My ACM-W Europe Story

Abstract

I had an amazing experience establishing ACM-W Europe. The problem of gender equality in CS was obvious. By looking at the percentages of women earning CS degress, women in computing jobs, women in executive positions in CS related companies, quit rate for women in CS related education and jobs, difference between salaries of men and women in tech industry you could see that there was a real problem. Who’s problem was that? Was it women’s problem or the whole world’s problem? Was there anything we could do to improve the situation? What could we do, where should we start? These were the first major questions in our minds.

I was very lucky to work together with a small group of wonderful volunteers who were also sharing my dreams for women in computing. We learned a lot on the way when we were setting the goals, discovering better ways of healthy communication, doing things together, and organizing activities. Among many other smaller projects the annual Europe-wide ACM Celebration of Women in Computing named womENcourage became a trade mark and the 8th with the slogan “Bridging Communities to Foster Innovation” was another success to connect women from diverse technical disciplines and encouraging them to pursue their education and profession in computing.

In my talk I will share my story emphasizing what worked well and the challenges that could be of value to the next generation women in computing.

Short Bio

Reyyan Ayfer is working at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey with a multitude of responsibilities including teaching, leading a volunteer group of faculty to support use of technology, preparing an online history archive of the university. Ayfer has held several leadership positions within ACM to improve computer science education and increase the representation of women in the field.

She received the Anita Borg Change Agent Award in 2008 after serving as the ACM-W Ambassador of Turkey for 8 years. For the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), she organized 15th annual European conference Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE).

For ACM’s Council on Women (ACM-W), Ayfer served as the Regional Activities Chair, and she is the founding Chair of ACM-W Europe.

Initiatives on open metadata and open references

Abstract

In this talk we review several Springer Nature initiatives related to open references and research evaluation in informatics. We present the current status of opening references. Then we review initiatives on open conference metadata. Finally, we will discuss the diversity, equity and inclusion of various languages into scholarly infrastructure.

Short Bio

Aliaksandr (Alex) Birukou is Vice President Journals, Russia in Springer Nature. His team overseas the program of ~26,000 articles/year in 216 translated journals published by Pleiades Publishing and Springer Nature and covering a variety of disciplines: from mathematics, physics, chemistry to medical and life sciences. Previously he was responsible for the conference proceedings in Computer Science (~900 volumes, 30,000 papers/year, including the Lecture Notes in Computer Science, LNCS, series). Apart from editorial work Alex represents editorial in several internal and external R&D projects dealing with optimization or innovation of scientific publishing.

Most recent projects include: persistent IDentifiers for conferences (Alex chairs the Crossref/DataCite group; AI and semantic tools for editorial (help in the assessment and topical classification of conferences). Previously, Alex co-founded lod.springer.com, which later was integrated into Springer Nature SciGraph.

Towards a software pillar for Open Science: challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Open Science is a tidal wave that is expected to have a deep and long lasting impact on the way we conduct and share research, and the way the career of researchers is built and evaluated. Despite the fact that this movement was born decades ago, only recently awareness has started to raise about the fact that open source software has a key role to play, on par with open access to research articles and data.

While we can and must learn from the mistakes made in the path to Open Access and Open Data, it is important to acknowledge that software, and source code in particular, is different from other research results.

In this talk, we will explore the landscape of what has already been done, and the challenges and opportunities that we face in building the software pillar of Open Science.

Short Bio

An alumnus of the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, with a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Pisa, Roberto Di Cosmo was associate professor for almost a decade at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. In 1999, he became a Computer Science full professor at University Paris Diderot, where he was head of doctoral studies for Computer Science from 2004 to 2009. President of the board of trustees and scientific advisory board of the IMDEA Software institute, and member of the national committee for Open Science in France, he is currently on leave at Inria.

His research activity spans theoretical computing, functional programming, parallel and distributed programming, the semantics of programming languages, type systems, rewriting and linear logic, and, more recently, the new scientific problems posed by the general adoption of Free Software, with a particular focus on static analysis of large software collections. He has published over 20 international journals articles and 50 international conference articles.

In 2008, he has created and coordinated the european research project Mancoosi, that had a budget of 4.4Me and brought together 10 partners to improve the quality of package-based open source software systems.

Following the evolution of our society under the impact of IT with great interest, he is a long term Free Software advocate, contributing to its adoption since 1998 with the best-seller Hijacking the world, seminars, articles and software. He created in October 2007 the Free Software thematic group of Systematic, that helped fund over 50 Open Source research and development collaborative projects for a consolidated budget of over 200Me. From 2010 to 2018, he was director of IRILL, a research structure dedicated to Free and Open Source Software quality.

He created in 2015, and now directs Software Heritage, an initiative to build the universal archive of all the source code publicly available, in partnership with UNESCO.

Short Bio

Yves Deville is Professor at the Engineering School at the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium. He received an undergraduate degree in computer science from Namur University (Belgium) in 1983, an MS degree in computer science at Syracuse University (USA) in 1986, and a doctoral degree from Namur University in 1987.

His research interest covers Artificial Intelligence, Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization. Since 2014, Yves Deville is Senior Advisor to the President for the Digital University and Open Science at UCLouvain. He is also heading the steering committee of the information system at UCLouvain.

He developed the university's digital strategy. The proposed vision is a university in which digital technology promotes the creation, dissemination, and acquisition of knowledge. This vision is based on Open models and covers Open Education and Open Science.

