Call for Papers: ECIS 2019 Workshop – Engineering Accountable Information Systems

Introduction

The function of information systems in society is increasingly in focus of information systems research. One outstanding challenge is how to build information systems which promote accountability, as part of a wider debate on fairness, accountability, and transparency principles (e.g., ACM FAT*). This need for accountability must be reflected on all layers of systems engineering, ranging from process analysis to concrete technical components and primitives employed during implementation.

Based on our existing research we believe that three specific areas of information systems research are most relevant in this context: user cognition and human behaviour in relation to the design of interfaces; automated decision-making systems and decision-support systems; critical business processes with a particular need for accountability. In all these and further areas, accountability in complex information systems needs to be addressed through technical mechanisms. Existing high-level considerations on accountability in information systems notwithstanding, however, the concrete engineering and implementation of such mechanisms has so far received only limited attention. Similarly, the challenges arising during such transformations of abstract accountability concepts into concrete technologies as well as the critical evaluation of respective implementations are only rarely covered by existing research.

We see this workshop as an opportunity to close these gaps through engaging with the existing debate on accountability while integrating key knowledge from the information systems community. Importantly, our approach to accountable systems is not just focused on high level norms of system development, but indispensably also incorporates practical questions of engineering and designing actual systems. We therefore encourage submissions from the above-mentioned and other areas of accountability engineering as long as they sufficiently incorporate questions of concrete systems engineering and implementation.

Submission Guidelines

Authors should follow the ECIS 2019 guidelines for research in progress papers, with papers between 4 and 7 pages in length. A poster is not required.

Full details are available here: http://ecis2019.eu/information-to-authors

Submissions must be made through the EasyChair system via the following link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecis2019eais

For questions about the workshop, submissions or review process, contact the chairs via ecis2019eais[at]easychair[dot]org

Relevant Dates

•    Submissions due by March 15 2019
•    Replies by April 15 2019
•    Final Papers due June 1 2010
•    Workshop will be held on June 10 and 11, at Stockholm University’s Kista campus.

Organizing & Program Committee

Chairs

•    Ben Wagner, WU Vienna
•    Frank Pallas, TU Berlin
•    Florian Cech, TU Vienna
•    Ancsa Hannak, CSH Vienna

Program Committee

•    Soheil Human, WU Vienna
•    Till Winkler, WU Vienna
•    Niels ten Oever, University of Amsterdam
•    Jörg Pohle, HIIG Berlin
•    Claudia Müller-Birn, FU Berlin
•    Juhi Kulshreshta, GESIS, Leibniz
•    Eliška Pírková, University of Helsinki
•    Juan Quintero, FAU Erlangen Nürnberg
•    Eva Zangerle, University of Innsbruck
•    Abhijnan Chakraborty, MPI Saarbrucken
•    Piotr Sapiezynski, Northeastern University
•    Jat Singh, University of Cambridge
•    Martina Zitterbart, KIT Karlsruhe
•    Giovanni Sartor, EUI Florence
•    Abbas Masnavi, CalTech
•    Golnaz Bidabadi,  San Jose State University
•    Melanie Herschel, IPVS, University of Stuttgart

Publication

Accepted papers will be published as part of an open-access online collection with CEUR Workshop Proceedings http://ceur-ws.org/ and an overview of the workshop findings will be published with CAIS (Communications of the Association for Information Systems).

Venue

The conference will be held in Stockholm University’s Kista campus on June 10 and 11.