The internet and the global digital transformation have changed many different aspects of our lives. Not only the economies and the societies but also people’s personal lives have been influenced by this new and ever-emerging era of our history. While the digital age has made it possible to provide novel services and solutions for the end-users, it has also caused serious concerns in different individual and societal levels, such as issues regarding online privacy, algorithmic bias, fairness and accountability of information systems, transparency, governance, and explainability of information systems, end-user manipulations, fake news, traceability, etc. The development of human-centric and end-user empowering information systems can be one approach towards “digital sustainability”, i.e. providing novel and personalized services for the end-users, while considering potential negative multi-dimensional consequences of digital transformation. 

This minitrack aims to attract research that advances the understanding of human-centricity and end-user empowerment in a sustainable digital economy. It adopts an interdisciplinary perspective, which considers human-centricity and end-user empowerment across application domains (e.g. software development, digital commerce, healthcare, administration, mobile apps, social media, and online services). Topics are: 

• Towards understanding and development of human-centric information systems

• Evaluation of existing information systems from a human-centric perspective

• Co-creation and co-production of human-centric sustainable information systems

• Analysis and design of technologies (e.g. AI, Blockchain) that empower end-users

• Human-centric end-user agents, AI and machine learning

• Fairness, transparency, accountability and controllability of information systems

• Privacy, GDPR, personal data on the Internet, or consent management

• Legal or economic aspects of human-centricity in information systems

• Identity and privacy management systems 

• Business value of human-centric and/or user empowered solutions

• Sociotechnical studies of human-centricity in information systems

• Opportunities and challenges of digital behavior change, habit formation, and digital addiction

• Digital Nudging for increasing social or ecological responsibilities

• Ethical concerns regarding human-centricity 

Publication of Papers:

HICSS is the #1 Information Systems conference in terms of citations as recorded by Google Scholar. Presented papers will be included in the Proceedings of HICSS-54. Selected papers will be invited for a fast-track in Electronic Markets – The International Journal on Networked Business.

About the HICSS Conference:

Since 1968, the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) has been known worldwide as the longest-standing working scientific conferences in Information Technology Management. HICSS provides a highly interactive working environment for top scholars from academia and the industry from over 60 countries to exchange ideas in various areas of information, computer, and system sciences. 

According to Microsoft Academic, HICSS ranks the 36th in terms of citations among 4,444 conferences in all fields worldwide. The Australian Government’s Excellence in Research project (ERA) has given HICSS an “A” rating, one of 32 Information Systems conferences so honored out of 241 (46-B and 146-C ratings). Data supplied by the Australian Research Council, December 2009.

Unique characteristics of the conference include:

• A matrix structure of tracks and minitracks that enables research on a rich mixture of cutting-edge computer-based applications and technologies.
• Three days presentations of peer-reviewed papers and discussions in a workshop setting that promotes interaction leading to revised and extended papers that are published in journals, books, and special issues as well as additional research.
• A full day of Symposia, Workshops, and Tutorials.
• Keynote addresses and distinguished lectures which explore particularly relevant topics and concepts.
• Best Paper Awards in each track which recognize superior research performance.
• HICSS is the #1 IS conference in terms of citations as recorded by Google Scholar.
• A doctoral consortium that helps participants work with senior scholars on their work-in-progress leading to journal publications.
• HICSS panels that help shape future research directions.