[AISWorld] CfP 2nd Weizenbaum Conference “Challenges of Digital Inequality” in Berlin

[Hanna Krasnova]

*Call for Papers for the 2nd Weizenbaum Conference *
*Challenges of Digital Inequality: Digital Education | Digital Work |
Digital Life*

*weizenbaum-conference.org <http://weizenbaum-conference.org/>  *

*The Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society is organising a
conference on Thursday, 16 May and Friday, 17 May 2019 on the subject of
“Challenges of Digital Inequality: Digital Education, Digital Work, Digital
Life” and invites you to submit short and regular papers for presentation
at the conference.  **The aim of the conference is to bring together
different disciplinary perspectives (e.g. education and social sciences,
legal studies, communication science, computer science, economics science
and engineering science) to highlight the challenges, drivers and
consequences of inequality in the age of digitalisation.  **In this
context, we strive to identify viable solutions to ensure the creation of a
self-determined society.*

Digitalisation transforms the society we live in today: It changes the way
we communicate, learn, work, and live. Digital technologies provide access
to information anytime and anywhere and promise to empower users around the
world by delivering more and easier opportunities for transparency and
social participation. Despite this potential, modern societies are
increasingly witnessing a gaping chasm of inequality as social actors
experience differential results of ubiquitous digitalisation around the
world. Understanding and finding ways to solve this paradox is a primary
motivation for the Weizenbaum Conference 2019.

For example, the question of whether the digital transformation of
education reduces or exacerbates inequalities remains open. Indeed, while
popular online learning platforms allow global access to educational
materials for anyone, their use is highly dependent on appropriate Internet
access and a certain level of Internet skills. Furthermore, many existing
online learning platforms are designed for specific cultural contexts and
frequently fail to account for users with special needs. As a result,
existing inequalities might be further solidified instead of mitigated. For
instance, many refugees struggle with a stable Internet connection upon
their arrival to a host country which slows down their progress of learning
the language and impedes social inclusion. In the context of school
education, available equipment, Internet access, the curriculum, teaching
methods as well as teachers’ competencies could be contributing factors for
inequality. While demands for more inclusive ways of education have reached
schools, practice reveals pressing challenges that need to be overcome. In
this context, digital tools may offer solutions, but can also build
barriers.

The world of research is also not immune to inequality struggles.
Digitalisation is a prerequisite when it comes to research collaboration,
as well as the production and presentation of research findings.
Nonetheless, access to research output varies from institution to
institution, as does the researchers’ ability to publish in the open access
format. To address these issues, open access and open research data are
currently on everyone’s lips, with other aspects of open science, such as
citizen science, also on the rise.

As labour markets are witnessing tremendous digital transformation, more
and more workers choose to leverage digital tools to engage in the new
“platform economy”, promising more autonomy and flexibility. These
developments are challenging traditional approaches to the welfare state as
well as open new gateways for discrimination, which calls for new
approaches to address these developments. Furthermore, as companies
actively embrace digital solutions and automation, demands for new digital
skill sets and qualifications are pressing. Large enterprises have already
focused their strategies on developing new competencies in their workforce.
However, small and medium-sized enterprises are still in the orientation
phase and are often lost when it comes to developing digital skill
strategies for their employees.
On the individual level, digitalisation is blurring the boundaries between
personal life and work, dividing workers between those who can and those
who cannot accommodate to the new realities of constant availability.
Furthermore, usage patterns, contextual and personality characteristics all
contribute to the outcomes users obtain online. For example, while active
participation on social media has been linked to beneficial outcomes such
as social connectedness, social capital, and gains in social support,
passive use of these technologies has been associated with negative
outcomes like decreased life satisfaction and negative affectivity.
Untangling these complexities is a critical research challenge to ensure
beneficial uses of emerging technologies for all.

Finally, with the growing popularity of automated algorithmic
decision-making, there are concerns that existing inequalities are
solidified as a result of data-driven decisions and inherent biases. Many
life-changing decisions like whether to keep someone in preventive
detention are already relying on automated algorithms. Existing
inequalities can be aggravated for example if biased data is used as the
ground truth to train algorithms. At the same time, a lack of transparency
impedes the detection of inbuilt moral assumptions, biases, and priorities
underlying the algorithm. Hence, it is very difficult or even impossible
for systematically disfavoured groups or individuals to question decisions
and demand fair re-evaluation.

