News

Explore the latest research insights.

The Journal of Digital Media & Interaction (JDMI) is calling for articles on Media Literacy, to its next edition (JDMI no.17- December 2024), under a variery of topics (see below). The JDMI accepts review, meta-analysis, empirical, and conceptual papers, from 4,000 to 7,000 words, in English, Portuguese, French or  Spanish.

The deadline for submission is November 15, 2024.

Further information here.

Topics accepted for this Special issue on Media Literacy:

– Media Literacy in the context of emerging technologies

– Misinformation and fake news in the digital age

– Combating misinformation and promoting critical thinking

– Media literacy and digital citizenship

– Digitally mediated tools in media literacy

– Innovative teaching approaches for media literacy

– Case studies of successful media literacy programs

– Emerging challenges in media literacy education

– Journalism in the digital age

– News desert and the future of the local journalism

In addition to these thematic dossiers JDMI is continuously open to articles in the broad range of its scope.

Submissions for papers on “Brand Purpose: Towards a deeper understanding of the construct, its antecedents, co-creation process, and outcomes”, for the 18thGlobal Brand Conference are open until November 1, 2024. The conference will be held at Católica Porto Business School in Porto, Portugal, from May 7th to 9th, 2025.

For two decades, the Global Brand Conference of the Academy of Marketing’s Brand Identity and Corporate Reputation Special Interest Group has become one of the leading academic conferences on branding worldwide.

Despite the growing interest in brand purpose, empirical studies are still very scarce, and there is a lack of construct clarity. To address these research gaps and help stimulate the development of empirical studies on brand purpose and related constructs, the theme of the 18th Global Brand Conference is “Brand Purpose: Towards a deeper understanding of the construct, its antecedents, co-creation process, and outcomes.” Your original research is crucial to the conference’s success and the advancement of our field.

Important dates:

. Submissions deadline: 1st November 2024

. Announcement of decision: 16th December 2024

. Early bird registration deadline: 7th March 2025

. Registration deadline: 11th April 2025 .

. Conference: 7th to 9th May 2025

For more information: gbc2025porto.org/en/2025/home/

The DSAI conference dates have been changed to 13-15 November 2024 (dsai.ws/2024).

The Paper submission deadline is 15th May, 2024

To submit your original work to this special track, use the following link:
https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/DSAI2024/Track/19/Submission/Create

All accepted papers of the DSAI 2024 conference will be submitted for publishing to ACM and indexed by the Conference Proceedings Citation Index (CPCI, Web of Science™).

UPDATED IMPORTANT DATES:
• May 15, 2024 – Paper Submission
• July 15, 2024 – Notification of Paper Acceptance
• July 30, 2024 – Registration and Camera-Ready Papers

More information on submissions can be found at: https://dsai.ws/2024/submissions

Special Track 1 – Accessible and Inclusive Smart Environments

Description:

Technology is strongly present all around us, not only in the devices we carry but also increasingly embedded in the environments where we work and live. These smart environments have the great potential of improving people’s lives, by enabling a more comfortable, secure, healthy, independent, and active living. However, challenges remain in ensuring that smart environments are truly usable, acceptable, accessible, and inclusive.

These challenges include providing accessible and adaptable interaction that considers the potentially diverse set of users (with different capabilities, needs, preferences, and emotions) and contexts of smart environments. There are also still challenges related to unobtrusive monitoring and support that allow certain groups of users (e.g., younger, older, people with a given impairment) to live in a more active, independent, or safe way.

In this context, the aim of this special track is to provide new perspectives in this field, by exchanging and discussing ideas and research in different topics relevant to DSAI that can bring valuable insights to address the accessibility and inclusiveness of smart environments.
These topics include, but are not limited to:
• Active, healthy, assisted living
• Human-centred computing
• Multimodal and adaptive interaction
• User and context awareness
• Intelligent user interfaces
• Extended reality
• Affective computing
• Assistive technologies

Intended Audience:
This special track is directed at researchers and practitioners who are interested in participating in the exchange and discussion of ideas, as well as contributing to the design, implementation, and assessment of novel innovative solutions for the next generations of smart environments.

ICCC’24: The 15th International Conference on Computational Creativity
June 17-21, 2024
Jönköping, Sweden
https://computationalcreativity.net/iccc24/

Call for Workshop and Tutorial Proposals
Submission deadline: January 7

Overview

The 15th International Conference on Computational Creativity is soliciting proposals for workshops and tutorials to be held in association with the main ICCC conference. We welcome proposals for half-day, full-day and one-and-a-half-day workshops and tutorials on any aspect of computational creativity research whose focus area complements the topics discussed in the main conference.

