== Call for Papers ==

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an emerging technology in the field of Business Process Management that enables the office automation of intensive repetitive tasks. In essence, it relates to software agents called software robots that mimic how humans use computer applications when performing rule-based and well structured tasks in a business process. Examples of tasks that software robots perform include data transfer between applications through screen scraping, automated email query processing, and collation of payroll data from different sources.

RPA is drastically more than just technological innovation. It enables a digital taskforce and, what is more important, a control mechanism over it. The objective for RPA also extends beyond cutting costs; it directly addresses the digital transformation of companies by creating new value, improving the quality of services and products, reducing and controlling task times, and improving work satisfaction by liberating employees from repetitive and tedious tasks. Moreover, RPA has a generative capacity when combined with technologies such as OCR, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, among others, creating new ‘smart’ automation tools.

The capabilities and opportunities of RPA challenge a broad set of research communities. Computer scientists are attracted to its various technical aspects, while economists study the impact of RPA on labor and organizational effectiveness and engineers are enabled to connect different data sources, improve the quality of the data and accelerate data analysis. Scholars in the field of information systems are drawn to the question of how to manage the interaction between people and software. Another question is how RPA fits within a corporate program of digital innovation. Finally, RPA has social implications since it may reduce work opportunities for those people who are carrying out simple, manual work.

This forum aims to bring together researchers from various communities and disciplines to discuss challenges, opportunities, and new ideas that relate to RPA and its application to business processes in private and public sectors. It is a unique setting where technical, business-oriented, and human-centered perspectives will come together. The forum will incorporate an exciting keynote, presentations of research papers, and a panel discussion.

== Topics ==

The forum solicits contributions related to RPA including, but not limited, to the following topics:

RPA Management
- Organizational expectations on RPA
- Lessons learned from RPA adoptions
- Digital transformation through RPA
- New work practices and RPA
- Impact of RPA
- Social impact of RPA
- Evolution of working environments for RPA
- Economical impact of RPA
- Organizational impact of RPA
- Changes on business models for RPA
- Legal impact of RPA
- RPA support

RPA Technology
- Viability assessment methods for RPA projects
- Benchmarking RPA
- Monitoring and auditing robots
- Governance of RPA
- RPA architectures
- RPA platforms
- RPA standardization
- RPA future
- Artificial Intelligence and RPA
- Collaborative RPA, e.g., chatbots
- Conversational interfaces for RPA
- RPA future value creation potential
- RPA and datafication
- Novel paradigms for RPA design
- Novel paradigms for RPA developments
- Novel paradigms for RPA deployments
- Novel paradigms for RPA testing
- Novel paradigms for RPA control and operation
- Generativity of RPA / RPA-based innovation

RPA Applications
- Experience reports from practice
- General RPA uses cases
- RPA in different business functions, e.g. procurement, engineering, controlling, manufacturing, logistics, taxation
- RPA in different industries, e.g. banking, insurance, public government, production of goods
- Connection with other Office Automation Applications, e.g. Chatbots & Online Booking Systems

== Paper submission ==

Prospective authors are invited to submit original, unpublished papers on any of the topics of the forum. Papers must be written in English and must not simultaneously be submitted to another journal, confrerence, or workshop. The maximum length of the paper is 15 pages. Shorter papers are explicitly welcomed. The following types of submissions are possible:

- Technical papers, describing novel research work on RPA, including research results and evaluations. Papers can range from theoretical research to empirical research. These papers must present the ongoing research, novel ideas with preliminary results, advances of the state of the art, and analysis of the current results in the state of the art.
- Exploratory papers describe new research positions or approaches that face a generic situation arising because of new RPA tools, activities, or challenges. They must describe precisely the situation and demonstrate why current methods, tools, ways of reasoning, or meta-models are inadequate. They must also rigorously present their approach and demonstrate its pertinence and correctness in addressing the identified situation. Exploratory papers would lead to interesting discussions by raising key questions, controversial points of view, challenges, and ideas to address the identified issues.
- Experience papers evaluate existing problem situations, including problems encountered in practice, or validate proposed solutions with scientific means, i.e., by empirical studies, experiments, case studies, experience reports, simulations, etc. A typical experience paper may be submitted by a practitioner or industrial researcher who has a compelling application or interesting case study to share with the audience of the forum. Scientific reflection on problems and practices in industry also falls into this category.

Submissions must be prepared according to the format of Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP) specified by Springer. The title page must contain a short abstract and a list of keywords, preferably taking inspiration from the list of topics given above. Papers must be submitted electronically via EasyChair.

== Important Dates ==

Paper submission: 23 May 2022
Notification to authors: 8 July 2022
Camera Ready submission: 18 July 2022
Conference/Forum: 13-15 September 2022
Remark: Deadlines should be interpreted using the Anywhere on Earth (AoE) Time Zone.


== Chairs ==

Bernhard Axmann, Technical University of Ingolstadt
Andrea Marrella, Sapienza University of Rome