Abstract

Over the last five years, smartphones and the apps that they run have begun to be used for medical and clinical purposes. They offer cost-effective solutions for both monitoring and intervention in a number of areas. Mobile phones are now being used to run companion apps in support of drug delivery, to configure medical devices, in online-consultations with health care professionals, for the long-term monitoring of vital signs and in public health interventions. While we have experience in all these areas, in this talk I will focus on the Covid-19 app that we built for the NHS in England and Wales as an example of an app for large-scale public health intervention. We will describe some of the underlying architectural principles, which include reflection, privacy-by-design and the extensive use of cloud-native primitives to achieve availability and scale. We will discuss the development process that we used to build the app as a Class-1 Medical Device within 12 weeks from start to national launch.

The talk will conclude by discussing the impact that the app has had on controlling the pandemic in England and Wales.

Short Bio

Following graduation with a PhD in Software Engineering on databases for software engineering environments, Wolfgang Emmerich held a post doc position at the University of Queensland. He then took academic positions in London at City University and University College London, where he currently is Professor of Distributed Computing. Wolfgang has an interest in engineering federated distributed and mobile systems.

Wolfgang co-founded the Zuhlke Group in 2000 in Zurich and serves on the Group’s Executive Board. In 2009 he became CEO of Zuhlke’s operation in the United Kingdom. Under his leadership Zuhlke has grown to a medium-sized software business in the UK. Wolfgang is a member of the ACM, the IEEE Computer Society, the Institute of Engineering and Technology and the Institute of Directors.

Leading in research: creating environments for clever people to do great work

Abstract

A good researcher is not necessarily a good leader in research, yet career paths often involve moving into leadership positions whether we are ready or not. While we are explicitly trained in the technical/process/writing skills of research, the people side, the leadership side, is left somehow to be absorbed by osmosis, or to rely on luck or natural ability, or to be learnt by painful trial and error.

I (and my affected colleagues) can particularly attest to the pain of my unskillful leadership attempts, driven by my imposter and perfectionist self. It doesn’t have to be that way. Leadership in research is a skill set that can be learned, shifting the focus from ‘me’ to ‘we’, and creating environments that empower and enable clever people to do great research.

I will reflect on my own ongoing learning experience of leading in research and draw out some key lessons towards more skill-ful and care-ful leadership.

From PhD to Professor: choices, supports, and structures

Abstract

Reflecting on my own story and literature, a good academic career is possible and it needs a whole systems approach.

First, there is no ideal 'good academic'. We can each decide who we are, and what matters to us, and shape our work life choices accordingly, where choices are in our control and recognising trade-offs.

Second, we need supportive environments (from peers, to groups, to faculty), and new leadership models, that empower people to do their great work.

Third, we need enabling systemic processes and structures that resource, evaluate and reward academics; while these are slowest to change, there are encouraging signs of increasing recognition of diversity and research culture alongside usual academic measures.

Working across all these levels, my hope is that academia becomes an increasingly sustainable and rewarding career option for all of us who want to pursue this path.

Short Bio

Geraldine Fitzpatrick is Professor of Technology Design and Assessment and leads the Human Computer Interaction Group in the Informatics Faculty at TU Wien, where her research is focussed on socio-technical and people-centred perspectives of computing. She is an ACM Distinguished Scientist, an ACM Distinguished Speaker, an IFIP Fellow, and an IFIP TC-13 Pioneer Award recipient. She has a diverse background, with a PhD in CS&EE (Uni of Queensland), an MSc in Applied Positive/Coaching Psychology (UEL), and international experience in academia and industry in Austria, the UK and Australia. She also has a prior career as a nurse/midwife with leadership roles in hospital and private practice contexts. She is passionate about how we can craft better academic cultures. Towards this, she hosts the Changing Academic Life podcast series and delivers academic career development and leadership development consultancy, training and coaching internationally.

For more information see http://www.changingacademiclife.com and https://www.informatics-europe.org/services/academic-leadership.html.

Short Bio

Judith Good is Professor of Human Computer Interaction in the Informatics Institute at the University of Amsterdam, and director of the newly founded Digital Interactions Lab. She has degrees in psychology and artificial intelligence, and has worked at universities in both Europe and the United States.

Her overarching research aim is to develop cutting edge technologies, designed with end users from the outset, which can have an empowering effect on the people who use them. Within this broad area, she has focussed on better understanding how people learn, and on how innovative technologies can best support their learning. She is particularly interested in working with people with disabilities, particularly autism, to design technologies which improve their lived experiences.

Prof. Good is also actively involved in initiatives to support women and girls in STEM subjects. Whilst at the University of Sussex, she led the team which wrote the first successful application for an Athena SWAN award in Engineering and Informatics.

How do different problem-solving styles affect gender inclusion in Computer Science courses?

Abstract

The software we use has significant gender-inclusiveness issues. Software tends to support better the cognitive problem-solving styles more frequently observed in men, when compared to those more often preferred by women. The lack of gender diversity in the software development community perpetuates this problem, as software tends to reflect the values and concerns of those who create it. The good news is awareness of this diversity can help to mitigate the Challenge. How does this affect Computer Science courses?

In this talk, we report on an ongoing study exploring the relationship between gender-biased problem-solving styles and academic enrollment and success in Computer Science courses. Are women who enrol in computer science courses different from the larger population with respect to their preferred problem-solving styles? To what extent are these problem-solving styles correlated with academic success? What about faculty members? Do we favour similar problem-solving styles to those of our students, or is there a mismatch? If there is such a mismatch, are we shaping our students to become more like us, with respect to those problem-solving styles?

