We are inviting book chapter contributions for the Springer book:

“DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY.

ICT-supported Environmental Socio-economic Development”

Editors: Prof. Dr. Jorge Marx Gómez & Dr. Maria Rosa Lorini

The book will focus on the topics covered during the HEdIS Summer Schools

(2017, 2018, 2019):

• Innovative IoT for Sustainable Citizenship
• Sustainable Entrepreneurship in the frame of ICT
• Digital Transformation for Sustainability in Smart Cities
• Data Analytics for Sustainability.

Participants to all HEdIS Summer Schools, experts, and scholars in these fields are welcome to submit their contributions by 6th JUNE 2021

BOOK SYNOPSIS 

The book aims to analyse the relationship between sustainability –environmental, social, economic – and digital innovation. The initial chapters offer a contextualization of the main present and future trends concerning these two elements, with analysis that spread from the economic, technical, managerial, and social perspectives. The second section of the book focuses on the interactions that they present in existing organisations and aims to highlight the new opportunities, challenges and threats that may emerge as a result. The contributions arise from case studies and researches carried on mainly in Europe and Africa by scientists involved in the fields of Information Systems, Computer Science, Social Development, and Economics.

THEMES

The topics of interest of the book are synthetized by the 4 themes of the Summer Schools. They can be approached from a technical as well as societal and politics perspective. The themes are inter- and trans-disciplinary and they can overlap. However, authors will be required to indicate the main theme of the contribution. Works focused on the African context and on socio-economic development are encouraged (e.g. potential impact or value of digital transformations in underserved communities and emerging economies).

1. Innovative IoT for Sustainable Citizenship 

This theme focused on business and community value of IoT technologies. In particular, the chapters should highlight potential contributions of IoT towards environmental, social, individual contexts. For instance, IoT and water management, climate action and renewable energy, green transport, inclusiveness and security, health and wellbeing…

Societal challenges addressed by the IoT systems can refer to applications in manufacture, transport systems, environmental monitoring, hospitals and care facilities, schools and education institutions, as well as personal homes and wearable devices.

Contributions can focus on methods, strategies, and frameworks for the planning and design of smart innovative connected technologies.

2. Sustainable Entrepreneurship in the frame of ICT

Areas of interests in this section cover but are not limited to: the development of green economy; circular economy with an industrial system that is restorative by design; low impact economy; reduction of global footprint; agri-tech development; ICTs for entrepreneurship sustainability and socio-economic innovations; environmental entrepreneurial applications and ventures; smart electricity grid solutions; implementation of renewable energies; business models and strategic management for sustainable social entrepreneurship; …

Contributions can focus on conceptual as well as practical approaches and methodologies towards sustainable entrepreneurship driven by ICT.

3. Digital Transformation for Sustainability in Smart Cities  

Integrated applications, information processes, network construction, and information generation (sensing and identification) to build Smart Cities should be the focus of this section. Data collection, transmission, process, management and utilisation phases are all relevant for Smart Cites creation and Urban Planning. Vehicular traffic and parking, environmental pollution and energy production and consumption, surveillance, weather and water systems, smart waste management, smart buildings, …can be addressed by the perspective of the technology, software and applications (included Artificial Intelligence) perspectives as well as from the societal point of view (e.g. smart communities and citizens).

4. Data Analytics for Sustainability

Could data science drive the industrial, societal, and environmental sustainability revolution?

The big data challenges caused by data growth, timely management, sources, data validation, security, … are on with opportunities and risks. Can automation support energy efficiency? Can data centres be optimized to reduce energy consumption and waste? Are machine learning strategies designed to consider negative externalities on society and the environment, or only the positive economic outcome?

This theme on data-driven sustainability can be approached from a critical perspective as well as from a technical and operational point of view.

TYPES OF CONTRIBUTIONS

The following types of contributions are welcome: Systematic literature review, methodological contributions, action research, case studies, empirical studies, theoretical framework development and prototypical implementations. The options are:

• Long papers (Maximum 20 pages)
• Short papers (Maximum 12 pages)
• Long abstract (2 pages): only for 2021 Summer School participants.

