2021 CSST Summer Institute (Online)

The Consortium for the Science of Sociotechnical Systems (CSST)
Calls for Participation in the
2021 CSST Summer Research Institute

Dates:                       12–14 July 2021
Times:                      3 hours a day, 10am-1pm US pacific, 1-4pm US eastern
Where:                     Online
Co-Organizers:       James Howison, UT Austin and Jaime Snyder, University of Washington
Deadline:                Apply by 24 May 2021, notifications by early June. Late applications accepted through 31 May.
Submission link:  https://umdsurvey.umd.edu/jfe/form/SV_br2qJZddljWUhHo

The CSST Summer Research Institute supports emerging scholars in sociotechnical research, supported by ACM SIGCHI Development Fund, the Sloan Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. Emerging scholars can be studying or working anywhere in the world (one advantage of an online event!).

Eligible emerging scholars are:

  • Doctoral students expected to graduate before December 2022
  • Post-doctoral scholars (any position en route to faculty and industry research)
  • Apologies, due to numbers with the online format junior faculty already started in faculty positions are not eligible this year.

Participants will engage in peer networking, roundtable discussion of individual and group research interests, and skill-building tutorials to help participants identify substantive ways that the theories, approaches, and tools within the larger community can advance their work with the design and study of sociotechnical systems.

For 2021, we are delighted to have early commitments from the following scholars who will serve as mentors, representing diverse professional experiences, disciplines, and communities. This list will continue to grow as we get closer to the event:

  • Jenna Burrell (UC Berkeley, School of Information)
  • Sherae Daniels (Univ Cincinnati, Business School)
  • Ken Fleischmann (Univ Texas Austin, School of Information)
  • Josh Greenberg (Sloan Foundation)
  • Libby Hemphill (Univ Michigan, School of Information)
  • Likoebe Maruping (Georgia State, Business School)
  • Kalpana Shankar (University College Dublin, School of Information and Comm. Studies)
  • Katie Shilton (Univ Maryland, College of Information Studies)
  • Jeff Treem (Univ Texas Austin, Communications)
  • Lionel Robert (Univ Michigan, School of Information)

Mentors-at-large will include James Howison (UT Austin), Jaime Snyder (University of Washington) and members of the CSST Steering Committee: Kristin Eschenfelder (UW Madison), Andrea Forte (Drexel University), Morgan Ames (University of California, Berkeley), David Ribes (University of Washington), Katie Shilton (University of Maryland), and Jenn Thom (Spotify).

The Institute has been an activity of the Consortium for the Science of Sociotechnical Systems Research (CSST) since 2008. Topics and problem domains of focus in socio-technical systems research include (but are not limited to) personal health and well-being; eScience and citizen science; co-production, open source/innovation, and new forms of work; cultural heritage and information access; social informatics; civic hacking, engagement and government; human-robot interaction; disaster response; cybersecurity, surveillance and privacy; education and learning; information systems; platforms.

This is a wide area of coverage, so if your interests are in people/organizations/society together with tech/systems/data and you are (or hope to be) part of intellectual communities such as CSCW, HCI, social computing, science and technology studies, organization studies, information visualization, social informatics, sociology, information systems, social media and society, medical informatics, computer science, ICT for development, education, learning science, journalism, or political science, then you fit well with this program and you should apply! And if we’ve missed your topic/community, apply and tell us about it!

In addition to these long-standing areas of focus for the Institute, this year we are also highlighting and inviting submissions from those whose research resides in the area of Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace. By this, we mean scholars interested in the NSF SaTC program as detailed here: https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=504709

We are designing the online institute to acknowledge the reality of fatigue with online interactions but the reality that in-person meetings are not yet possible. Our schedule is to have three sessions over three days, each three hours long, giving space for the range of other responsibilities that participants may have. We plan some shared physical activities, including distributing a book for all to read (and then discuss), and we hope to include a shared activity such as cocktail/mocktail kits.

Applying for CSST 2021 Online Summer Institute

To apply, upload to the submission link above.

  1. 500-word single-spaced response to the question: “How will your work advance our ability to design and understand sociotechnical systems?”
    – If post-doc please include your current title, institution, and unit (department/college)
    – If student, include institution, advisor, degree program, date of proposal defense, realistic date of program completion;
    – Include three to four relevant citations to situate your work within the larger research community (Can be a mix of your publications, or those that inspire your work).
  2. Your academic CV, including links to your academic website (if any).

The CSST Summer Research Institute Advisory Group will review applications using the following criteria:

  1. Clear articulation of the hoped-for contribution to theoretical analysis and theory-building, practice, and/or design of sociotechnical systems.
  2. Likelihood of Summer Research Institute participation providing significant practical benefit for the individual;
  3. Contribution to a balanced and diverse group of participants
  4. Relevance to the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace community (advantageous but not required)

We anticipate inviting approximately 30 participants. We may have small amounts of funding available to facilitate participation, such as covering costs of childcare. Details will be provided later in the process.

For more information about the Summer Research Institute, contact James Howison <jhowison@ischool.utexas.edu> and/or Jaime Snyder <jas1208@uw.edu>. For information about the broader community of researchers interested in design and study of sociotechnical systems, see: http://www.sociotech.net.