Call for Abstracts: 

Information Science Trends (IST): Untold Stories

June 17-19th, 2022, 14.00-17.00pm (BST/Dublin time) each day

The European Chapter (EC) and European Student Chapter (ESC) of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) seeks your contributions to an online conference on Untold Stories in Information Science on June 17-19, 2022, 14.00-17.00pm (BST/ Dublin time). The deadline for submitting proposals (an abstract of 400-750 words) is 23rd May 2022. 

Each day we will have one keynote, short online talks, and student poster sessions. We invite researchers, practitioners and students  to submit extended abstracts for talks (15 minutes presentation + discussion time). Students can alternatively submit proposals for posters (10 minute presentation of their poster). We welcome proposals both from ASIS&T members, and from non-members.

This event focuses on Untold Stories in Information Science and accepts submissions within information science/studies (broadly construed) covering research (completed or in progress), practical projects or examples, and conceptual work. "Untold stories" may refer to a story that simply has not been told before (a new research question or problem), or to stories from voices, cultures and places that have been neglected or suppressed. It is a theme open to your interpretation, but this gives some ideas about what we have in mind:

• Research methods for untold stories. Discussion of approaches & methods for discovering and exploring unknown stories (e.g. ethnography; autoethnography; participative & collaborative approaches; mixed methods; data mining). This can include: Scholarly discussion of challenges and possibilities of specific data collection & analysis methods; Engagement with ethical and practical issues; Methodologies used in specific research projects
• Places where untold stories unfold. Are untold stories in hidden or hard- to-access places (e.g. in the dark web, in conflict zones, in people's heads, buried in big data) or are they hidden in plain sight? You may want to tell us where and how you discovered an untold story, and issues around that discovery
• The people in the untold story. Who were the people who featured or guided your research? What did you discover and how were they involved in that discovery? What do you know about how they feel about their story and how it is told?
• Telling the untold story. Discussion of how one can disseminate: e.g. experience of using multimodal presentation of results, what channels you use to tell the story, challenges and possibilities 
• The researcher and the untold story. Discussion of researcher positionality & impact; reflection on personal research journeys

We interpret Information Science broadly to include all kinds of information experience and information behaviour, information retrieval, data science, information literacy, information organisation, and ways of knowing. If you are not sure whether your idea fits in with our theme do please email asist.europeanchapter@gmail.com

Accepted papers will be presented by authors in an online talk (15 minutes) and the revised submissions will be published at Zenodo, an online repository for research outputs.

The Information Science Trends (IST) conference series

The event is part of the series on Information Science Trends (IST). The events focus on current research topics, including invited speakers from research and industry. Our first event in Hamburg (April, 2019) focused on the topic Search Engines and Information Retrieval.  Our second, online, event focused on Health Information Behaviour (June, 2020) and our third on Information Science Research During COVID-19 and Post-Pandemic Opportunities (June 2021); The latter 2 conferences were each awarded the ASIS&T Chapter Event of the Year.  Our events provide an opportunity to network and share ideas and interests from the different fields of information science and related disciplines. This event will be held online again this year..

Submission requirements

For both presentations and posters, we request an informative, structured abstract (400-750 words, including references in APA format, and written in English).  You will find our template at https://tinyurl.com/IST22cfp.  You must submit via Easychair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ist22. All abstracts will be peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers. Presenters (whether students, unwaged, retired or employed) will need to be registered for the conference (see below: the conference is free to ASIS&T members; US $10 to non-member students and US $25 to other non-members. Submissions are due on: 23rd May 2022.

If your submissions is accepted, we require you to upload your abstract with a CC-BY 4.0 International License at Zenodo (community: Information Science Trends - ASIS&T European Chapter Series)

Opportunities for all researchers and practitioners

You may submit proposals for presentations (presentation of 15 minutes + question time). Please submit your abstract and choose the submission type “presentation” in the submission form. The conference will be online. Multimodal presentations, as well as traditional presentations, are welcome, as long as they fit in the time limit.

Opportunities for students

Students may either submit presentation proposals (see above) and/or posters. All posters will be entered in a Best Poster competition. Poster sessions will be 10 min in length, and will be held through the conference, spanning the topics of each track. Students are defined as BA/BSc, MA/MSc, or PhD students within Information Science (including related areas such as Data Science and Information Management). Please submit an extended, structured abstract and choose the submission type “poster” in the submission form. The conference will be online. Presentations of the posters at the conference may use a pdf, a video (playable from a publicly-accessible platform such as Youtube) or a very short slide show.   You need to verify your status and name your supervisors/ course leader. Presenters will need to be registered for the conference.

Cannot Give a Talk But Want to Attend?

Participation is not restricted to those presenting. If you do not want to present your work, you may want to join and listen to the talks. The fees are: ASIS&T members: no charge (but registration still required). Student non-members: US $10; Other non-members: US $25. Register here (if you are an ASIS&T member, log into the ASIS&T website to enable your discount):  https://associationforinformationscienceandtechnologyasist.growthzoneapp.com/ap/Events/Register/aPddzDxP?mode=Attendee

For more information:We are happy to answer any questions you might have regarding this event. Please send an email to: asist.europeanchapter@gmail.com or the IST conference co-chairs

Sheila Webber, s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk

Dr Sophie Rutter, s.rutterr@sheffield.ac.uk

Dr Jesse Dinneen, jesse.dinneen@hu-berlin.de