Taking the lens of digital inequality, this conference seeks contributions
that help to steer self-determined digital transformation in digital
education, digital work, and digital life. In line with the mission of the
Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, we set to explore
possibilities to shape digital change in a meaningful way.

We invite *short papers of 2 pages *and *regular papers of 7 pages*.
Conference updates will continuously be posted on the Conference website:
https://weizenbaum-conference.org

*KEY DATES*
*STEP 1 (mandatory)*: To ensure that your paper fits the overarching theme
of the conference, please submit a short abstract (300 words) by *11 January
2019* or before per email at: weizenbaum-conference at wzb.eu.
Notification on the theme fit will be issued by 18 January 2019 at the
latest.
*STEP 2 (contingent on the decision at STEP 1)*: short (2 pages) and
regular (7 pages) papers must be submitted by *8 February 2019*. All
submissions should follow the provided template and be submitted via the
abstract submission system
Decision notification will be issued by 8 March 2019.
*STEP 3:* Authors of accepted papers are given the opportunity to revise
their submissions based on reviewers’ feedback by 5 April 2019. Both short
and long papers will be published in the proceedings. Authors of long
papers will be given the opportunity to present their paper at the
conference, while authors of short papers will be asked to present their
work as a poster.

*Thematic Priorities of the Conference:*
• Perspectives on Marginalized Groups in the Digital Society
• Digital Inequality and Digital Divide
• Inclusion and Digital Education
• Adoption of Digital Education in Schools and Higher Education
• Digital Teaching and Digital Learning
• Designing Engaging Learning Experiences
• Legal Aspects of Open Education, Learning Analytics, and Educational Data
Mining
• Ethical Challenges of Digital Education and Learning Analytics
• Digital Science and Research Lifecycle in the Digital Age
• Open Science, Open Access, and Open Research Data
• Citizen Science and Automatization of Science
• Critical Perspectives on Measuring Research Productivity
• Digital Work: Skill Change, Education, and Learning
• New Forms and Dynamics of Work in the Digital World
• Digital Transformation of the Labour Market
• Competencies for Participation in the New Platform Economy
• Discrimination in the Sharing Economy
• Algorithmic Governance: Using Data Intelligence at the Workplace
• Work-Life Balance and Work-Life Integration
• Labour Law and Legal Aspects of Digital Surveillance
• Dark Sides of Digital Work: Stress, Overload, Social Isolation,
Exclusion, Surveillance
• Digitised Individual, Health, and Well-Being
• Digitised Individual, Work, and Performance
• Digitised Individual, Society, and Policy Implications
• Legal Issues of Digital Self

*ABOUT THE WEIZENBAUM INSTITUTE*
The Weizenbaum Institute investigates the current changes in all aspects of
society occurring in response to digitalisation. Our goals are to develop a
comprehensive understanding of these changes based on rigorous academic
analysis and to offer informed strategies to address them at a political
and economic level. The Weizenbaum Institute is funded by the Federal
Ministry of Education and Research with € 50 million over 5 years. The
consortium is coordinated by the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and
includes the four Berlin universities – Freie Universität Berlin,
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, Universität
der Künste Berlin – as well as the Universität Potsdam and the Fraunhofer
Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS).
The Berlin-Brandenburg Consortium focuses on the interaction of the social
sciences, economics and law with design research and computer science.
Interdisciplinary basic research and the exploration of concrete solutions
in practice-based labs are combined with knowledge transfer into politics,
business, and society. The conceptual design of the Institute aims to
achieve scientific excellence with a nationwide and international impact,
as well as networking with cooperation partners from civil society,
business, politics, and the media.
The institute is named after the computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum, who
was born in Berlin in 1923 and passed away in 2008. His entire life’s work
was concerned with the socio-critical dialogue between man and machine.

More information: www.weizenbaum-institut.de
______

Prof. Dr. Hanna Krasnova, Chair
Chair of Business Informatics, esp. Social Media and Data Science
Universität Potsdam
Principal Investigator
Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society: The German Internet
Institute
www.vernetzung-und-gesellschaft.de