“From Facebook’s News Feed algorithm that shapes the posts and updates we see, to Spotify’s recommendation service that introduces us to new music that we might love, to dating site algorithms that attempt to match us with potential romantic partners, algorithms play an increasingly important role in shaping many aspects of our daily lives. We seek to bring together a community of researchers interested in taking a human-centered perspective on studying the experience of algorithms.”
To this end, we will be holding a half-day workshop on Monday, May 15th, 2017 in Montreal, Canada. The objective of this workshop is to articulate the grand challenges of studying the user-algorithm relationship and to bring together participants interested in developing projects to address these grand challenges. This workshop is action oriented, and we welcome participants from a variety of disciplinary perspectives who are interested in starting new projects on studying user perceptions and experiences with algorithms or who are in the early stages of an ongoing project. This workshop is part of the International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM).
Participation:
- Participants must submit a 1 – 2 page position paper to studyingusers@gmail.com
The position papers may address any of the following:
- What are the grand challenges of studying user perceptions and experiences with algorithms?
- What are the methodological or theoretical entry points for studying this relationship?
- A potential empirical study or an early stage project dealing with user perceptions and experiences with algorithms.
- Design implication or policy position papers that address how we can design systems such that users can better identify algorithmically mediated experiences or can better understand how specific algorithms work.
Topic areas might include: trust in algorithms, user belief about how algorithms work, algorithmically mediated experience, transparency and algorithm black-boxing, how different groups of users engage with algorithms, filter bubbles, user interventions with algorithms, or the discursive construction of algorithms.
Deadline March 4, 2017
More information about the workshop can be found at: www.studyingusers.org
Reach the organizers with any questions at studyingusers@gmail.com