PMSA 2021 - International Workshop on Pandemic Mobile Services and Applications

Mobile apps and services have garnered particular attention in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Especially apps that are utilized for contact tracing purposes have been extensively discussed. On the one hand, they can be a suitable instrument to get better information about how a virus proliferates. On the other hand, contact tracing apps may constitute a fundamental challenge in the light of data privacy and data security. Beside contact tracing, many other approaches have been identified, which can be helpful during a pandemic. To mention only a few, diaries, tipp apps, or symptom checker have been implemented in a rather short period of time. However, less insights exist which of these approaches are actually useful on the one hand. On the other, less experiences and results have been reported what aspects actually improve the acceptance of these apps so that many users utilize them on a frequent basis. For the COVID-19 pandemic, only those apps and mobile services can reveal new insights and eventually help if enough and representative data can be gathered. Recently, many literature reviews were presented on the development and use of pandemic apps. Interestingly, less papers can be found that cope with technical issue and development insights in the context of pandemic mobile services and apps. Therefore, this workshop seeks for papers and results in the context of pandemic mobile services and apps, with a special focus on technical issues and insights that emerged during the pandemic of COVID-19.
This workshop will serve as a forum to present and discuss original contributions, including theoretical and empirical evaluations, as well as practical and industrial experiences, with emphasis on results that solve open research problems when combining services and smart mobile device technology to deal with challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other, the workshop encourages researchers to submit position papers that pose a new direction or present a controversial point of view on these subjects and related fields.