Short Bio

Miguel Goulão is an Associate Professor of the Informatics Department of FCT/UNL and an Integrated Researcher at the Software Systems group at NOVA LINCS. He has a Ph.D. (2008) in Informatics from Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

The broad aim of his research is to improve the software developer’s productivity and developer experience, in order to better deal with software development complexity. Miguel uses Evidence-Based, Empirical Software Engineering, and User Experience evaluation techniques to identify the strengths and shortcomings in languages, tools, and approaches. He uses these quantitative and qualitative assessments not only in the evaluation of Software Engineering claims but also as an objective input to help to devise improvements to fix the identified shortcomings. Miguel is particularly interested in human factors in software development, improving the understandability of Requirements Engineering and Domain-Specific Languages (and of specifications built with those languages), to empower developers and other stakeholders to more effectively read and write software specifications. Miguel was also a member of the COST Action on Multi-Paradigm Modeling for Cyber-Physical Systems.

Miguel has published over 70 papers in peer-reviewed international journals, conferences, and workshops, and served as guest editor of special issues in international journals, as PC member, and as PC and Organizing Chair in several events. He received the best paper award at the 26th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2014), and was a co-author of the paper receiving the János Szentes Award for the best paper on Software Metrics presented at the 6th European Conference on Software Quality (ECSQ 1999).

How do different problem-solving styles affect gender inclusion in Computer Science courses?

Abstract

The software we use has significant gender-inclusiveness issues. Software tends to support better the cognitive problem-solving styles more frequently observed in men, when compared to those more often preferred by women. The lack of gender diversity in the software development community perpetuates this problem, as software tends to reflect the values and concerns of those who create it. The good news is awareness of this diversity can help to mitigate the Challenge. How does this affect Computer Science courses?

In this talk, we report on an ongoing study exploring the relationship between gender-biased problem-solving styles and academic enrollment and success in Computer Science courses. Are women who enrol in computer science courses different from the larger population with respect to their preferred problem-solving styles? To what extent are these problem-solving styles correlated with academic success? What about faculty members? Do we favour similar problem-solving styles to those of our students, or is there a mismatch? If there is such a mismatch, are we shaping our students to become more like us, with respect to those problem-solving styles?

Short Bio

Catarina Gralha has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (Portugal), advised by Miguel Goulão and João Araújo. She was a Visiting Research Student at SEGAL Research Group, University of Victoria (Canada), working with Daniela Damian. She was also a Visiting Research Student at the Bristol Cyber Security group, University of Bristol (United Kingdom), working with Awais Rashid and Ben Shreeve.

Her main research interests are in the area of software engineering, especially software requirements, software design, empirical software engineering and software quality. In particular, Catarina uses Empirical Software Engineering techniques to identify the strengths and shortcomings in the quality of software requirements models.

Catarina has published in peer-reviewed international journals, conferences, and workshops. She received the best paper award at the 26th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2014), and had a candidate for the best paper award at the 27th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2019).

A Career in the Informatics Community

Abstract

As I developed my career in a large and a number of start-up companies and on to academia, I chose what I felt was interesting, challenging and useful at the time. I never set out a career path - it didn't occur to me that I should. Neither did it occur to me that others saw me first as a "woman" and only second as a "computer scientist". As I progressed up the career ladder I gradually learned how I was "different" from those who made up the status quo.

I will discuss the lessons I learned along the way in my career in the hope that others will understand now what I didn't understand then. The world has changed in the last 40 years and we are now much more aware of cultural stereotyping. The least I can do is help you make your own "mistakes" rather than repeating mine.

Computer Science is a wonderful field in which to do research. Let's make it a better field together!

Short Bio

Lynda Hardman is Manager Research & Strategy at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI, https://www.cwi.nl), the Dutch national research centre for Mathematics and Computer Science. She is full professor, part-time, of Multimedia Discourse Interaction at Utrecht University. Her research interests are in how visualisations can be used to improve the way domain experts interpret and interact with (linked) data.

Prof. Hardman is the director of Amsterdam Data Science (http://amsterdamdatascience.nl), a partner organization whose mission is to strengthen the Data Science and AI ecosystem that spans academia, industry and society in the Amsterdam region. She is the European director of LIAMA (http://liama.ia.ac.cn), a research collaboration since 1997 between INRIA (France), CWI and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

She was the president of Informatics Europe 2016-2017. During her time as board member, she founded, together with Cristina Pereira, the IE working group Women in Informatics Research and Education around 2012.

She was named ACM Distinguished Scientist in 2014 and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society.

Cross cultural social and psychological determinants of girls’ decisions to study information and communication technologies (ICT) at university

Abstract

The proportion of women studying information and communication technologies (ICT) at university varies greatly between European countries. Specific differences in national educational systems are not the only determinants of the proportion of women studying ICT. Social and psychological factors relating to national/regional culture also play a role. Determinants such as gender role stereotypes, stereotypical occupational beliefs, girls’ attitudes towards ICT, self-efficacy in ICT, and self-concepts have been investigated in specific national European samples. But we lack cross country comparisons of these determinants and investigations into the effect of these on women choosing to study ICT.

Sociologists have researched European (e.g. European Social Survey) and specific country social values (e.g. World Values Survey) but meta-constructs such as self-expression values or secular values, and their partial sub-constructs, have not been investigated in terms of how they relate to intention or decision to study ICT.

