Announcement and Call for Papers (PDF format)

The ETHICOMP conference series is now recognised as one of the premier international events on computer ethics attended by delegates from all over the world. Conferences are held about every 18 months.

ETHICOMP 2004 is the seventh conference in the series. The conference will be held on 14-15-16 April 2004 at the University of the Aegean in Syros, Greece, in collaboration with the Athens University of Economics and Business, the largest and most prestigious business school in South Eastern Europe.

Information and communication technologies have profound social consequences. They create opportunities but they also raise significant social and ethical risks for individuals, organisations and society in large. We need to study the impact such changes have on us and in the way we use technology in our interactions with each-other, with organisations, and with government agencies.

ETHICOMP 2004 focuses on these "Challenges for the Citizen of the Information Society". The aim of the conference is to present and discuss the social and ethical impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on individuals as consumers, as employees and as citizens.

Papers of an ethical or societal nature within the following areas are particularly welcomed.

1. The Information Society Context
   • Providing a suitable legal and regulatory framework to take into account technological advancements, protect individual rights, implement regulations in a global context, and/or enable a global information society.
   • Challenges for governments and their agencies wishing to provide services to the general public, support access and diffusion of innovative technologies to all citizens; differences among local and global perspectives.
   • Adoption and diffusion in different cultural environments. Social inclusion and exclusion. Gender issues. Privacy and personal data protection in the digital era.
   • Using ICT to promote security, and the implications of this.
2. Social and ethical issues for consumers in the Information Society
   • Issues of trust and privacy on-line. Digital content distribution over the Internet: issues of anarchy vs censorship, digital rights, security and control. Ethical implications in the use of peer-to-peer content distribution technologies.
   • Ethics of virtual communities.
   • Addressing usability concerns.
   • Social and ethical issues in customer relationship management and business intelligence.
   • Social and ethical issues of new methods of news and propaganda dissemination.
3. Social and ethical issues for employees, workers and managers in the Information Society
   • Opportunities and threats for lifelong learning, telework, social inclusion, community relationships, equal opportunities, and the consequential impacts in resource use.
   • Changes in the work environment, including mobility, monitoring practices, 'big brother' in the work environment.
   • Issues of motivation and responsibility. Development of new skills.
   • Responsibilities of the Information Systems and Software Engineering professional; including for collective acts/inaction and for what others do with the technology.
   • Challenges in knowledge management; individual vs. organisational learning. Online learning resources and the Internet as a knowledge pool.

Papers covering one or several of these perspectives are called for from business, government, computer science, information systems, law, media, anthropology, psychology, sociology and philosophy. Interdisciplinary papers and those from new researchers and practitioners are encouraged. A paper might take a conceptual, applied, practical or historical focus. Case studies and reports on lessons learned in practice are welcomed.

How to submit

As in previous ETHICOMP conferences, papers written in English and not published nor submitted elsewhere will be accepted on the basis of an extended abstract of between 700 and 1000 words after a careful review by Programme Committee members.

The first page of each submission must include the title, all of the authors' names, affiliations, complete mailing addresses including email, telephone numbers, and a statement of commitment that one of the authors will present the paper at ETHICOMP 2004 in Greece.

A submission lacking any of the above information or outside the range of 700-1000 word limit will not be considered by the Programme Committee for inclusion in the conference programme.

Please make submissions in the electronic form via email as embedded plain text or an attachment in RTF format.

Abstracts must be submitted no later than 10 September 2003 to ccsr@dmu.ac.uk. Authors will be informed of the decision of the Programme Committee by 10 October 2003.

Important Dates

Programme Committee

• Dr Alison Adam, Salford University, UK
• Professor Philip Brey, Twente University, The Netherlands
• Professor Terrell Ward Bynum, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
• Dr Jean Camp, Harvard University, USA
• Prof. John Darzentas, Department of Product and Systems Design, University of the Aegean, Greece
• Professor Göran Collste, Linköping University, Sweden
• Dr Penny Duquenoy, Middlesex University, UK
• Dr N Ben Fairweather, De Montfort University, UK
• Professor Donald Gotterbarn, East Tennessee State University, USA
• Professor Fran Grodzinski, Sacred Heart University, USA
• Professor Sven Ove Hansen, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• Professor Chuck Huff, St Olaf College, USA
• Professor Krystyna Gorniak-Kocikowska, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
• Dr Lucas Introna, Univ. of Lancaster, UK
• Professor Kiyoshi Murata, School of Commerce, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan
• Prof. Chrysoleon Papadopoulos, Department of Product and Systems Design, University of the Aegean, Greece
• Dr Nancy Pouloudi, Athens University of Economics & Business, Greece
• Dr Angeliki Poulymenakou, Athens University of Economics & Business, Greece
• Professor Simon Rogerson, De Montfort University, UK
• Prof. Nikolaos Sapidis, Department of Product and Systems Design, University of the Aegean, Greece
• Dr Diomidis Spinellis, Athens University of Economics & Business, Greece
• Dr. Thomas Spyrou, Department of Product and Systems Design, University of the Aegean, Greece
• Dr Stanislaw Szejko, Technical University of Gdansk, Poland
• Professor Jeroen van den Hoven, Erasmus University, The Netherlands
• Professor John Weckert, Charles Sturt University, Australia
• Professor Bogdan Wiszniewski, Technical University of Gdansk, Poland

Notes

Conference language is English

For further information contact

Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility
Faculty of Computing Sciences and Engineering
De Montfort University
The Gateway
Leicester
LE1 9BH
UK

Telephone +44 116 250 6143
Fax +44 116 207 8159
E-mail ccsr@dmu.ac.uk
Web www.ccsr.cse.dmu.ac.uk