ECSCW – European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work

“ECSCW – European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work – The International venue on Practice-centred computing and the Design of cooperation technologies” is a series of conferences on computer-supported cooperative work located in Europe. From 1989 to 2017 ECSCW took place bi-annually in different towns in Europe (see below). From 2018 and onwards, ECSCW will merge with COOP and become an annual conference held in late May/early June under the aegis of EUSSET – The European Society for Socially-Embedded Technologies.

To learn about the history of ECSCW, have a look at the introduction from the Conference Chair to the first ECSCW in 1989.

As stated in the preface to the ECSCW 1991 proceedings, CSCW is committed to grounding technological development and systems design in an understanding of “the specifics of practical, situated action“. ECSCW remains committed to this program.

ECSCW has been instrumental in defining the agenda of CSCW research since the beginning, and it still is. It has been the key forum for identifying and exploring issues such as

  • the situated nature of action and interaction and its implications;
  • the role of ethnography in CSCW and in computing in general,
  • the role and nature of ‘awareness’ in cooperative work;
  • the role of paper-based and other material artifacts in cooperative work;
  • highly flexible collaboration infrastructures and tailorable systems.

The ECSCW conferences are single-track conferences in order to facilitate critical discussion across the disciplinary and national subdivisions of the field.

Since 2017 ECSCW considers two kinds of work being presented at the main technical tracks of the conference:

  • “Exploratory Papers”, published in the EUSSET Digital Library, with a DOI.
  • “ECSCW Contribution” papers published in the CSCW Journal.

For a detailed information on the journal publication process, see this page.

See https://www.facebook.com/ECSCW/ for the conference series Facebook page.

To provide a feeling for the (potential) impact of the different kinds of papers, we have collected some download statistics over the last years – the statistics are downloads per year (excluding downloads by robots) in average over all the papers:

ECSCW exploratory papers: For ECSCW2019 we had an average of 136 downloads/paper/year in the first year, for ECSCW2018 we had an average of 168 downloads/paper/year over two years and for ECSCW2017 we had an average of 83 downloads/paper/year over three years.
Regarding citation counts one could find on Google Scholar an average of 1 citation for ECSCW2019 exploratory papers after one year (max: 6), and an average of 5 citations for ECSCW2018 exploratory papers after two years (max: 12).

ECSCW journal papers: For the preprints stored in the EUSSET DL we had an average of 64 downloads/paper/year for ECSCW2019 and an average of 61 downloads/paper/year over two years for ECSCW2018.

To set these numbers in context: In the ACM Digital Library you can find average downloads for C&T of about 90/paper/year, and for ACM CSCW and ACM GROUP of about 100/paper/year.

Call for proposals to host ECSCW

We wish to invite the community to prepare proposals to host ECSCW in future years at European locations.

Expected duties of the ECSCW general chair(s) include: overseeing the overall organisation of the event; putting in place local arrangements for the conference and pre-conference events (booking rooms, catering, registration desk, etc.); assembling an organising committee (in consultation with the EUSSET steering group); liaising with the chairs of specific submission venues and with the members of the organising committee; budgeting and monitoring the financial status of the conference; helping in promoting the conference in collaboration with the other committee members and with EUSSET.

Proposals to host the ECSCW conference should include:

  • Which year the proposal refers to
  • A brief description of the proposed host organization;
  • Committee plans: the general co-chair(s) must be specified and described through short biographical sketches.
  • Additional information on suggested scientific chairs is welcome, if available;
  • Description of the proposed venue: Describe the conference location and facilities, as well as availability of accommodation options, travel infrastructure, location attractions and potential social/leisure activities;
  • Any other relevant issues: for example, any proposed innovations, additional information on venue/location, link to other events/activities organised by the proposed hosts, etc.

… and be sent to the chairman of the EUSSET steering committee – see Contact Information.

EUSSET News related to ECSCW

[catlist name=ecscw numberposts=10 excerpt=yes thumbnail=yes thumbnail_class=lcp_thumbnail]

Proceedings

The proceedings of the ECSCW conferences are available in the EUSSET Digital Library.

Past and future conferences

  • 2021: Zürich, Switzerland – https://ecscw.eusset.eu/2021/
  • 2020: Siegen, Germany – https://ecscw.eusset.eu/2020/
  • 2019: Salzburg, Austria – https://ecscw.eusset.eu/2019/
  • 2018: Nancy, France – https://ecscw.eusset.eu/2018/
    • Keynote 1: Antonio Casilli: Who works your data? Responsible AI to address trust and privacy in micro-work regulation
    • Keynote 2: Valérie Issarny: USNB – Enabling Universal Online Social Interactions
  • 2017: Sheffield, UK – https://ecscw.eusset.eu/2017/
    • Keynote 1: Gloria Origgi: Why Do We Use Social Media? Social Ego and the Management of Reputation
    • Keynote 2: David A. Shamma: AI as a promise. AI as a practice. AI as HCI
  • 2015: Oslo, Norway
  • 2013: University of Cyprus, Cyprus
    • Keynote 1: Sampsa Hyysalo: Timeframe, scopeframe …dataframe & theory framed – the news that longitudinal multisite studies might hold for CsCw
    • Keynote 2: Marco Susani: Envisioning the collaborative work of the future: spaces, tools, experiences. From user observation to design strategies
  • 2011: Aarhus University, Denmark
  • 2009: Vienna, Austria
  • 2007: Limerick, Ireland
  • 2005: Paris, France
    • Keynote 1: Hal Habelson: Universities, the Internet, and the Information Commons
    • Keynote 2: William Gaver: All W and No P Makes CSCW a Dull Field: Supporting Ludic Collaboration
  • 2003: Helsinki, Finland
  • 2001: Bonn, Germany
  • 1999: Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 1997: Lancaster, UK
  • 1995: Stockholm, Sweden
  • 1993: Milano, Italy
  • 1991: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 1989: London, UK