The present paper provides a theoretical review of the possible cross cultural social and psychological determinants of girls’ decisions to study ICT at university.

Short Bio

Dr. Robert Hanák is associate professor at the Department of Informatics, Faculty of Business Management, University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia, and researcher at the Institute of Experimental Psychology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, where his research is focused on decision making: complex and complicated decision tasks, factors influencing decision outcomes such as experience, expertise, intuition, rationality, cognitive profile, and social factors.

He is currently researching girls’ intentions and decisions to study information and communication technologies (ICT) at university and the national/regional culture, social and psychological determinants of these.

Empowering Girls through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Education: Where do we stand?

Abstract

Gender inequality is one of the main factors of the digital divide in developing countries. There are gender divides in the digital labour market with low participation by women in the digital labour market and, particularly in high-quality jobs and top management positions. In Bangladesh, the participation of female students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) is not satisfactory. Despite expanding ICT job opportunities, there has been a decrease in the proportion of girls entering ICT studies and pursuing ICT careers. There is a nearly equal number of male and female student enrolments in primary and secondary levels of education in Bangladesh, but at the tertiary level and the job sector, a sharp drop in the number of women is observed. There are some reasons behind the poor involvement of women in ICT, such as gender bias in selecting undergraduate studies, lack of visible women leaders, lack of proper guidelines and support, lack of networking opportunities, fear of uncertain career, etc.

In this talk, I’ll explore the current status of female enrolments in ICT education in Bangladesh and the challenges and opportunities to pull out females of these barriers.

Short Bio

Dr. Lafifa Jamal is a Professor of the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Dhaka. She is the former chairperson of the same department. Previously, she was a faculty member of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Dhaka. She is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Fellow of Bangladesh Computer Society. She received her Ph.D. Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Dhaka. Her research interests include Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Gender and Diversity, STEM Education, VLSI Design and Reversible Logic Synthesis.

Dr. Jamal is currently serving as the President of Bangladesh Women in Technology (BWIT) and the Vice-President of Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN). She is the Founding Director of Bangladesh Flying Labs which is a hub to connect robotics and tech researchers and enthusiasts from home and abroad for social justice, equality and development. Dr. Jamal is the Founding Advisor of IEEE University of Dhaka Women in Engineering Student Branch Affinity Group and IEEE Robotics & Automation Society University of Dhaka Student Branch Chapter; and Founding Moderator of Dhaka University Science Society.

She sits on various international advisory boards and review panels, and serves in many program committee roles for various international conferences. Some of her recent involvements include Women in Engineering Chair of iSES 2021 (India), Special Session Organizer of ICIPRoB 2020 (Sri Lanka), TPC Chair of ICIET 2019 (Bangladesh), Regional Program Chair of RIIT 2018 (Thailand), General Co-Chair of ICIET 2018 (Bangladesh), International Advisory Board Member of ICOM 2017 (Malaysia). Under her leadership, Bangladesh got the very first Gold Medal in the 20th International Robot Olympiad 2018 which was held in Manila, Philippines. She is the Founder President of the Bangladesh Robot Olympiad Committee and a Member of the International Robot Olympiad Central Committee.

Short Bio

Gabriele Keller is the chair of the Software Technology Group at Utrecht University. Before moving to the Netherlands, she co-founded the Programming Languages & Systems Group at the University of New South Wales, and was a Principal Researcher at Data6 (formerly NICTA) in the Trustworthy Systems project. Her research interest are type systems, functional languages, and how these languages can be used to reduce the costs of software development, in particular in the context of high-performance computing and safety critical systems.

Together with Professor Marieke Huisman, she chairs the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion working group of the ICT Research Platform Nederland, and is a member of the EDI committee of the Science Faculty at Utrecht University and SIGPLAN CARES committee.

Short Bio

Nuria de Lama studied Telecommunications Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. She has worked more than 20 years in Research, Development and Innovation in different IT environments. After several years managing the department of International projects in an SME specialized in wireless and mobile technologies, she joined Atos in 2005, where she first led a Research Unit on Rural and Industrial development. In 2006 she was appointed Head of the Research Unit on Semantics, Software and Service Engineering and since 2010 she is European Programs Manager. She has managed or contributed to more than 40 innovation projects in areas like Services, Digital Platforms, Digital Transformation, IoT and Big data applied to different sectors, notably Smart Cities and Agriculture.

She has played a leadership role and has represented Atos in a number of strategic and road mapping initiatives, such as the European Technology Platform on Software and Services (NESSI), the CELTIC Plus Eureka program, the Open Innovation Strategy and Policy Group (OISPG) or the Future Internet Partnership leading to the creation of the FIWARE Foundation. She is also one of the founders of the Big Data Value Association where she was first Deputy Secretary General; since 2018 she is member of the Board of Directors. She has devoted the last years to topics related to the Data Economy, including Data Platforms, coordinating a portfolio of data-.related projects and supporting the implementation of the Big Data Value Partnership. She is member of the Organizing Committee of the European Big Data Value Forum and has assessed proposals in the areas of data entrepreneurship in projects like DataPitch or events like the DatsCi Awards.

She acts proudly as advisor to a number of projects (BigPolicyCanvas, DataPitch, Cervero, I-BiDaaS, NGIoT, EU-IoT, StandICT, Everest, Decido).