Workshops offer a great opportunity to exchange ideas, and a chance to drive broader adoption of your systems and methods. We welcome a diversity of formats, from academic workshops (with a process of peer review for submitted papers, managed by the workshop organisers) to traditional tutorials, as well as hands-on and practical workshops. Please feel free to contact the organisers to discuss the possibilities further.

Topics can range from anything between theoretical or computational aspects of computational creativity, social and ethical implications, and/or focused artistic showcases. In the past, workshops at ICCC have covered a wide variety of focused areas and this is part of the strength of a workshop series. We will prioritise workshops that have a clear focus area, rather than a more general application area. This is to create a workshop program that is complementary to the conference.

Please notice that all workshops will be academically self-contained: they should have their own organising committee and conduct their own peer review managed entirely by the workshop organisers. All peer-reviewed full papers of workshops accepted at ICCC’24 will be jointly published as a separate part of the conference proceedings or as part of CEUR-WS workshop proceedings.

The venue has several rooms appropriate for a range of different types of workshops: including classic lecture rooms and showcase rooms with up to 8 projectors perfect for more artistically directed workshops/tutorials.

Important dates
·  Workshop proposal submissions due: January 7, 2024
·  Notification of workshop acceptance: January 14, 2024
In case of excellent early bird submissions, earlier acceptance may be possible at the chairs’ discretion, to allow workshops a longer lead time.

All workshop organisers should manage their own abstract/paper submission, invite a program committee and handle a peer-reviewing process with appropriate timelines. For the workshops that accept submissions for publications we recommend adhering to the following
·  Workshop call for papers announcement and publicity: January 24, 2024
·  Workshop paper submission deadline: April  10, 2024
·  Workshop author notification: April 30, 2024
·  Camera-ready submission: June 1st, 2024 – STRICT
·  Workshop days: between June 17-18, 2024
(co-located with ICCC 2024)

The organisers must develop their own workshop/tutorial web page that will be located on the ACC server. The web page must follow the visual identity of ICCC. The ICCC 2024 webmasters will provide templates to facilitate this process.

Submission Instructions

Please submit a PDF proposal of no more than 2 pages detailing the following:
Title and abstract of the workshop/ hands-on workshop/tutorial (the abstract should clearly address the topic of the workshop).
·  Organising committee’s names and affiliations
o One organiser must be indicated as a primary contact person (please notice that there must be at least one organiser committed to be physically present during the event).
o Please include a brief description of your experience in workshop/tutorial organisation.
·  Description of the event’s scope, and the type of papers and/or works that will be accepted (feel free to refer to previous instances of the event, including publications)
·  Brief description of the expected audience
o Expected number of participants, including information on onsite/remote participants
o Expected audience’s background and interests
·  The expected format and duration of the workshop/tutorial (between half a day and a full day)
·  Intended format of submission and reviewing platform (e.g. EasyChair) and, if applicable, a preliminary program committee
·  Any technical or space requirements (e.g., projector, PA, whiteboards, open space)
·  Preliminary timeline for the workshop/tutorial (submission dates, notification dates)
All applications should be submitted as a single PDF file with the subject line “ICCC 2024 Workshop/Tutorial Proposal” to the workshop chair: Guendalina Righetti, guendalina.righetti@ifikk.uio.no<mailto:guendalina.righetti@ifikk.uio.no>.

** Call for Chapters**
ARTIFICIAL MEDIA: Emerging Trends in Creativity, Education and Artistic Practice

**Editors**
Nelson Zagalo (DigiMedia, University of Aveiro) & Damián Keller (NAP, Federal University of Acre, Federal University of Paraíba)

** Important Dates**
Submission of Abstracts: 27 February 2024
Submission of Full Papers: 30 June 2024
Publication of the Book: December 2024

To be published in the book series Springer Series on Cultural Computing, indexed by SCOPUS.

