Social Computing Technologies (SCT) offer users opportunities for connectedness, participation and engagement, collaboration, offering/receiving social support, etc. These applications/systems gather abundance of information that when mined and analyzed will further enrich their services or help researchers understand many different things including social dynamics of people, wisdom of crowd, social construction and sharing of knowledge, etc. As a result, SCT can be leveraged to empower both health professional and citizens. Online Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, QuitNet are increasingly being used for health-related purposes. A 2013 online survey suggests that 59.9% patients used Twitter for increasing knowledge and exchanging advice and 52.3% used Facebook for social support and exchanging advice (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23899831).

Novel techniques for information analysis, reuse, and integration are critical to make sense of health-related information. Systematic approaches, design principles, and evaluation strategies need to be researched for developing effective health-related social computing applications. Other challenges in social computing include accommodating privacy, security, and trust expectations of users or separating good information from noise. The aim of this workshop is to discuss and exchange ideas on the issues and challenges in social computing systems as they relate to health care and public health. We invite research or position papers from researchers and practitioners working in any aspect of social computing with research focus on health, healthcare, or public health. Example topics, but not limited to, include:

Design, modeling, and simulation of socially-aware health technology
Demonstration cases of using existing social media platforms (e.g., twitter, facebook) for health research

Social network analysis for the purpose of understanding or intervening upon health related outcomes
Behavioral intervention implemented through social media platforms
Disease & health management using social media applications
Crowdsourcing health or biomedical research
Public health resource sensing or crowdsourcing of public health resources
In time, in place healthcare information through social media
Design and evaluation of online patient communities with social network features
Healthcare/mHealth Social Networks
Data protection (Privacy, Security, Trust) in healthcare social networks
Empowerment of patients and healthcare professionals
Design and evaluation of social game for health education & awareness
Classification and categorization of health information in social media
Mining of big Data for population health monitoring or intervention
Social computing application for health & wellness management
All contributions will be peer-reviewed by at least three experts. Papers should be 4-6 pages (English) in IEEE format, including bibliography and well-marked appendices. Accepted papers will be published as workshop papers in the IEEE IRI conference proceedings.

The extended versions of the best papers from the workshop will be considered for journal publications.

Important Dates - Submission: May 31 Acceptance: July 1st Camera-ready: TBA

Contact: manwar (at) ncat.edu URL: http://wicsoc.ncat.edu

Submission Page: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wicsoc2014