Substrates-27

What does it take for people to be able to adapt the computer systems they use? This question gives rise to many interesting challenges that have been researched in academia and practice for decades. Under the term substrates, this workshop brings together past and present research directions that explore and realize the vision of systems people truly own. The workshop aims to bring together a wide range of perspectives on these matters.

Call for Contributions

Introduction

What does it take for people to be able to adapt the computer systems they use? This question gives rise to many interesting challenges that have been researched in academia and practice for decades. Under the term substrates, this workshop brings together past and present research directions that explore and realize the vision of systems people truly own. The workshop aims to bring together a wide range of perspectives on these matters.

Topics of Interest

This workshop invites contributions across all concerns around the vision of systems users can adapt: from investigation of technical aspects, to alternative means of system or user input, all the way to ideas about policy and social coordination. The following list of topics serves as inspiration, but is not exhaustive:

• Malleable user interfaces and systems
• Decentralized, open evolution of computer systems
• End-user-friendly programming interfaces
• Data ownership approaches and their implications
• Generative artificial intelligence and how it enables or hinders the above
• Low- and high-level computing primitives to enable the above, for example Programming by Demonstration, reactive and incremental computation, and edit calculi
• Implications for collaborative or social computing of the above

Types of Submissions

The Substrates 2027 invites two forms of contributions:

• Demos or short presentations, where authors submit a video of up to 5 minutes and link to an artifact demonstrating a system, concept, or vision. These submissions will receive substantial peer-review feedback but will not be part of the ACM proceedings. They will be published as part of the web proceedings of the workshop similarly to previous years.
• Peer-reviewed, academic papers where authors present new, previously unpublished research related to one or more of the topics described above. Around eight pages might be considered a good target for the contributions expected at the Substrates workshop. However, there is no page limit on submitted papers. As a general rule, the number of pages should match the size of the contribution. It is the responsibility of the authors to keep the reviewers interested and motivated to read the paper. Reviewers are under no obligation to read all or even a substantial portion of a paper if they do not find those parts of it interesting. Papers must be prepared in LaTeX, adhering to the ACM format available at http://sigplan.org/Resources/Author/#acmart-format using the sigplan option. Authors of papers are invited to also submit a video of up to 5 minutes, either shared only among the other authors or made public separately to the proceedings. Accepted papers will be published in the Conference Companion volume in ACM DL.

For either type of submission, we invite authors to engage with past publications of this workshop and other communities, and to relate their own work to these, both on a conceptual and on a practical level.
For submitted papers where reviewers see a valuable contribution but the presentation requires improvement, there will be a second round of submissions in the form of conditional acceptance.
Important: For “Use of Artificial Intelligence” Substrates follows the guidelines of The Programming Journal (https://programming-journal.org/purpose/ai.html).
If authors are unsure which type would be better suited for their work, we invite them to reach out to the organizers.

Format

We want to focus on both discussion and dissemination, which means that authors will give brief summaries of their work and attendees are expected to have engaged with the submitted materials before the workshop date. We plan to hold the discussion with structured feedback following the “discussant model”, where one of the program committee who submitted a substantial review of the work will be appointed as a discussant, and will present constructive, critical reflections after the author’s presentation. Their reflections can be informed by the following guidelines:

• When discussing form, the following kinds of questions will be asked:
  • What did you gather / understand from the piece?
  • What aspects of the piece worked well to present the ideas?
  • What aspects need improvement? (These comments must be in the form of suggestions, not criticisms.)
• When discussing the ideas, the following kinds of questions will be asked:
  • What are the ideas?
  • Which ideas seem like good ones (and why)?
  • Which ideas need improvement or elimination? (Make positive suggestions when you can.)
• At the end the authors ask questions of the group.

• Participants are expected to have visited the materials beforehand.

This is the basic format, but we adjust the flow according to the needs of the group and the way the discussion is going. For more information about the workshop format, please have a look at Richard P. Gabriel’s book “Writers’ Workshops & the World of Making Things”.

Participation

We hope for all authors and interested audiences to be able to travel and attend the workshop in person. For those who do not have this option, we can offer participation via a Zoom meeting. Authors of contributions who must attend remotely are required to submit a video in addition to their artefact in case of technical difficulties.

Both online and remote participation require a workshop registration.

Substrates-27 seeks to broaden participation beyond those who might traditionally identify as academic researchers. It is a long-standing problem in our communities that work continues in separated silos who remain unaware of each other’s work over long timescales. It is our aim to create a forgiving, welcoming venue where workers with divergent backgrounds can encounter and enrich each other.

We welcome participation from workers from academia, industry, independent scholars, and from any others who can see their goals reflected in the substrate agenda.