** SCOPE**
In this new book we want to expand the discussion on “Creativity in the Digital Age” (2015), targeting artificial media with an emphasis on the new realms enabled by tools such as generative models (e.g. Dall-E, ChatGPT, Gemini). Previously, we’ve discussed maker technologies supporting human creativity and inventiveness. We want to proceed with an analysis of new media ecosystems that apply generative AI across multiple modalities — text, images, music, speech, code, video, photography or animation.
Today, through simple prompts, anyone can deploy AI assistants to create stories, news, drawings, titles, paintings, photographs, graphics, music, speech or animations. We are at a point of no return, not only changing the domain of text and images but impacting multiple modalities of media ecosystems. Large language models tend to change the face of media design, featuring new layers of creation through combinations of artificial resources and processes. AI assistants furnish guidance to develop new software, in some cases without requiring thorough programming knowledge; skewing extensive musical training, generative tools enable lay people to synthesize and mix sounds; and despite limited compositional skills, computationally assisted novice writers may now draft fictional stories and document reports. These generative techniques foster the creation of new entities we call Artificial Media.
Artificial media have the potential to break the boundaries between human and machine-based creativity (Joshi, 2023). Algorithms materialize realities from pre-existing data based on human activities, calling into question established frameworks in digital creativity. Collective creative processes were until recently limited to the knowledge handled by humans. These processes are now supported by intelligent agents that can gather information from thousands of documents spanning resources shared on the internet. This type of knowledge does not guarantee originality but it opens previously unexplored possibilities of inter-cultural and inter-generational dialogue.
Given the recent advances in techniques and approaches to creative media ecologies, we need to consider the impacts of artificial media on at least three fronts:

• Creative processes transformed by means of generative AI impact the current notions of creativity. What place will human stakeholders occupy in a media-creation pipeline populated by AI agents?
• Adopting generative methods both for producing and assessing content, what will happen to originality and relevance within media-art and design landscapes?
• Despite some claims to the contrary, before the advent of general-purpose tools generative strategies were usually restricted to the niches of specialists. Now some of these tools are furnishing opportunities for creative usage by a wider public. What are the consequences on the conceptual landscape of creativity frameworks?

Artificial media, as potentially infinite multimodal streaming of content, is already resignifying the digital world through pre-existing languages and styles, connecting “scrapism” (Lavigne, 2023) with pastiche and defying established concepts of artistic agency and authorship. These techniques may offer surprises in the short term, but eventually, creators and artists will need to find ways to integrate the recreated resources into consistent media landscapes. This urgent reconfiguration is not motivated just by copyright. Human sensibility, fashion, style and emergent aesthetics are shaped by moment-to-moment social frictions. In turn, these forces shape the creative industries, which, for instance, in Europe, currently provide more employment and added value than the automobile industries

Contributions may focus on creativity, education and artistic practice. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• New Crafts Created by Artificial Media
• Multimodal Generative AI Frontiers
• Agency and Artificial Media practices
• Storytelling within Artificial Media
• Artificial Imaginations
• IoT in Artificial Media Contexts
• Ubiquitous music explorations of artificial-media territories
• Artistic Frameworks to implement the use of Generative Tools
• Teaching creativity with generative AI
• News Media Landscape and Artificial Media
• Coding within Artificial Media
• Authorship, Ownership and Copyright in Generative AI
• Ethics and Social Implications of Artificial Media
• Limitations and potential of Extended Reality for Artificial Media
• Disruptions introduced by Generative AI

** References **
Nelson Zagalo & Pedro Branco (Eds.), (2015), Creativity in the Digital Age, in Springer Series on Cultural Computing, Springer-Verlag London, UK, p.269, ISBN: 978-1-4471-6681-8, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4471-6681-8

Joshi, B (2023). Is Ai Going To Replace Creative Professionals?, ACM Interactions, September – October 2023, Page: 24. URL

Lavigne, S. (2023). Scrapism: A Manifesto. Critical AI. October 2023; 1 (1-2): DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/2834703X-10734046Instructions for Authors:

**Abstract Submission**

You can submit abstracts (maximum of 500 words, with a tentative title) to the editors, through the e-mail: nzagalo@ua.pt

Welcome to the 15th International Conference on Computational Creativity, ICCC’24!
June 17-21, 2024
Jönköping, Sweden
https://computationalcreativity.net/iccc24/

— 1st call for papers —
Submission deadline: Abstracts: Feb 21st, 2024; Full papers: Feb 28th, 2024

The International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC) is the premier forum for disseminating research on computational and AI creativity, bringing together researchers interested in exploring the ever-increasing capacities of technology in creative domains such as writing, visual arts and music. State-of-the-art AI algorithms can now create works that to a casual observer are comparable to those of human professionals, but many have questioned whether this is sufficient (or even necessary) for a computer to be considered to be “acting creatively”. This conference and its associated workshops exist to discuss the how and what of computational participation in creativity.