How Open Science Practices Increase the Public Value and Legitimacy of Scientific Research

Abstract

People look to science to help them understand great challenges and to seize opportunities for innovation. The public value of science depends on in its ability to help people more effectively align their actions and aspirations. Alignment occurs when science empowers people to understand cause-effect relationships, and interpret evidence, with greater accuracy and precision. The power of open science practices to increase science's public value comes from their ability to empower people in this way. Replication activities, for example, can clarify the set of circumstances to which a particular finding does, or does not, generalize. In an era where the legitimacy and applicability of scientific claims is increasingly questioned, open science practices are essential to maintaining and expanding the incredible public value of scientific research.

Short Bio

Dr. Arthur Lupia is Assistant Director of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and serves as head of the NSF Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE). He is the Gerald R Ford University Professor at the University of Michigan and co-chair of the US National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Open Science.

Dr. Lupia’s research and related public work examines processes, principles, and factors that guide decision-making and learning. His efforts clarify how people make decisions, and choose what to believe, when they face adverse circumstances. Lupia draws from many scientific disciplines to advance these topics.

Dr. Lupia has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, a Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and is a recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Rochester and a social science PhD at the California Institute of Technology.

Short Bio

Ernestina Menasalvas (F). Computer Scientist and PhD in Computer Science. She leads the MIDAS “Data Mining and Data Simulation Group” at the Center of Biotechnology in the Technical University of Madrid (UPM). She teaches databases and data mining at UPM. She was Associate Dean of studies and Associate Rector for Graduate Studies (2004-2012). She actively participates in EIT Digital and EIT Health, in special in the education activities. She leads the Task Force on skills in DAIRO (the Data, AI, and Robotics Association, previously BDVA - the Big Data Value Association).

Her research integrates different aspects of data analytics, with the involvement in different real-world problems with special emphasis on health. She has participated actively in may EU projects (FP7, H2020, EIT). She has published more than 120 journal and conference papers in venues including Data and Knowledge Engineering Journal, Physics Reports, Information Sciences, Expert Systems with applications, and Journal of Medical Systems, and actively participated in International Conference Committees.

Sustaining Women's Participation in Computer Science (CS) Majors: Lessons Learned from Women who Persevered

Abstract

In addition to recruitment, retention of women is one of two major problems influencing female representation in CS majors in the US. On average, only about 18% of graduates with a CS Bachelor's degree are women. Numerous studies examined this problem from the perspective of individual, institutional and societal factors. The vast majority of those studies, however, examine the problem of retention from the perspective of women who leave the major. My work focuses on retention as it is perceived by the women who persisted in this major. This work identified four types of interactions and eight types of practices inside the major that supported women to become legitimate members of the community and persist towards their graduation. At the same time, this work emphasizes the importance of family support for both persistence and initiation in the community.

Short Bio

Katarina Pantic is an Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology at Weber State University, where her main role is to help pre-service teachers develop their media literacy, computer literacy and coding skills. Her research is focused on broadening participation of women in Computer Science and broadening teachers' media integration skills in the classroom. She has a diverse background with a PhD in Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences from Utah State University, an MS in Communication from North Carolina State University and a BA in English Language and Literature.

Open citations in Informatics

Abstract

The launch of the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) has been a tipping point towards the availability of open citation data. While, before it, only a few projects have tried to create small repositories of open citations, I4OC catalysed the worldwide attention to the issue. It resulted in an unprecedented mass availability of citation data that could be reused for any purpose. From there, several new databases have arisen, e.g. the Indexes created by OpenCitations such as COCI, and new and existing applications and repositories started to use such new data systematically, e.g. VOSviewer and DBLP.

In this talk, I introduce open citations, focusing mainly on the Informatics field, showing the current status and limits, and analysing possible uses of open citations in research assessment exercises.

Short Bio

Silvio Peroni holds a PhD degree in Computer Science and is an Associate Professor at the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies, University of Bologna, where he teaches 'Basic Informatics', 'Computational Thinking and Programming' and 'Open Science'.

He is an expert in document markup and semantic descriptions of bibliographic entities using OWL ontologies. He is Director of the Research Centre for Open Scholarly Metadata (https://openscholarlymetadata.org), one of the main developers of the SPAR Ontologies (http://www.sparontologies.net), Co-Director of OpenCitations (http://opencitations.net), and founding member of the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC, https://i4oc.org) and the Initiative for Open Abstract (I4OA, https://i4oa.org). He is Project Coordinator of the H2020 project "SPICE" and Local Unit Coordinator of the H2020 project "OpenAIRE-Nexus".

Among his research interests are Semantic Web technologies, markup languages for complex documents, design patterns for digital documents and ontology modelling, and automatic processes of analysis and segmentation of documents. His works concern theoretical studies and technical implementation of tools to foster semantic interoperability of Open Science services and infrastructures, the empirical analysis of the nature of scholarly citations, bibliometrics and scientometrics studies, visualisation and browsing interfaces for semantic data, and the development of ontologies to manage, integrate and query bibliographic information.

How to achieve high quality research

Abstract

High quality research in computer science and software engineering is difficult to achieve.

It requires a diverse set of skills, ranging from deep knowledge of a particular field, technical ability, through to communication. Researchers are constantly under pressure to produce publications, come up with something novel, impactful, significant.

However, one can never know upfront whether a particular idea will produce such results, with software engineering experiments taking sometimes months to complete. Nevertheless, there are steps one can take to ensure high quality output, ones research colleagues playing an important role.

In this talk I will talk about my personal experience of trying to produce high quality research, including key lessons learned.

