Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are transforming our societies, our governments, and other political systems, at a remarkable speed. Government departments are seeing the importance of ensuring services which are delivered electronically. Political parties are increasingly using ICT in their political processes. Despite this fact, we find a Dialogue of the Deaf (as John Harvey-Jones named it) between politicians and the ICT community. Politicians need to understand the internet much better and the ICT community needs to understand politics more if this Dialogue of the Deaf is to be transformed in a mutual comprehensive dialogue and in a synergic relationship. The purpose of PISTA 2025 is to contribute with the bridging efforts done in order to get an approach in the dialogue between both communities.
Invitation to participate
In order to accomplish the purpose of contributing to get an approach between ICT and Sociopolitical communities, ICT researchers are invited to present their research results. Practitioners and consultants are invited to present case study papers and innovative solutions. Corporations are invited to present political information systems and software based solutions. Public servers are invited to present case studies, information systems developed for specific purpose, and innovative ideas and designs. Political and social scientists are invited to present research or position papers on the impact and the future possibilities of ICT in Social systems and political processes. Politicians and political consultants are invited to present problems that might be solved by means of ICT, or solutions that might be improved by different approaches and design in ICT. All are invited to organize panel or invited sessions. Panel sessions with panelists coming from both: ICT researchers/practitioners and political consultants or politicians are highly encouraged.
Non-exclusive questions need some answers
The main objective of PISTA 2025 is to provide a forum for the presentation of both: solutions and problems of the applications of ICT in Politics and Society. The following questions need answers from different perspectives: What is the impact of the Information and Communication Technologies in Society? How are information and Communication technologies affecting democracy and making joint and collective decisions? What new networks and models are emerging to pave the way for decisions? How are political parties, governments and campaigning groups making use of IT and especially electronic communications? What electronic tools are there to facilitate democratic discussions and decision-making? What ethical and legal issues should be considered in the social transformation produced by the Information and Communication Technologies?
Is the responsibility for content production being left to the entertainment industry? Is the government under obligation to influence the trend in information society, and if so, what is its role and scope? What do the new trends have to offer different groups or the individual?
Organizational, Reviewing, and Selection of Best Papers Policies
Technical Keynote Speakers
Technical keynote speakers will be selected from early submissions because this selection requires an additional evaluation according to the quality of the paper, assessed by its reviewers, the authors' CV and the paper's topic.
Virtual Pre- and Post-Conference Sessions
Face-to-face sessions of all events will have associated virtual pre- and post-conference sessions where registered participants can comment each paper in a forum associated to it. Registered participant at any event will have a password to access any virtual session of any collocated event.
Reviewing Process
All Submitted papers/abstracts will go through three reviewing processes: (1) double-blind (at least three reviewers), (2) non-blind, and (3) participative peer reviews. Final acceptance depends of the three kinds of reviews but a paper should be recommended by non-blind reviewers AND blind reviewers in order to be accepted for presentation at the conference and to be included in the respective conference proceedings. A recommendation to accept made by non-blind reviewers is a necessary condition, but it is not a sufficient one. A submission, to be accepted, should also have a majority of its double-blind reviewers recommending its acceptance. This double necessary conditions generate a more reliable and rigorous reviewing than a those reviewing methods based on just one of the indicated methods, or just on the traditional double-blind reviewing. More details regarding this issue can be found at https://www.iiis.org/iiis/PeerReviewing.asp.
The three kinds of reviews mentioned above will support the selection process of those papers/abstracts that will be accepted for their presentation at the conference, as well as those to be selected for their publication in JSCI Journal. Details regarding the Acceptance Policy can be found at https://www.iiis.org/iiis/AcceptancePolicy.asp.
Authors of accepted papers who registered in the conference can have access to the evaluations and possible feedback provided by the reviewers who recommended the acceptance of their papers/abstracts, so they can accordingly improve the final version of their papers. Non-registered authors will not have access to the reviews of their respective submissions.
Virtual Participation
Submissions for Face-to-Face or for Virtual Participation are both accepted. Both kinds of submissions will have the same reviewing process and the accepted papers will be included in the same proceedings.
Pre-Conference and Post-conference Virtual sessions (via electronic forums) will be held for each session included in the conference program, so that sessions papers can be read before the conference, and authors presenting at the same session can interact three days before and during the conference, as well as up to three weeks after the conference is over. Authors can also participate in peer-to-peer reviewing in virtual sessions.
Invited Sessions Organizers
Registration fees of an effective invited session organizers will be waived according to the policy described in the web page (click on 'Invited Session', then on 'Benefits for the Organizers of Invited Sessions'), where you can get information about the ten benefits for an invited session organizer. To propose the organization of an Invited Session, please visit the conference website, and go to the menu option “Invited Sessions” and then to the menu sub-option “Invited Sessions Organizers.”
Best Papers
Authors of the best 25%-30% of the papers presented at the conference (included those virtually presented) will be invited to adapt their papers for their publication in the Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics.
One best paper of each session included in the program will be selected by the respective session’s co-chairs after consulting with the session’s audience. Invited Sessions organizers will select the best paper of the session they organized. If there is a tie in a given session, the paper that will be selected as the best session’s paper will be the one which have had the highest quantitative evaluations average according to its double-blind and non-blind reviews.
The selection process of the best 25%-30%, to be also published in the Journal, will be based on the sessions' best papers and the quantitative evaluation average made by its anonymous and non-anonymous reviewers. The later will be applied to papers which acceptance was based on reviews made to draft papers. Reviews of abstracts and extended abstracts will not be valid for selecting best papers according to the quantitative evaluation of the respective submissions.