AUTHORS GUIDELINES

• Authors will be required to sign a short publishing contract on provisional acceptance
• Chapters may not have rights restrictions. Authors should have the authority to submit the chapter
• No royalties will be paid to the authors
• Ensure that authors’ names and affiliations are omitted [and provided on the title page] to facilitate the double-blind review process.

The book aims at publishing original research articles reporting on research that fulfils the criteria of a generally accepted research paradigm; review articles, intended for the professional scientist and which critically evaluate the research done in a specific field in education; research articles of localised content, i.e. of interest only to specific areas or specialists.

Authors should indicate the relevance of the study for education on sustainability and related themes when submitting manuscripts, where the education system or the solutions envisaged or tested, or the artefacts are characterised by transformation, and/or an emerging economy/development state, and/or scarce resources.
In addition a brief narrative account/description of ethical issues/aspects should be included in articles that report on empirical findings, particularly if related to situations of vulnerability.

All manuscripts will be submitted to referees, who hold documented expertise in the area the manuscripts addresses. When reviews are received, an editorial decision will be reached to either accept the contribution, reject it, request a revision (in that case for a second round of peer review), or request arbitration.

Authors bear full responsibility for the accuracy of the factual content of their contributions. A signed declaration in respect of originality must accompany each manuscript.
On submission of the manuscript, the author(s) must present a written undertaking that the article has not been published or is not being presented for publication elsewhere.

Author(s) must furthermore ensure that the language in the manuscript is professionally edited.

STRUCTURE OF MANUSCRIPTS 

The manuscript, including abstract, figure captions, tables, etc. should be typed on A4 paper and the pages numbered consecutively. Manuscripts should be typed in Microsoft Word format with text in Times New Roman font, 10 point, and 1.5 line spacing. The total number of pages should preferably not exceed 20 pages.

The title of the manuscript should be brief (maximum 15 words).

The title should be followed by the author(s) name(s), affiliation(s) (Department and University), and an e-mail address for the corresponding author ONCE APPROUVED.

An abstract (200 words) must be provided, followed by 3 to 6 keywords, presented in order of importance.

Up to five heading levels are possible within a chapter. The first three heading levels within the chapter are numbered. In addition to numbered headings, two more (lower) unnumbered headings levels are possible.

Headings have no end punctuation or period after the heading number.

All major words in a heading are capitalized.

Table captions begin with the term Table in bold type, followed by the table number, also in bold type.

Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.

Figures should be clear, black/white originals, on separate pages — not embedded in the text. Grey or coloured shading must be avoided. Tables/figures should include a brief descriptive heading/caption and be numbered consecutively, using the decimal point rather than the decimal comma.

REFERENCES

Reference style: APA style.

Citation style: name, year.

Only sources cited in the text must be listed in the list of references, in alphabetical order, at the end of the manuscript.

References are cited in the text by the author(s’) name(s) and the year of publication in brackets, separated by a comma, e.g. (Brown, 1997). If several articles by the same author and from the same year are cited, the letters a, b, c, etc. should be added after the year of publication, e.g. (Brown, 1977a).

Page references in the text should follow a colon after the date, e.g. (Brown, 1997:40-48).
In works by three or more authors the surnames of all authors should be given in the first reference to such a work yet in subsequent references to such this work, only the name of the first author is given, followed by the abbreviation et al., e.g. (Ziv et al., 1995).

The first submission has had the authors’ names removed. If an author is cited, “Author” and year are used in the bibliography and footnotes, instead of author’s name, paper title, etc. The author’s name has also been removed from the document’s Properties, which in Microsoft Word is found in the File menu.

SUBMISSION

All submissions and any questions be made via email to hedis.book@gmail.com

All submissions should include as attachments:

• a cover letter starting author(s) name(s), affiliation(s) (Department and University), and an e-mail address for the corresponding author;
• the manuscript (in the stipulated format);
• and declaration of originality.

REVIEW PROCESS

All the contributions will undergo a double blind peer review by international researchers from a wide spread of countries and institutions.

EXTENDED DEADLINES

31st March 2021: Chapters submission

15th April 2021: Chapters submission

16th May 2021: Chapters submission

6th June 2021: Chapters submission

31th July 2021: Feedback from reviewers

31st August 2021: Edited version after review

End of the year 2021: Publication