[ecrea] IPP2014 Conference Call: "Crowdsourcing for Politics and Policy"

Conference: http://ipp.oii.ox.ac.uk/
Call: http://ipp.oii.ox.ac.uk/2014/call-for-papers
Abstract deadline: 14 March 2014.

Location: Thursday 25 - Friday 26 September 2014, Oxford Internet 
Institute, University of Oxford.
Convenors: Helen Margetts (OII), Vili Lehdonvirta (OII), David Sutcliffe 
(OII), Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon (Annenberg, UPenn), Andrea Calderaro (EUI 
/ ECPR).

Contact: (policyandinternet /at/ oii.ox.ac.uk)
#ipp2014


** Rationale **

Crowdsourcing - the provision of goods by large numbers of people 
contributing via an online platform - is used to generate and sustain 
policy ideas, labour markets, business investment, charitable donations, 
knowledge commons (such as Wikipedia), cultural goods and artefacts, 
libraries, government transparency, public management reform, education, 
scientific development and the institutions of democracy itself. This 
pattern of technology-enabled institutional change, where a known few 
are replaced by an indefinite many, has deep and diverse implications 
for government, business, civil society, democratic life and public 
policy-making. Researchers and policy-makers have barely begun to 
examine the opportunities and challenges that the crowdsourcing model 
presents.

The Internet, Politics, Policy 2014 conference is dedicated to 
facilitating discussion on crowdsourcing across disciplinary boundaries. 
The conference calls for papers on the observed and potential 
implications of crowdsourcing for politics, policy and academic 
practice. Perspectives are welcomed from across science, social science 
and the humanities as well as from academic and policy-making 
communities. We aim to identify both what is novel in crowdsourcing, and 
the ways it enables and extends existing social and political processes.

** Topics **

The conference aims to attract papers from a range of disciplines 
analysing crowdsourcing-related phenomena. We welcome both theoretical 
and empirical papers reporting original research on crowdsourcing and 
related concepts such as microwork, peer production, human computing, 
co-creation, open innovation and e-government. We particularly welcome 
comparative approaches and papers drawing on new empirical findings and 
novel research methods.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

> How is crowdsourcing changing politics? Topics of interest include 
citizen participation in government and the political process, and 
online collective action.
>
> Uses of big data in evidence-based public policy, including 
probabilistic, and conditional and predictive policy-making and the use 
of social media data for government self-improvement.
>
> Online labor markets, new organizational forms, and the blurring of 
boundaries between work and play, as well as the economics of 
crowdsourcing more generally.
>
> Co-production and co-creation of public policy, through (for example) 
the use of feedback facilities, rating, ranking and reputation applications.
>
> Crowdsourcing for conflict management, peace building and 
humanitarian intervention, including crisis mapping.
>
> Crowdsourcing for educational, scientific and technological 
development, such as citizen science, crowd-funding, massive online open 
courses, and the methodological, epistemological and ethical issues 
involved.
>
> New methods for analyzing crowdsourcing, such as computational social 
science and big data analytics, including sentiment analysis, topic 
classification, sampling from social media platforms, and inferring from 
socially generated data to the wider population.
>
> Ethical issues arising from the use of such methods, such as 
de-anonymisation, privacy, and inequalities created by the use of 
predictive analytics in decisions concerning individuals.
>
> When crowds turn into mobs: online hate groups, organized 
cyberbullying, their dynamics and effective policy responses.
>
Perspectives from any academic discipline are welcomed, including: 
political science, economics, law, sociology, medicine, information 
science, communications, philosophy, computer science, physics, 
psychology, management, organization science, geography and humanities. 
Papers should attempt to frame their object of study in relation to 
established concepts and theories. 'Crowdsourcing' need not be the 
central concept in a paper as long as it deals with the issues and 
topics identified in this call.

** Proposal submission **

* Paper proposals

Paper proposals should consist of a title and a 1,000-word extended 
abstract that specifies and motivates the research question, describes 
the methods and data used, and summarises the main findings. Abstracts 
will be peer reviewed, and the authors of accepted proposals are 
expected to submit full papers prior to the conference. Applicants will 
have the opportunity to co-submit their paper to the journal Policy and 
Internet, which will operate a fast-track review process for papers 
accepted to the conference.

Paper submissions can also be considered for a Best Paper Award 
(sponsored by the journal Policy and Internet). The prize will be 
awarded at the closing session of the conference. As the paper is 
intended to be published in a future issue of the journal, authors 
should indicate whether they would like their paper to be considered for 
the prize.

* Poster proposals

Posters should summarise in a visually engaging manner the purpose, 
methods and results of an original piece of research. All accepted 
submissions will be considered for a Best Poster Award. The prize will 
be awarded at the closing session of the conference.

** Important dates **

> Extended abstract submission deadline: 14 March 2014
> Decisions on abstracts: 14 April 2014
> Full paper / poster submission deadline (for accepted abstracts): 15 
August 2014
> Conference dates: Thursday 25 - Friday 26 September 2014.
>
IPP2014: Crowdsourcing for Politics and Policy
http://ipp.oii.ox.ac.uk/

***

David Sutcliffe

Managing Editor
Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/
Tel: +44 (0)1865 612334


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