Donau-Universität Krems Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Straße 30 A-3500 Krems Tel.: ++43 2732 893 2304 Mail: Johann.hoechtl@donau-uni.ac.at