Come join us in the beautiful Swedish town of Jönköping ([ˈjœ̂nːˌɕøːpɪŋ]) at Midsummer and discuss questions like: by which metrics should we judge the creativity of AI output? Can an AI tool augment the creativity of its human users?  What are the ethical implications of algorithms taking on creative roles? And, of course: can an AI be creative at all?  These questions and more are at the heart of the sub-field of AI known as Computational Creativity (CC), defined as “the art, science, philosophy, and engineering of computational systems which, by taking on particular responsibilities, exhibit behaviors that unbiased observers would deem to be creative”.

Computational Creativity

The last few years have seen incredible progress in the generative capacities of AI and machine learning. In many creative domains such as writing, art and music generation, state-of-the-art AI algorithms can now create works that to a casual observer are comparable to those of human professionals. This new paradigm has brought attention to AI-generated content from academia, industry and the general public, resulting in an explosion of system development, application of such systems and societal awareness. Hand-in-hand with the development, the importance of dealing with the ethical considerations and the authenticity of AI-generated content is at an all-time high.

Computational creativity, as a field, has been investigating these questions for decades. The Association for Computational Creativity (ACC) has since 2010 organised the yearly International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC), the only scientific conference which entirely focuses on AI creativity specifically. The conference series, and the associated workshops, act as a platform for researchers of any discipline to meet and discuss the how and what of creativity in any computational setting. Whatever domain you’re working in, if your work concerns generative AI or any other computational model that you’re trying to make exhibit creative behaviors, we’d love for you to come and share it with us!

ICCC’24 is an interdisciplinary venue open to all researchers, practitioners and artists to submit work related to AI and Creativity. The ICCC community includes researchers with interests as broad as games, literature, visual communication, software development, the sciences, design, and engineering, alongside of course AI and ML. Hence, whatever your field, whatever your background, join us!

Venue

This year’s conference will take you to the beautiful Swedish town Jönköping ( [ˈjœ̂nːˌɕøːpɪŋ]), perfectly tucked in between mirror-clear lakes, fairytale forest and mountainous hills. Further, taking place between the 17th and 21st of June, 2024, the conference will culminate in one of Sweden’s most celebrated holidays: Midsummer! Thus, we invite you to join us in discussing the creative character of computational and AI systems while engaging in the Swedish national pass time of “Fika” – having too much coffee and cake, greeting Mother Nature in the beauty of the Swedish forest and joining us in celebrating Midsummer: the most magical time of the year!

Full Papers

Computational Creativity (CC) is a discipline with roots in scientific disciplines such as Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science, Engineering, Design, Psychology and Philosophy that each explores the potential for computers to be creative – either in partnership with humans or as autonomous creators in their own right.

ICCC is an annual conference that welcomes papers on different aspects of CC, on systems that exhibit varying degrees of creative autonomy, on systems that act as creative partners for human creators, on frameworks that offer greater clarity or computational felicity for thinking about machine (and human) creativity, on methodologies for building or evaluating CC systems, on approaches to teaching CC in schools and universities or to promoting societal uptake of CC as a field and as a technology, and so on.

Important Dates
·  Abstracts due: February 21, 2024
(The abstract can be updated at the full paper submission deadline.)
·  Submissions due: February 28, 2024
·  Acceptance notification: April 21, 2024
·  Camera-ready copies due: May 12, 2024
·  Conference: June 17-21, 2024
All deadlines given are 23:59 anywhere on Earth time.

Topics of interest include:

Original research contributions are solicited in all areas related to Computational Creativity research and practice, including, but not limited to:
·  Domain-Specific Applications of Computational Creativity: applications of creativity in areas such as music, language, narrative, poetry, games, visual arts, graphic design, product design, architecture, entertainment, education, mathematical invention, scientific discovery, or programming.
·  Generative AI Models of Creativity: extensions or modifications of generative AI algorithms that provide new capabilities, new metrics, or improved utility in creative contexts.
·  Human-Machine Co-Creativity: Systems, studies, frameworks, or methodologies related to co-creativity between humans and AI, with emphasis on systems in which the machine acts as a creative partner.
·  Computational Creativity Evaluation: Metrics, frameworks, formalisms and methodologies for the evaluation of creativity in computational systems, or for the evaluation of how such systems are perceived in society.
·  Social Models: Computational models of social aspects of creativity, including: social creativity, the diffusion of ideas, collaboration, team dynamics, and creativity in social settings.
·  Computational Paradigms: computational approaches for modelling cognitive aspects of creativity, such as heuristic search, analogical and meta-level reasoning, cognitive architectures, and re-representation.
·  Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Perspectives on computational creativity which draw from philosophical and/or sociological studies in the context of creative AI systems.
·  Data and Creativity: Data science approaches to computational creativity: Resource development and data gathering/knowledge curation for creative AI. There is a need for datasets and resources that are scalable, extensible and freely available/open-source.
·  Societal Impact: Ethical considerations in the design, deployment or testing of creative AI systems, as well as studies that explore the societal impact of computational creativity and generative AI.
·  Psychological Factors: Computational models of psychological factors that enhance creativity, including emotion, surprise (unexpectedness), reflection, conflict, diversity, motivation, knowledge, intuition, and reward structures. Additionally, social or experiential factors related to novelty and originality, such as innovation, improvisation, and virtuosity.
·  Provocations: Raising new issues not on this list that bring the foundations of the discipline into question or throw new light on seemingly settled debates.