Short Bio

Justyna Petke is a Principal Research Fellow and a Proleptic Associate Professor at the Centre for Research on Evolution, Search and Testing (CREST) and a member of the Software Optimisation, Learning and Analytics Research (SOLAR) group at University College London. Her main expertise lies in Genetic Improvement (GI), which uses automated search to find improved versions of existing software. She currently holds an EPSRC Early Career Fellowship on the topic of Automated Software Specialisation Using Genetic Improvement. She also has expertise in Combinatorial Interaction Testing, Search-Based Software Engineering, and Constraint Satisfiability.

Justyna Petke established the International Workshop on Genetic Improvement, which has had its 10th edition this year. She won multiple awards for her work on Genetic Improvement, including two 'Humies', awarded for human-competitive results produced by Genetic and Evolutionary Computation. She is active in numerous conference program committees, and is currently on the editorial boards for the Empirical Software Engineering, and Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines journals.

Short Bio

Africa Real holds a Telecommunications Engineering Master degree from the Universidad Politecnica of Catalonia and a Master in Marketing and Sales Management from the ESIC Business School.

She started her career working part time in Sony Spain at the same time she carried out her studies. She decided to taste a different culture and continue her studies in Germany doing her final thesis in the Fraunhoffer Institute, Stuttgart. After her thesis, she continued her adventure in Germany moving to Aachen. She worked for Ericsson EuroLab , one of Ericsson’s largest European research and development centers, working as a software developer on the latest mobile network technologies.

After several years, she decided to come back home to be closer to her family and continue enjoying of the beautiful sun and culture from Barcelona. In 2003, she joined HP Large Format Printing in Sant Cugat, the largest HP R&D Lab outside US with more than 700 R&D engineers and 2300 employees.

She started as a software quality engineer and since then, she has been holding different positions, managing different development teams especially on the Software development arena. Currently she is the R&D Director for the Large Format Business.

Africa has a strong background in Quality, Program management, and FW and SW development. She has a unique combination of drive, customer-centricity, and passion for the business, being an active champion of agile methodologies.

The dblp Computer Science Bibliography: Open, Curated, and Semantically Meaningful Metadata for the Informatics Community

Abstract

The unambiguous attribution of scholarly material to their proper creators ranks among the most critical challenges in research evaluation. Correct attribution can be essential, in particular when universities and funding agencies are making use of publication and citation statistics in their hiring and funding decisions. Yet, these statistics are often based on proprietary data sources that are of unknown data quality and lack transparency. Hence, in recent years, the need for open data sources as a basis for research evaluation has become more and more apparent.

For more than 25 years, the dblp computer science bibliography (https://dblp.org) has been providing open bibliographic metadata and curated author bibliographies in computer science. Today, listing more than 5.75 million publications written by about 2.8 million authors, dblp has grown to become the most comprehensive, open metadata collection in the field. Each working day, about 1.800 new computer science publications are indexed by the dblp editorial team. All of dblp’s curated metadata is available for unrestricted reuse under the CC0 license.

In this talk, we will give a brief overview of dblp's semi-automated approach that aims to keep the human curator in the loop in order to ensure high-quality metadata and high-precision author disambiguation. We will also discuss dblp's recent effort to semantically interlink its data with external open data providers in order to improve dblp's utility for the research community.

Short Bio

Marcel R. Ackermann is a member of the scientific staff of Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics in Wadern, Germany. Since 2017, he is the team lead responsible for the dblp computer science bibliography, the world's most comprehensive open bibliography of scientific literature in computer science. Before joining Schloss Dagstuhl, he earned his PhD in Computer Science (Dr. rer. nat.) from the University of Paderborn, Germany, in 2009.

His research focuses on clustering algorithms, information-theoretic similarity measures, data analytics and metadata quality management.

Effective strategies for encouraging girls in computing: learning from existing initiatives

Abstract

Even if there have been significant improvements in recent decades, gender inequality continues to be a big problem in many areas such as education, health, social life, business life, and politics. Informatics is one of these areas where gender inequality and its effects are very visible. The gap between men and women in informatics is visible at all levels, from undergraduate/graduate studies to being a part of academia or leading in academia and industry.

EUGAIN is a COST action that aims to explore ways towards gender balance in Informatics. The Existing Initiatives subgroup, inside working group 1: from School to University, aims to investigate whether and how existing initiatives are successful in encouraging girls to choose Informatics in their higher education. Members from this subgroup have been and still are actively getting in touch with initiatives from all over Europe in order to get a better understanding of what makes girls hesitant or even reluctant in choosing to study informatics and how we could encourage them instead.

In this talk, I will speak of our first meet-up with existing initiatives and share the insights we gained on effective strategies for overcoming barriers such as lack of role models and difficult learning environments.

Short Bio

Zeynep Şahin Timar holds a PhD degree in Computer Instructional Technologies Education and is a lecturer at the Department of Software Engineering, Karadeniz Technical University where she teaches ‘Engineering and IT Ethics’, ‘Probability and Statistics', ‘Software Development Standards and Project Management’, and ‘Design Project’.

She studies multimedia learning, computer-based learning, computer-based assessment, learning technologies, emotional design, computer ethics, assistive technologies, and gender balance.

