Dear List members

A brief reminder that the closing date for submissions to the First
International Conference on e-Social Science to be held in Manchester, UK
is the 1st of Feb 2005.

A reminder of the call for papers is included below but please also check
our website for details of the updated Programme Committee.  Details of
how to submit online will be announced soon on our website.

I hope to see you in Manchester this summer.

Best wishes
Dr Gillian Sinclair
Programme Manager
ESRC National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS)
University of Manchester
Dover Street Building
Dover Street
Manchester
UK
M13 9PL

Tel: 0161 275 1380
Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.ncess.ac.uk
News mailing list: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/E-SOCIAL-SCIENCE-NEWS

CALL FOR PAPERS
1st International Conference on e-Social Science
Manchester
June 22-24, 2005
Initial Announcement and Call for Submissions
www.ncess.ac.uk/conference-05/

Overview
The vision of the ‘Grid’ first emerged as a solution to the highly
specialised computing infrastructure requirements of particle physics. The
past five years, however, have seen the Grid’s potential recognised by the
wider scientific research community and the emergence of new forms of
research practice now encapsulated in the notion of ‘e-Research’.

Now, members of the social science research community in the UK and
elsewhere are beginning to explore how they can use the Grid and the
prospects for ‘e-Social Science’. This year, for example, has seen the
creation in the UK of the National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS).

The opportunities presented by the Grid for social science research are
numerous and intriguing. The Grid will make it possible for new
computational tools to be brought to bear on a diverse range of social
science research problems; it will make established social science
datasets more readily accessible, easier to integrate and to share; it
will make feasible the collection and curation of  new kinds of data on an
unprecedented scale. Beyond enhancing existing research methods, however,
e-Social Science also brings with it the prospect of articulating a
radically new research agenda and encouraging the formation of new forms
of research community.

Realising the full potential for e-Social Science will be a major
challenge and calls for a major collaborative effort from social
scientists and Grid technologists. As a contribution to meeting this
challenge, NCeSS is very pleased to announce the first international
conference on e-Social Science.

We invite contributions from members of the social science and Grid
research communities with experience of – or interests in – exploring,
developing and applying e-Social Science research methods, practices,
tools and technologies.

Submission categories include: full and short papers, posters, workshops
and tutorials.

Topics of interest include, but are not restricted to, the following:

* Case studies of e-Social Science in practice
* Studies of (e-)Research and (e-)Social Science research practices
* The benefits and challenges of large scale collaborative research
* Enhancing existing social science research methods through e-
Social Science
* Innovation in research methods through e-Social Science
* Socio-technical issues in the development of e-Social Science
research methods
* Ethical issues and challenges in the collection, integration,
sharing and analysis of sociological data
* New sources and forms of sociological data
* Standards for metadata, ontologies, annotation, curation, etc.
* Middleware for data collection, sharing and integration
* Tools for data mining, visualisation, analysis, modelling and
collaborative research
• Understanding requirements for research tools and middleware

Submission requirements for full and short papers, posters
Authors are requested to submit an abstract of approximately 1000-1500
words.

Please indicate the category of your submission: full paper, short paper
or poster and include the contact details of the main author on a separate
sheet.

Submissions will be subject to independent review and a final decision
will be made by the conference programme committee. Authors of submissions
not accepted as full papers may be invited to submit a short paper or
poster instead.

Accepted full and short papers will be published in the conference
proceedings.

Formats for the camera-ready copies of full and short papers, and posters
will be available for download from the conference web site in February
2005.

Submission requirements for workshop and tutorials
Workshop and tutorial organisers are requested to submit a one page
outline of the topic, format, likely audience, special requirements.

Deadlines and submission instructions
Paper and poster abstracts, workshop and tutorial outlines: February 1st,
2005.

Submission instructions will appear on the conference web site in January.

Authors will be informed of the programme committee’s decision on March
14th, 2005.