The HUMAN Workshop, associated with ACM Hypertext, will take place online on December 4th and is available to register and attend for free. 
 
The workshop has a strong focus on the user and thus is complementary to the strong machine analytics research direction that could be experienced in previous conferences. The user-centric view on hypertext not only includes user interfaces and interaction, but also discussions about hypertext application domains. Furthermore, the workshop raises the question of how original hypertext ideas (e.g., Doug Engelbart’s “augmenting human intellect” or Frank Halasz’ “hypertext as a medium for thinking and communication”) can improve today’s hypertext systems.
 
More information on the workshop can be found on their site https://human.iisys.de/human20/ or twitter account @HUMAN_HT and we encourage the SIGWeb community to engage with this exciting event.

The Hypertext 2020 organizing team wants to help ensure broad participation in the conference and so has created the HT 2020 Fair Access Initiative. This initiative is a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its disruption to daily life and the economies of many countries, especially those considered to be developing countries. The Fair Access Initiative is making available several dozen free registrations to this year’s virtual conference. This is how you can apply:
 
  1. Submit a short statement (1-2 paragraphs) explaining your interest in participating in HT 2020 in an email Dr. Ethan Munson (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
  2. Submit evidence of your connection to a university, research laboratory, or relevant IT business.  This evidence can be a link to one or more institutional web pages (sent in the email from item #1) or it can be a letter or email from a supervisor or advising professor.  Again, this evidence should be sent to Dr. Ethan Munson (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
 
 
Applications should be sent no later than July 12, 2020.  

The 2020 ACM Web Science Conference takes place online from 6 -10 July and is organised by the University of Southampton. Presenters and participants will have multiple opportunities to engage over a full week of talks, panel sessions and informal discussions. Registration is open! This message gives you a taster of what to expect from the event.
On Monday we begin with Brave Conversations which brings Web Science to mainstream conversations that occur in everyday life. We will demystify the world of emerging technologies and explore their interaction with everyday life - ourselves, our communities, our societies and our planet. The event has always sought to ask difficult questions, challenge mindsets, and empower those who attend to think more inquisitively about their digitally-mediated lives. This year we will explore what the Covid-19 crisis means for all of us as our ‘human centric’ perspective is challenged on many levels.

The first day also includes our PhD Symposium.This will continue the tradition of facilitating a lively discussion with five exciting PhD student presentations and a Mentor Panel. The aim is to maximise the exchange of early-stage ideas, and to provoke interdisciplinary discussion on emerging areas of research.
On Tuesday we have a number of workshops that you can sign up for. The wide range of topics includes social inclusion, digital (in)-equalities, personalisation and community, using AI for good, and the secret life of immortal data.
The main conference will then take place over the remainder of the week. It will be opened by Ruby Wax, Chancellor of the University of Southampton. There will be keynote presentations from Professor Gina Neff from the Oxford Internet Institute whose research focuses on the future of work, and Professor James Hendler from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who will discuss the future of the Web.

Panel sessions will feature some of the world’s leading technology companies and policy makers. They will join the “movers and shakers” of Web Science to focus on topics that are of increasing global significance as our engagement with the Web prompts radical shifts in how we live, learn and work. There will also be a number of academic paper sessions and two “meet the author” opportunities. You can access the provisional programme here.

More details of the presenters and their sessions will be shared over the next couple of weeks. Keep an eye on our tweets, the #WebSci20 hashtag and our website for further updates.
We look forward to welcoming you to the first wholly online Web Science conference in July!

Pauline Leonard & Emilio Ferrara (Program Chairs)
Wendy Hall (General Chair)

Registration is now available for two of SIGWeb's virtual conferences this summer:
Both conferences have worked hard to put together a quality virtual experience and are also offering a very fair registration price - we hope to see many of you (virtually) at these events.

In response to the Covid-19 situation, ACM Hypertext and ACM UMAP will take place online this year. Check out the conference websites for the latest information on how to register and participate.

  1. ACM/IEEE JCDL 2020 Relocation
  2. ACM Hypertext HT 2020 - For Social Good

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