She was a researcher at the “Analysis of Multimedia Based Designed Assessment in Terms of Various Variables” project (Scientific research project supported by Anadolu University) and project implementation manager at “The Development of an Adaptive, Web-Based Assessment Tool for Evaluating the Literacy, Numeracy and Digital Skills Levels of Low Skilled/Low Qualified Adults in Turkey” (EU Funded Project). She is on the Cost Action EUGAIN (European Network for Gender Balance in Informatics) management committee and the co-leader of WG1, “From School to University” in the action. She is also on the Cost Action a-STEP management committee (advancing Social inclusion through Technology and EmPowerment). And she is the Science Communication manager of the a-STEP.

Toward Awareness Creation of Common Challenges Women are Facing in Academia: A Case Study from a German Perspective

Abstract

Women face plenty of challenges as scientists regarding, e.g., equality and appreciation at the workplace. While these challenges are not new, the awareness level towards them is still low.

In this talk, I will present a study we conducted with 200 women from technical universities in Germany in 2021. We studied challenges they face in different areas, such as cultural issues and problems at the workplace, and how they handle them. We also investigated how their challenges differ between the computer science community and other STEM fields. As an outcome of our study, we conclude that women in research still have many problems. These problems include finding an appropriate solution to a problem.

Short Bio

Larissa Schmid is a PhD student at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in the "Modelling for Continuous Software Engineering" group, which is concerned with modelling software regarding different quality attributes. Before starting her PhD, she earned her Masters degree in computer science from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology with a focus on theoretical foundations and software engineering.

In her research, she focuses on performance modeling and analysis of scientific software, where she works in an interdisciplinary environment with multiple other research groups.

Additionally to her research in computer science, she is concerned with gender equality in academia, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Short Bio

Mina Stareva is the Head of the Gender Equality Sector in DG Research and Innovation, the European Commission. This sector is responsible for devising the EU strategy for gender equality in research and innovation, and the integration of a gender dimension into research and innovation programmes and content.

Prior to joining the European values & democracy unit in DG Research and Innovation, she has been working on developing the European Research Area policy and international cooperation.

EOSC - Ready for Open Research and Open Research Assessment?

Short Bio

Klaus Tochtermann studied computer science at the Kiel University and Dortmund University, where he received his doctorate in computer science.

From 2001 until 2010 he was the scientific director of the research institute Know-Center, a competence centre for information technology-based knowledge management located in Austria. Since 2010, Klaus Tochtermann has been the director of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics in Kiel and Hamburg (Germany) and has held a chair for Digital Information Infrastructures at Kiel University.

He was a member of the two High-Level Expert Groups of the EOSCs. In addition, he is a member of the German Council for Scientific Information Infrastructures.

Short Bio

Dr. Ruoyi Zhou is the Director of IBM Research Europe – Dublin with responsibilities of driving innovation and growing a world-class industrial research organization in AI, quantum computing, security & privacy, hybrid cloud and other cutting-edge science and technology. She serves on the Industrial Advisory Board of Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College of London. Ruoyi is also the IBM Partnership Executive for Trinity College Dublin.

Prior to her current role, Ruoyi was the Director of IBM Accessibility Research where she oversaw development of advanced technology to enable accessibility for IBM offerings and creation of AI-powered assistive technology for people with disabilities. She served on the Industry Advisory Council at the Colorado University College of Engineering & Applied Science and on the Board of Advisors for G3ict. She initiated and launched the Accessibility track at the Grace Hopper Conference and served as a committee member. Additionally, Ruoyi was the Co-Director of AI for Healthy Living, a joint research center between IBM and the University of California, San Diego. Ruoyi played different technical and management leadership roles during her over two decades at IBM.

Ruoyi received her Ph.D. in Materials Science from Rutgers University and conducted postdoctoral research at Los Alamos National Lab. She has over 30 publications. Ruoyi was a YWCA TWIN Award honoree in 2010, one of the most prestigious awards in the United States to recognize successful women executives for their outstanding achievements.

Aligning the Digital Transformation With the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

All United Nations Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015. The Agenda contains the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ranging from ending poverty, improving health and education to combating climate change and preserving oceans and forests. Digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) are mentioned only briefly in connection with education in developing countries, gender equality, and the implementation of global partnerships.

From a broader perspective, we can see that digital technologies are transforming societies in various ways. The digital transformation enables individuals and organizations almost everywhere in the world to act differently. These enabling effects of ICTs bear potentials for long-term structural change, which in turn create opportunities and risks for virtually all SDGs. It is hard to imagine how the SDGs can be reached without deep changes enabled by digitalization. Besides its enabling effects, the digital transformation comes with its own footprint in terms of mineral resource depletion and carbon emissions.

From this view, it seems urgent to ask the question what would have to be done to systematically align the digital transformation with the SDGs, and what we – as active participants in the digital transformation – can contribute to a "sustainable digital transformation" in this sense. The talk will give an overview of arguments and postulate some principles of a sustainable digital transformation.

Short Bio

Lorenz Hilty is a Professor at the Department of Informatics at the University of Zurich with a research focus on the interaction between the digital transformation and sustainable development. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Hamburg in 1991. Before being appointed Professor at UZH in 2010, he was Head of the Technology and Society Lab at Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, and Affiliated Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology KTH, Stockholm.

He initiated the international conference series "ICT for Sustainability" (ICT4S) in 2013 in Zurich. Among other functions, he is a member of the Steering Committee of the Foundation for Technology Assessment (TA-SWISS) of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, the Steering Committee of the Competence Center for Sustainable Finance at UZH, the University Council of the University of Constance, and the High-Level Advisory Group on Digitalisation and Sustainability of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.

Fighting fire with fire: responsible AI through regulation or innovation?

