First European Conference on

Voting,
Rating,
Annotation

Web4Groups & the Future of Communication on the Internet

Vienna, 21 - 22 April 1997 Research Unit for Socio-Economics, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Web4Groups Project Team In Cooperation with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences MTA SZTAKI, Computer and Automation Research

The conference

This conference aimes to bring together people working on future aspects of computer-mediated communications (CMC). Experts are invited to make comments and present their own approaches on the basis of a study distributed to all participants before the conference.

The study `Voting and Rating: Perspectives for information collection, decision making and collaborative rating using Web4Groups' investigates possible ways of `rating' in computer-mediated communication processes. This refers both to rating activities in decision making (`voting') and to the rating of content (`rating' of webpages, of contributions to a discussion, etc.). The specific implementation of rating and voting features in Web4Groups is examined in order to assess the potential and feasibility of computer-supported rating.

We collaborate on common visions, metaphors, implementation and dissemination strategies.

The programme

Monday, 21 April 1997

9.00	Registration
9.30	Herbert Mang, secretary-general of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Miklos Biro, Computer and Automation Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences: Opening statements
10.00	Valentino Cavalli (Omega Generation/Italy), Roland Alton-Scheidl (Research Unit for Socio-Economics/Austria) and Samba Diallo (Kapsch AG/Austria): Presentation of the Web4Groups project, Current project results, future plans and cooperation
11.30	Rupert Schmutzer (Research Unit for Socio-Economics/Austria): Presentation of the study "Voting and Rating", Introduction and summary
13.30 till 17.30	Rupert Schmutzer, Peter Paul Sint and Gernot Tscherteu (Research Unit for Socio-Economics/Austria): Presentation of the study "Voting and Rating" Statements and invited comments by John December, Jakob Hummes, Marilyn Davis, Arnold B. Urken, Daniel LaLiberte, and others, Discussion
19.00	Challenges to an Electronic Democracy Moderation: Sonja Puntscher Riekmann (Research Unit for Socio-Economics/Austria) Torsten Groetz (Vienna City Council/Austria): Telematic Activities of the City of Vienna, Leda Guidi (Municipality of Bologna/Italy): Metropolitan Electronic Citizenship, Steven L. Clift (Minnesota E-Democracy/USA): Electronic Democracy, Civic Life on the New Frontier

Tuesday, 22 April 1997

9.00	Roland Alton-Scheidl (Research Unit for Socio-Economics/Austria): Introduction: Expert view
9.15	Philipp Sonntag (VDI/VDE-IT Teltow/Berlin/Germany): ADVISER - Added Value Information Services on European Research Results
9.45	John December (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Department of Language, Literature, and Communication, Troy/USA): The Matrix of Society and Technology in Computer-Mediated Communication on the Internet
10.30	Jakob Hummes (Eurecom/France): Active Annotations on Web Pages
11.30	Marilyn Davis (eVote/USA): Features for Freedom
13.30	Laszlo Kovacs (Computer and Automation Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences): Introduction: User' and Developer' views
14.00	Arnold B. Urken (The Steven Assessment Center/USA ): Voting Theory and Web-based Decision Tasks: The Stevens Assessment Center
14.30	David R. Newman (The Queens University of Belfast/Northern Ireland): The On-line Preferendum: a Tool for Polling, Conflict Resolution and Decision-Making
15.00	Daniel LaLiberte (HyperNews, NCSA/USA): Security Concerns for WWW Annotation Mechanisms
15.30	Miklos Irmay (Institute of Forest, Snow and Landscape Research/Switzerland): Forest Planning Processes in a CMC Context - an example from Switzerland
16.00	Valentino Cavalli (Omega Generation/Italy) and Roland Alton-Scheidl (Research Unit for Socio-Economics/Austria): Discussion and summary