FIRST CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS — please disseminate widely to your
colleagues and networks (apologies for cross-posting)
1st conference on *Undone Science in Computer Science* — A conference
to reflect on epistemological and ethical dimensions of computer
science
* *Nantes, France, 5-6 February 2024* (hybrid)
* Calling for talk proposals (1-2 pages abstracts)
* Post-proceedings model: we will send a call for full papers after
the conference
* Conference website: (https://undonecs.sciencesconf.org/)
PRESENTATION
As researchers in computer science, we are committed to advancing the
field in a way that is both epistemologically and ethically sound.
The *Undone Computer Science conference* provides an informal venue to
pause and reflect on these aspects. Our goal is to bring together
computer scientists from across the field, but also philosophers of
science, social scientists, etc., interested in discussing the ethical
and epistemological dimensions of our work.
We welcome abstracts exploring these dimensions, and encourage submissions
from a wide range of perspectives. *Abstracts should be 1-2 pages*,
clearly outlining the main arguments and contributions of the proposed
talk.
As a guiding question, we propose to apply the concept of Undone
Science [1] to computer science. *Undone science* refers to questions
that are left unaddressed, ignored, or underfunded for various
reasons, yet demonstrably worthy of exploration. It highlights the
idea that the production and dissemination of knowledge are variously
influenced, leading to biases in the choice of research that is done,
and eventually in a “systematic non-production of knowledge” [2].
Critical voices have recently highlighted corporate influences in AI
ethics [3], reminding us of some of the society-impacting case studies
which originally motivated the analytical concept of undone science.
But undone science could also refer to the consequences of
“theoretical commitments” [2], e.g. dominant paradigms, when they
blind us collectively about what is worthy or not of exploration—while
accounts of paradigm shifts in our young domain remain rare. Undone
science has also been referring to questions first recognised by
actors from civil society—for computer scientists, the free software
movement and civil liberties organisations come to mind. We believe
that *the concept of undone science can further help bring out* the
epistemological and ethical aspects of research in computer science.
Undone Computer Science is an informal conference with
post-proceedings: depending upon the eventual number and quality of
submissions, we intend to follow up the conference with a call for
full papers to be published in a journal. (It is not necessary to
submit a full paper to present at the conference; nor is it necessary
to present at the conference to answer the call for full papers.)
POTENTIAL TOPICS
It is unnecessary to be familiar with the concept of undone science in
order to contribute. *Potential topics include*, but are not limited
to:
* Areas of research meeting challenges that will require or have
required *shifts in viewpoint*; conditions responsible for
*certain kinds of research being over- or under-represented*;
reasons for a set of *questions being neglected* in an area.
* Epistemological questions and challenges arising from the
*interdisciplinary nature* of computer science, or dealing with
the articulations between theory and practice.
* How *social movements or civil society organisations* (e.g. free
software movement and probably others) play a role in identifying
areas of research being left aside, in providing new research
questions, or on the contrary in demanding that some kind of
research remains undone.
* Challenges of integrating ethical questioning regarding
*social, economic, and environmental consequences* of our work into
the process of making good science. Concrete examples of questions
stemming from ethical consideration being introduced to a domain
(why/how), are welcome.
* How *ethics codes* (for instance the ACM Code of Ethics) can be
leveraged (or fail) to present some questions as being worthy of
exploration. How can (or cannot) guiding principles be put in
place to enrich the research practices in an area, or to help
professionals of computing in industry and academia?
* Explorations of the *influence of publishing practices* within our
community, and of popular research methodology and scientific
writing guides provided within our fields, on the selection,
execution, and dissemination of research.
* Examinations of biases and limitations present in commonly-used
*educational curricula* (for instance leading to or stemming from
a lack of diversity, be it social or methodological);
* More generally, any discussion of systematic non-production and
non-dissemination of knowledge, whether in a specific area or in
computer science in general; whether due to *limitations of
available methodologies, blind spots of dominant paradigms,
institutional and industrial biases, lack of social
representation*, or other factors.
We look forward to receiving your abstracts, and to an engaging and
thought-provoking conference.
Sincerely,
The Organisers
KEY DATES
* *Submission deadline extended*: 24th October 2023 (anywhere on Earth)
* *Author notification*: 4th December 2023
* *Conference*: 5th-6th February 2024 in Nantes
SUBMITTING
* Instructions:
1. Abstracts should be 1-2 pages in length (excluding
bibliography) and should succinctly present the key arguments
and contributions of the proposed talk. The submission can
contain appendices or a link to a longer version, but the
point of the submission should be clear from the first two
pages (reviewers are not obligated to read any further).
