[AISWorld] ItAIS 2017 Call for papers for track T06: "Digital people living in a digital society: the force and the dark side of online communities"

[Alessio Maria Braccini]

Apologies for Cross Postings!
********************************

Important dates:
Deadline for encouraged abstract submission: May 14th, 2017
Deadline for full paper submission: June 11, 2017
Notification of acceptance: July 11, 2017
Final paper submission: September 10, 2017
Doctoral Consortium: October 6, 2017
Conference: October 6 – 7, 2017

Submit a paper: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=itais2017
Conference website: http://www.itais.org/conference/2017/

Internet and ICTs are everyday more and more pervasive. Not only they reach day by day an increasing share of the world population, but they also continuously impact on people, organizations, and the society making available new affordances, which may also involve new hindrances. ICTs and Internet technologies increase the easiness of resources sharing, information diffusion, and cooperation among groups of people who have sporadic physical contacts, who lack previous acquaintance, and whose interaction is mainly mediated through social media.

The born online communities of people, thanks to such enabling conditions, have affected individuals, teams, and organization. The nature of this influence is still under dispute. On one side, we observe online communities being used by individuals, teams and organizations to work and cooperate in a hitherto unseen manner, affording for flexibility, increased absorptive capacity, participated knowledge generation and circulation, empowered capability to pursue communal objectives together. On the other side, online communities form detached virtual worlds where people live in a bubble based on alternative facts and reality. Online communities clash and crash existing institution which are subject to shocks: companies are dematerialized with performance improvements and jobs losses and transformation (like in the case of crowdsourcing platforms, or professional networks, or digital marketplaces); industries are disrupted and replaced by digital platforms; institutions and political parties are challenged by new forms of self-organizing.

Throughout the years these initiatives being utilized by people and organizations have produced both great success and spectacular failures. Several communities are live, continuously producing ideas, and engaging members on daily activities. Other instead are silent and fail in achieving their objectives. This track aims at furthering the debate among scholars on the bright and the dark side of online communities by contributing to the generation of theoretical knowledge on how online communities affect people and organizations in a digital society. The track welcomes both theoretical and empirical contributions studying online communities, in whatever context and under whichever perspective.

Submissions will be evaluated through a standard blind review process. Track chairs will ensure anonymity of the review process.
Authors are highly encouraged to seek guidance from Track Chairs prior submitting the paper. We highly encourage authors to formalize this process by sending an abstract to the Track Chairs to receive feedback and guidance. Formal submission must specify the track that they are intended for. The page limit for contributions submitted in English is equal to 12 pages (maximum). Formatting rules (LNCS Springer format) are available at this link: http://www.springer.com/it/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines
Deadline for encouraged abstract submission: May 14, 2017 Deadline for full paper submission: June 11, 2017

TRACK CHAIRS
Alessio Maria Braccini
University of Tuscia, Viterbo (Italy)

Øystein Sæbø
University of Agder, Kristiansand (Norway)

Tommaso Federici
University of Tuscia, Viterbo (Italy)