[AISWorld] Social Media, Crowd Sourcing, and Public Health: paper due on May 25

[Mohd Anwar]

Dear Colleague:
Please consider submission.

Thanks so much for your time and consideration. 
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The 4th International Workshop on Issues and Challenges in Social Computing
(WICSOC 2015) - Social Media, Crowd Sourcing, and Public Health

Social Computing Technologies (SCT) offer users opportunities for
connectedness, participation and engagement, collaboration,
offering/receiving
social support, etc. These applications/systems gather abundance of
information that when mined and analyzed will further enrich their services
or help researchers understand many different things including social
dynamics of people, wisdom of crowd, social construction and sharing of
knowledge, etc. As a result, SCT can be leveraged to empower both health
professional and citizens. Online Social media such as Facebook, Twitter,
QuitNet are increasingly being used for health-related purposes. A 2013
online survey suggests that 59.9% patients used Twitter for increasing
knowledge and exchanging advice and 52.3% used Facebook for social support
and exchanging advice (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23899831).

Novel techniques for information analysis, reuse, and integration are
critical to make sense of health-related information. Systematic
approaches,
design principles, and evaluation strategies need to be researched for
developing effective health-related social computing applications. Other
challenges in social computing include accommodating privacy, security, and
trust expectations of users or separating good information from noise.
The aim of this workshop is to discuss and exchange ideas on the issues and
challenges in social computing systems as they relate to health care
and public health. We invite research or position papers from researchers
and practitioners working in any aspect of social computing with research
focus on health, healthcare, or public health. Example topics, but not
limited to, include:


  -> Design, modeling, and simulation of socially-aware health technology
  -> Demonstration cases of using existing social media platforms (e.g.,
twitter, facebook) for health research
  -> Social network analysis for the purpose of understanding or
intervening upon health related outcomes
  -> Behavioral intervention implemented through social media platforms
  -> Disease & health management using social media applications
  -> Crowdsourcing health or biomedical research
  -> Public health resource sensing or crowdsourcing of public health
resources
  -> In time, in place healthcare information through social media
  -> Design and evaluation of online patient communities with social
network features
  -> Healthcare/mHealth Social Networks
  -> Data protection (Privacy, Security, Trust) in healthcare social
networks
  -> Empowerment of patients and healthcare professionals
  -> Design and evaluation of social game for health education & awareness
  -> Classification and categorization of health information in social
media
  -> Mining of big Data for population health monitoring or intervention
  -> Social computing application for health & wellness management

All contributions will be peer-reviewed by at least three experts. Papers
should be 4-6 pages (English) in IEEE format, including bibliography and
well-marked appendices. Accepted papers will be published as workshop
papers in the IEEE IRI conference proceedings.

The extended versions of the best papers from the workshop will be
considered for journal publications.

Important Dates - Submission: May 25    

Contact: manwar (at) ncat.edu     URL: http://wicsoc.ncat.edu