Paper Types

We welcome the submission of five different types of long papers, each with the intent to approach an equal distribution of accepted papers. During your submission, please indicate the category by which your paper best fits into:
·  Technical papers: These are papers posing and addressing hypotheses about aspects of creative behaviour in computational systems. The emphasis here is on using solid experimentation, computational models, formal proof, and/or argumentation that clearly demonstrates advancement in the state-of-the-art or current thinking in CC research. Strong evaluation of approaches through comparative, statistical, social, or other means is essential.
·  System or Resource description papers: These are papers describing the building and deployment of a creative system or resource to produce artefacts of potential cultural value in one or more domains. The emphasis here is on presenting engineering achievement, technical difficulties encountered and overcome, techniques employed, reusable resources built, and general findings about how to get computational systems to produce valuable results. Presentation of results from the system or resource is expected. While full evaluation of the approaches employed is not essential if the technical achievement is very high, some evaluation is expected to show the contribution to CC of this work.
·  Study papers: These are papers which draw on allied fields such as psychology, philosophy, cognitive science, mathematics, humanities, the arts, and so on; or which appeal to broader areas of AI and Computer Science in general; or which appeal to studies of the field of CC as a whole. The emphasis here is on presenting enlightening novel perspectives related to the building, assessment, or deployment of systems ranging from autonomously creative systems to creativity support tools. Such perspectives can be presented through a variety of approaches including ethnographic studies, thought experiments, comparisons with studies of human creativity, and surveys. The contribution of the paper to CC should be made clear in every case.
·  Cultural application papers: These are papers presenting the use of creative software in a cultural setting, for example via art exhibitions/books, concerts/recordings/scores, poetry or story readings/anthologies, cookery nights/books, results for scientific journals or scientific practice, released games/game jam entries, and so on. The emphasis here is on a clear description of the role of the system in the given context, the results of the system in the setting, technical details of inclusion of the system, and evaluative feedback from the experience garnered from public audiences, critics, experts, stakeholders, and other interested parties.
·  Position papers: These are papers presenting an opinion on some aspect of the culture of CC research, including discussions of future directions, speculative explorations of the impact of state-of-the-art approaches, past triumphs or mistakes, and current issues. The emphasis here is on carefully arguing a position; highlighting or exposing previously hidden or misunderstood issues or ideas; and providing thought leadership for the field, either in a general fashion or in a specific setting. While opinions need not be substantiated through formalization or experimentation, any justification of a point of view will need to draw on a thorough knowledge of the field of CC and of overlapping areas, and provide relevant motivations and arguments.
ICCC is a conference that emphasises the empirical and theoretical evaluation of technical systems, results and outcomes, in an ethical and scientific fashion. Evaluation is expected in Technical papers (strong evaluation) and in System or Resource description papers. Although evaluation is not required in other types of papers, the contribution of the paper to CC should be made clear.

All submissions will be reviewed in terms of quality, impact, and relevance to the area of Computational Creativity.

Presentation

In order to ensure the highest level of quality, all submissions will be evaluated in terms of their scientific, technical, artistic, and/or cultural contribution, and therefore there will be only one format for submission. The program committee will decide the best format for presenting accepted manuscripts at the conference.

To be included in the proceedings, each paper must be presented at the conference by one of the authors. This implies that at least one author will have to register and will have to participate on-site.

*** All authors of accepted papers can opt to also show a demo of their system or prototype during the conference. You will be asked if you are interested in this option during the submission process ***

Submission instructions

This year the submission process has two stages: initial submission of a title and abstract, and subsequent submission of the full paper a week later.

The recommended length for the abstract is 100-200 words.
The long paper page limit is 8 pages + up to 2 pages of references.