Abstract

With the increasing power of AI systems comes an increased call from society for "responsible Artificial Intelligence": AI systems that are unbiased, explainable, and only used for ethical applications. Much of the debate around responsible AI centers on regulations: for which applications AI systems should be forbidden, and what legal requirements should be placed on AI systems. But is the best road to responsible AI systems really through more regulations? Or should we use the justified legal, social and ethical concerns as a driver for more innovation instead? And if so, what innovations will be required? The answers to these questions will have implications for what we teach in our AI curricula, how we direct our research, and who we should recruit in our departments.

Short Bio

Frank van Harmelen (PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 1989) is professor of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning at the Computer Science Department of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He has made contributions to automated theorem proving, to knowledge engineering, and to the semantic web standards for linked open data that are now in world-wide use.

He currently heads the Hybrid Intelligence Center, a 10-years, 20m€ national research consortium investigating AI systems that collaborate with people instead of replacing them. He is a fellow of the European AI Society, a member of the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts, and a member of the Academia Europea.

Reading the road: the challenges and opportunities of responsible research and innovation in helping develop sustainable societies.

Abstract

Technology continually reshapes our world, in ways we’ve planned for...and, increasingly, in ways that we haven’t. From how our data is mined for profit, to the addictive influence of social media and the carbon impact of going online - there are often unintended consequences to such progress. But as the challenges presented by new and emergent technologies stack up, there is a growing understanding of the crucial importance of responsible research and innovation (RRI) - a shared caretaking which can positively shape our world.

Our work in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) demonstrates at first hand some of the challenges involved in creating a dialogue between innovators and societies. It also identifies opportunities for further research and the ongoing embedding of RRI concerns to develop more responsible technologies that reflect the needs of society. We will make recommendations for future work in policy, industry and research to ensure that societal considerations are brought into the dialogue alongside commercial motivations to create more sustainable societies.

Short Bio

Marina Jirotka is Professor of Human Centred Computing in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford, and Governing Body Fellow of St Cross College. Her expertise involves co-producing user and community requirements and human computer interaction, particularly for collaborative systems. She has been at the forefront of recent work in Responsible Innovation (RI) in the UK and the European Union.

She leads an interdisciplinary research group investigating the responsible development of technologies that are more responsive to societal acceptability and desirability. She is an EPSRC Established Career Fellow - a five year investigation into Developing Responsible Robotics for the Digital Economy. She is Director of the newly established Responsible Technology Institute at Oxford and she is co-director of the Observatory for Responsible Research and Innovation in ICT (ORBIT) which provides RI services and training to ICT researchers and practitioners. She is also currently PI on the EPSRC Digital Economy TIPS project Rebuilding and Enhancing Trust in Algorithms (ReEnTrust).

Interaction and Representation Challenges of Sustainability Related Information – The Quest for Usable Sustainability

Abstract

The IT security research community took decades to fully embrace the fact that technical solutions are of little use if the intended users are unable or unwilling to apply them. That is why Usable Security was only widely established as an academic field after a long delay. With respect to sustainability, there is also a danger of underestimating an important aspect that lies beyond the recognized central challenges, i.e., beyond developing sustainable solutions and implementing them politically and socially. The talk assumes that the aspect of human-centered information dissemination is such an underestimated area. Indeed, it is easy to see that the appropriate preparation and provision of relevant information and, in particular, human-centered presentation and interaction support are of paramount importance for the development and acceptance of sustainable solutions. Pretty much all stakeholders in sustainability are affected by this, because their contribution depends on versatile trustworthy information from a large number of sources. The list of stakeholders includes, among others:

• Those responsible for creating sustainable value chains (for food, products, energy, etc.) that lead from initial resources to final recycling or disposal, under highly complex interrelations and while optimizing multiple "footprints"
• Business people whose support for sustainable value chains depends on a wealth of aspects.
• Policymakers responsible for complex and often highly influential regulatory policies
• The end users and general public, who, while showing a growing interest in sustainability, are far too often overwhelmed by misleading or difficult-to-understand information.

The above calls for a new academic field that we shall coin as Usable Sustainability. The presentation will first substantiate the previous argumentation further. Afterwards, current research in the fields of usability and human computer interaction (HCI) will be highlighted whose furthering and tailoring towards Usable Sustainability seems promising. Some important research challenges in this potential discipline will also be elaborated. Special attention will be given to ongoing HCI efforts towards merging the "digital world" with the physical world and its (mobile) population. As mentioned, assessing the trustworthiness of information is also of particular importance in the context of sustainability. Therefore, a brief insight into approaches and challenges in this additional area will also be provided in conclusion.

Short Bio

Max Mühlhäuser is a full Professor at Technical University of Darmstadt and Head of Telecooperation Lab. He holds key positions in several large collaborative research centers and is leading the Doctoral School on Privacy and Trust for Mobile Users. He and his lab members conduct research on Human Computer Interaction, the Future Internet, Intelligent Systems, and on Cybersecurity&Privacy.

Prof. Mühlhäuser founded and managed industrial research centers, and worked as either professor or visiting professor at universities in Germany, the US, Canada, Australia, France, and Austria. He is a member of acatech, the German Academy of the Technical Sciences. He was and is active in numerous conference program committees, as organizer of several annual conferences, and as a member of editorial boards or a Guest Editor for journals such as ACM IMWUT, ACM ToIT, Pervasive Computing, ACM Multimedia, and Pervasive and Mobile Computing.