-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [AISWorld] CFP - HICSS 2023 - Metaverse (opportunity for journal publication) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2022 08:18:05 +0100 From: Paulo Rupino Cunha rupino@dei.uc.pt To: ISWorld list aisworld@lists.aisnet.org

CALL FOR PAPERS - Metaverse

** NEW: Best papers will be invited to submit to a special Issue of the AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction (THCI) **

Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-56), Maui, Hawaii, January 3-6, 2023 http://www.hicss.org/

Metaverse minitrack, under the Organizational Systems and Technology track

The term “Metaverse” was first introduced in 1992 by the science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his novel “Snow Crash”. Metaverse is a portmanteau consisting of “meta” (which means “beyond”), to capture the development of a virtual world beyond the physical reality, and “verse” (which refers to a back-formation from “universe”) to refer to a virtual utopia. Second Life, a multimedia game, was launched in 2003 and was considered as the most important application of Metaverse (or virtual world) at the time. Despite the great attention that Second Life attracted, Metaverse did not manage to create a critical mass possibly due to the novelty of the technology at the time and its lack of interoperability with other solutions.

Recently, the technological advancements in blockchain technology, the evolution of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), the technological progress in extended reality (virtual and augmented), the developments in other scientific fields like Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the convergence of all the above technologies have increased the popularity of Metaverse. It is expected that a new generation of Internet will evolve from Metaverse, built of technologies like extended reality, blockchain, and others. The dynamic of Metaverse is huge with many experts predicting that it will generate a multi-trillion market in the coming years. Despite the opportunities and the advantages that Metaverse may offer, there are many open challenges that need to be assessed and addressed including social, legal, ethical, technical, and others.

For these reasons, it is important for academics to systematically research this field at various levels. Conferences, with their fast turnaround, play a key role in disseminating knowledge about Metaverse due to the speed at which developments occur. This minitrack aims to bridge a gap at HICSS and serve as a venue to share knowledge and discuss the latest developments in Metaverse.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

· Open Metaverse

· Blockchain and Metaverse

· Non-Fungible Tokens and their impact on Metaverse

· Metaverse use cases

· Social, legal and ethical challenges of Metaverse

· Metaverse adoption and diffusion

· Virtual economies

· Metaverse interoperability

· Best Metaverse practices

· Metaverse and disruptive innovation

· Gaming and virtual worlds

· Real estate in Metaverse

· Metaverse business models

· Extended reality applications

· Underlying theories and concepts

· Assessing the impact of Metaverse in human relations and behavior

· Integrating humans, machines and AI

· Cross platform ownership of digital goods

· Technologies and infrastructures for virtual worlds

Important Dates for Paper Submission:

· June 15: Paper Submission Deadline · August 17: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection · September 22: Deadline for Authors to Submit Final Manuscript for Publication

Minitrack co-chairs:

Marinos Themistocleous (Primary Contact) University of Nicosia themistocleous.m@unic.ac.cy

Horst Treiblmaier University of Modul Horst.Treiblmaier@modul.ac.at

Paulo Rupino da Cunha University of Coimbra rupino@dei.uc.pt

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