Papers will be reviewed in a double-blind fashion, which necessitates that authors take appropriate steps to remain anonymous. You are responsible for making your papers anonymous to allow for double-blind review. Remove all references to your home institution(s), refer to your past work in the third person, etc.

To be considered, papers must be submitted as a PDF document formatted according to ICCC style (which is similar to AAAI and IJCAI formats). The conference website will be updated to include the correct templates.

All contributions must be submitted through the EasyChair platform:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=iccc24

Double submissions policy: The work submitted to ICCC should not be under review in another scientific conference or journal at the time of submission.

Organizing committee
·  Kazjon Grace, University of Sydney, Australia, kazjon.grace@sydney.edu.au<mailto:Australiakazjon.grace@sydney.edu.au>
·  Maria M. Hedblom, Jönköping School of Engineering, Sweden, maria.hedblom@ju.se<mailto:maria.hedblom@ju.se>
·  Teresa Llano, Monash University, Australia, teresa.llano@monash.edu<mailto:teresa.llano@monash.edu>
·  Pedro Martins, University of Coimbra, Portugal, pjmm@dei.uc.pt<mailto:pjmm@dei.uc.pt>
·  Guendalina Righetti, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, guendalina.righetti@unibz.it<mailto:guendalina.righetti@unibz.it>
·  Garrit Schaap, Jönköping School of Engineering, Sweden, garrit.schaap@ju.se<mailto:garrit.schaap@ju.se>
·  Jéssica Parente, University of Coimbra, Portugal, jparente@dei.uc.pt<mailto:jparente@dei.uc.pt>
·  Joana Rovira Martins, University of Coimbra, Portugal, jmmartins@dei.uc.pt<mailto:jmmartins@dei.uc.pt>
·  José Pedro Lopes, University of Coimbra, Portugal, joselopes@dei.uc.pt<mailto:joselopes@dei.uc.pt>

 

It is now open the Call for papers for the 9th International Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Development, which will take place in France, on June 27-28, 2024, as well as on a hybrid format. 

Deadline for paper submission:  March 8, 2024

More information below.

____________________________________________

9th International Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Development

2024: LOOKING FOR TRACES OF THE FUTURE IN THE PRESENT: SUPPORTING WELL-BEING GROWTH FOR ALL

June 27-28, 2024
Troyes, France (hybrid)

slerd.uniroma2.it

Contacts:
1st: ines [dot] di_loreto [at] utt [dot] fr  (conference chair)
2nd: aslerd [dot] org [at] gmail [dot] com

=========================================================
Deadline for paper submission: March 8, 2024
call for papers
=========================================================
SLERD 2024 will host also the 5th edition of the International Student Design Contest -> see call for proposal and demo
=========================================================

SLERD 2024 is organized by Université de Technologie de Troyes in collaboration with ASLERD.

Please Note: SLERD 2024 will be held in precence but a possibility to attend it virtually is provided (hybrid format).

 

Short Intro

In the context of smart learning ecosystems and regional development it is vital to adopt a forward-thinking mind-setting that takes into account the future needs of the learners and the changing economic landscape.
Such a mind-setting can benefit from a more holistic perspective that considers the social and cultural context of the region, as well as the skills and capabilities of its workforce and the wellbeing of all involved actors. This requires a deeper understanding of the community and its needs, as well as a commitment to inclusive and equitable development.
Ultimately, identifying traces and latent images of the future in the present smart learning ecosystems and regional contexts means laying the foundations for a long-term view that enables wellbeing growth in fair contexts. Indeed, embracing a holistic approach, investing in education and training, and promoting inclusive development, is what we need to create a more prosperous and sustainable future for all.
The general topics of the conference reflect the above perspective aiming to provide in-depth discourse among academics, students and practitioners. SLERD 2024 is proud to invite colleagues – researchers and practitioners – from all over the world to share the efforts concerning the development of smart learning ecosystems capable to promote smart learning, social innovation and equally accessible quality education.

Topics of interests

SLERD 2023 is proud to invite colleagues – researchers and practitioners – from all over the world to share the efforts concerning the development of smart learning ecosystems and, contributions on how to build together a brilliant future, where smart learning ecosystems and smart education will be even more central in the education of future citizens, and in the promotion of social innovation and territorial development.

