Four Years of FAccT: A Reflexive, Mixed-Methods Analysis of Research Contributions, Shortcomings, and Future Prospects
Four Years of FAccT: A Reflexive, Mixed-Methods Analysis of Research Contributions, Shortcomings, and Future Prospects
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DOI：
10.1145/3531146.3533107
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发表时间：
2022-06
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Benjamin Laufer;Sameer Jain;A. Cooper;J. Kleinberg;Hoda Heidari
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文献类型：
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作者：
Benjamin Laufer;Sameer Jain;A. Cooper;J. Kleinberg;Hoda Heidari
社会技术系统的公平、责任和透明度（FAccT）近年来一直是一个蓬勃发展的研究领域。一场同名的 ACM 会议一直是这一领域的学者们聚集在一起、互相提供同行反馈并发表他们的作品的中心场所。这项反思性研究旨在揭示 FAcT 迄今为止的活动，并确定将贡献转化为更广泛的积极影响的主要差距和机会。为此，我们采用混合方法研究设计。在定性方面，我们开发了一个协议，用于审查和编码之前的 FAccT 论文，追踪它们的主题、方法、数据集和学科根源的分布。我们还设计并管理了一份调查问卷，以反映 FAcT 社区成员和附属机构在广泛主题上的声音。在定量方面，我们使用与先前 FAccT 出版物相关的全文和引文网络来提供有关 FAccT 中所代表的主题和价值观的进一步证据。我们将分析结果分为四个主要维度：FAccT 学术中呈现的主题、支撑这项工作的价值观、学术界内外贡献的影响，以及围绕 FAccT 形成的社区的实践和非正式规范。最后，我们的工作确定了社区成员提出的有关变革方向的几项建议。
Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT) for socio-technical systems has been a thriving area of research in recent years. An ACM conference bearing the same name has been the central venue for scholars in this area to come together, provide peer feedback to one another, and publish their work. This reflexive study aims to shed light on FAccT’s activities to date and identify major gaps and opportunities for translating contributions into broader positive impact. To this end, we utilize a mixed-methods research design. On the qualitative front, we develop a protocol for reviewing and coding prior FAccT papers, tracing their distribution of topics, methods, datasets, and disciplinary roots. We also design and administer a questionnaire to reflect the voices of FAccT community members and affiliates on a wide range of topics. On the quantitative front, we use the full text and citation network associated with prior FAccT publications to provide further evidence about topics and values represented in FAccT. We organize the findings from our analysis into four main dimensions: the themes present in FAccT scholarship, the values that underpin the work, the impact of the contributions both within academic circles and beyond, and the practices and informal norms of the community that has formed around FAccT. Finally, our work identifies several suggestions on directions for change, as voiced by community members.