2. Submissions should be uploaded to EasyChair:
https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=undonecs2024 in PDF
format.
3. The conference being aimed at a wide range of research
domains, authors are welcome to include a brief biography (up
to 5 lines). The review process is single-blind (reviewers are
anonymous, but authors are not).
4. For a paper accepted at the conference, at least one author is
generally expected to present in person, but we will work to
make remote presentations possible. (Feel free to inquire in
advance with the organisers.)
* Acceptance criteria:
1. *Computer Science*: we seek contributions pertaining to
computer science (in a broad sense),
2. *Author expertise*: we expect authors to contribute in
accordance with their domains of expertise, in a broad sense;
for instance a contribution on ethical issues by a computer
scientist can be rooted in their research practice, a
contribution by a social scientist can be rooted in the study
of an example or through field work. (This includes
submissions by graduate students.)
3. *Undone science*: we expect that the question of undone
science will inspire presentations that lead to meaningful
reflections on ethical or epistemological aspects of computer
science. For instance, a submission could outline a potential
ethical question derived from a detailed examination of
real-world practices without delving into the ethical aspects
in detail. (Feel free to inquire with the organisers about
a potential topic.)
4. Unfinished or exploratory contributions, that would benefit
from discussion at the conference prior to their development
into full papers, are most welcome.
5. Members of the programme committee are allowed to submit talk
proposals.
* We will endeavour to always give considerate and constructive
feedback about proposed abstracts.
* Accepted abstracts will be made available online in the programme
of the conference.
REGISTRATION & ATTENDING
* There are no fees for registration, but /registration is mandatory/
to attend.
* The venue has good accessibility and we strive to make our
conference accessible; more information will be provided on the
website of the conference. Feel free to inquire with the
organisers.
* A very limited number of travel grants might be offered for
speakers who require it. Feel free to inquire in advance with the
organisers.
* The talks will be streamed online.
Visit the website (https://undonecs.sciencesconf.org/) for more information.
PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
Ihsen Alouani (Queens University, Belfast)
Marc Anderson (Inria)
Enka Blanchard (CNRS & LAMIH)
Simon Castellan (Inria)
Pierre-Antoine Chardel (Institut Mines-Télécom Business School)
Christine Eisenbeis (Inria)
Chantal Enguehard, Chair (Univ. Nantes)
Laurence Favier (Univ. Lille)
Jean-Daniel Fekete (Inria)
Karën Fort (Sorbonne Université & LORIA)
Alessio Guglielmi (University of Bath)
Guillaume Munch-Maccagnoni, Chair (Inria)
Alberto Naibo (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Norberto Patrignani (Politecnico Di Torino)
Maël Pégny (Freelance data scientist; formerly Uni. Tübingen)
Tomas Petricek (Charles University, Prague)
Sophie Quinton (Inria)
Catherine Tessier (ONERA)
ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Guillaume Munch-Maccagnoni, Chantal Enguehard, Maël Pégny, Marc Anderson
Contact us at (undonecs@sciencesconf.org).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] D. J. Hess (2016). Undone Science: Social Movements, Mobilized
Publics, and Industrial Transitions. MIT Press. ISBN
9780262529495.
[2] Frickel, S., Gibbon, S., Howard, J., Kempner, J., Ottinger, G., &
Hess, D. J. (2010). Undone Science: Charting Social Movement and
Civil Society Challenges to Research Agenda Setting. Science,
Technology, & Human Values, 35(4), 444–473.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243909345836
[3] According to Green, tech ethics increasingly tends to be “subsumed
into corporate logics and incentives”. According to Abdalla and
Abdalla, actions of “Big Tech” to influence academic and public
discourse are reminiscent of the tactics of Big Tobacco.
B. Green (2021). “The Contestation of Tech Ethics: A
Sociotechnical Approach to Technology Ethics in Practice,” in
Journal of Social Computing, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 209-225,
September 2021. https://doi.org/10.23919/JSC.2021.0018
M. Abdalla & M. Abdalla (2021). The Grey Hoodie Project: Big
Tobacco, Big Tech, and the Threat on Academic Integrity. In
Proceedings of the 2021 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and
Society (AIES ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New
York, NY, USA, 287–297. https://doi.org/10.1145/3461702.3462563