General topics of interests can be grouped under three big themes:

• places for smart education

  • future of institutional learning
  • interplay between formal and informal learning
  • new educational models and settings
  • continuity-discontinuity of time, technology, place/space, processes in learning
  • role of, and case studies of, games and gamification in smart education
  • dual education and other alternate scheme approaches
  • monitoring and benchmarking of smartness (individual, institution, city, region)
  • people in place centered design for smart education
  • general frameworks and methodological advances
  • design, data and other relevant literacies
  • smart citizen’s literacies, skill and competences
  • communities and co-design in smart learning
  • sharing & participatory practices
  • open access to any resource and disparity
  • cultural influences
  • supportive learning technologies for smart education
  • AI for smart learning ecosystems: ethical aspects, tools and H-AI interaction
  • semantic web technologies and applications
  • text/opinion mining and sentiment analysis
  • real/virtual communities and social network analysis
  • interoperability and application of open/smart data and services
  • safety & security in education
  • IoT, ubiquitous and wearable technologies
  • adaptability to educational contexts and citizens
  • role of VR in education

=========================================================
Important dates:
———————————————————

• Deadline for papers submission: March 8, 2024
• Notification to the authors: April 19, 2024
• Camera ready paper: May 3, 2024
• Conference: June 27-28, 2024

==========================================
Submissions:
———————————————————
SLERD welcomes contributions composed by min. 4500 words. The max. length of the contributions should not overcome 16 pages.

Papers should be written according to:
https://www.springer.com/us/authors-editors/conference-proceedings/conference-proceedings-guidelines

Link to the paper submission page on easy chair:

https://easychair.org/

=========================================================
Information about SLERD 2024 will continuously updated on the ASLERD
Linkedin page -> link
Facebook page -> link
=========================================================
Join ALSLERD and share our vision on the future of Smart Learning Ecosystems: Timisoara declaration

See ASLERD website for
Request of membership, membership fees and legal
=========================================================

 

 

University of Aveiro | Department of Communication and Art

 

 

The deadline to submit a paper to the Interaction Design and Architecture(s) Journal (IxD&A)
(ISSN 1826-9745, eISSN 2283-2998)
 , within a special issue on Smart Learning Ecosystems as engines of the twin transitions co-edited by Mihai Dascalu, Óscar Mealha and Sirje Virkus has been extended till the 30th of November 2023 (hard deadline).
Call for Papers -> link

You can find more information here: https://ixdea.org/

=========================================================
Guest Editors:
———————————————————
–

•  Mihai Dascalu, University Politehnica of Bucharest
•  Óscar Mealha, University of Aveiro, Portugal
•  Sirje Virkus, Tallinn University, Estonia

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Important dates:
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• Deadline: November 30th, 2023
• Notification to the authors: January 15th, 2024
• Camera ready paper: February 15th, 2024
• Publication of the special issue: March 2024 (tentatively)

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Overview
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The development of Smart Learning Ecosystems is of strategic relevance for all the territorial ambits on which they insist, either because they can act as a bulwark against degradation in the most critical areas, or because they can contribute to increasing the well-being of students and their communities of reference; moreover, they can also act as a driver for sustainable development of the territories.
The achievement of an adequate level of smartness in the learning ecosystems is, however, a process that needs a long-term vision, multidisciplinary competencies, an attitude to understand people and contexts and to mediate points of view, a dynamic approach to resilience to keep on track and achieve, step-by-step, the foreseen goals: in short, an attitude to design and implement sustainable projects and processes aimed at achieving a people-centered smart environments and education.
Climate change, pandemics, wars (more or less uncovered), and the energy and food crises triggered by them, all point towards the need to change our lifestyles and make them fully sustainable. The SDGs [1] and the cultural and technological transitions they foster – such as the green transition – therefore become new challenges with which smart learning ecosystems and communities must measure themselves to support the education of competent and responsible future citizens.
Citizens whose future behaviour implies the entrenchment of a sense of membership [2] and the development of meta-design competencies [3]-, i.e., the competence of knowing how to explore and manage, the ambiguity and uncertainty that changes will bring.
Within such an evolving scenario, we also have to face the amplifying power of digital technologies, which – as discussed in the UNESCO document “The futures of education for participation in 2050” [4] – could contribute, through educational processes, to the development of a fairer and more equitable society and, at the same time, to more careful use of resources; but, on the other hand, if not adequately utilized, they could also lead to deepening the existing gaps. Thus, we have to face a parallel digital transition that raises many questions about its impact on humans and the environment, including its energy sustainability. The digital transition – which complements the other cultural transitions induced by SDGs (giving rise to multiple twin transitions) – thus, left us with complex questions about when, how, and why to use digital technologies in and for learning, that can be approached through multiple perspectives and angles. How can they contribute sustainably, to transform education, support cultural transitions, reduce inequalities, and at the same time, empower individuals according to their needs, expectations, and talents?

1. https://en.unesco.org/sustainabledevelopmentgoals
2. Haste H., Chopra V., “The futures of education for participation in 2050: educating for managing uncertainly and ambiguity”, 2020, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374441
3. Giovannella C.  “Is complexity tameable? Toward a design for the experience in a complex world” IxD&A Journal, N. 15, 2012, pp. 18-30, https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-015-002
4. Futures of Education. A new Social Contract for Education. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379707
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Topics of Interest
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General topics of interest acting, also as background and frame for the twin transitions, can be grouped under three big themes: places for smart education, people in place- centered design for smart education, supportive learning technologies and tools for smart education. All can be related to studies that develop on a post-pandemic view and strategy for a better learning world, namely nurtured by the pertinence of smart learning ecosystems as engines of the twin transitions, like the green and digital one.
Places for smart education
  • future of institutional learning
  • interplay between formal and informal learning
  • new educational models and settings
  • continuity-discontinuity of time, technology, place/space in the learning process
  • role of games and gamification case studies in smart education
  • dual education and other alternate scheme approaches
  • monitoring and benchmarking of smartness (individual, institution, city, region)
People in place- centered design for smart education
  • general frameworks and methodological advancement
  • competence based learning, evaluation and certification
  • design, data and other relevant literacies
  • literacies, skills and competences of future citizens
  • communities and co-design in smart learning ecosystems
    sharing & participatory practices
  • open access to any resources and disparity
  • cultural influences
Supportive technologies and tools for smart education
  • AI for smart learning ecosystems: Ethical aspects, tools and H-AI interaction
  • knowledge graphsx and applications
  • text/opinion mining and sentiment analysis
  • intelligent tutoring systems
  • real/virtual communities and social network analysis
  • interoperability and application of open/smart data and services
  • safety & security in education
  • IoT, ubiquitous and wearable technologies
  • adaptability to educational contexts and citizens
  • role of VR in education

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Submission guidelines and procedure
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All submissions (abstracts and later final manuscripts) must be original and may not be under review by another publication.
The manuscripts should be submitted either in .doc or in .rtf format.
All papers will be blindly peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers.
Authors are invited to submit 8-30 pages paper (including authors’ information, abstract, all tables, figures, references, etc.).
The paper should be written according to the IxD&A authors’ guidelines
->https://ixdea.org/authors-guidelines/

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Authors’ guidelines
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Paper submission page:
-> link
(Please upload all submissions using the Submission page. When submitting the paper, please, choose the section:
“SI: Smart Learning Ecosystems as Engines of Twins Transitions”)

More information on the submission procedure and on the characteristics
of the paper format can be found on the website of the IxD&A Journal
where information on the copyright policy and responsibility of authors,
publication ethics and malpractice are published.

For scientific advice and queries, please contact the IxD&A scientific editor marking the subject as:
SI: Smart Learning Ecosystems as Engines of Twins Transitions

• mihai [dot] dascalu [at] upb [dot] ro
• oem [at] ua [dot] pt
• sirje [dot] virkus [at] tlu [dot] ee

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JDMI Open Call for Articles 2023

The Journal of Digital Media & Interaction (JDMI) (https://proa.ua.pt/index.php/jdmi/index) is calling for articles for a thematic dossier on Digital Life and Wellbeing, for the next edition JDMI no.15 – December 2023.

You can find the Call for papers in English, Portuguese, Spanish and French in attachment.

 

Articles and Reviews can be submitted in EnglishPortugueseFrench or Spanish.

Submission deadline: November 15, 2023(https://proa.ua.pt/index.php/jdmi/call_papers).

 

Dossier on Digital Life and Wellbeing:

As never before, our daily lives are managed, controlled, evaluated, monitored, and mediated through systems and tools of the digital media sphere. This transformation of our relationship with the natural and social world brings changes about who we are. It is of interest to this dossier to understand what changes have been intensifying, what effects they are producing both socially and psychologically.

Topics

Wellbeing Assistants

Social media and Health

Games for Wellbeing

Digital Healthy Habits

Digital Minimalism

Screen Time

Normose

Digital addictions and disorders

Stress & Anxiety promoted by the use of digital media 

Other topics in Digital Life and Wellbeing


Guidelines for authors

Articles and Reviews can be submitted in English, Portuguese, French or Spanish.
All submissions must be made through the OJS platform of the journal JDMI.
Follow the authors’ guidelines and use the .doc template.

Any doubts or questions, please contact: deca-jdmi@ua.pt

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