[dcchairs2016] UbiComp/ISWC 2016 Doctoral School notification - #124

[dcchairs2016 at ubicomp.org]

Dear Melanie Herrmann,

Please find enclosed the reviews for your submission for the Ubicomp/ISWC 2016 Doctoral School.

124: "Investigating Smart Metering in the Home"

Despite not being able to accept your submission at this year's Ubicomp/ISWC Doctoral School, committee members provided guidance and feedback on your submitted paper. We highly encourage you to follow the valuable advices that the committee member entered in their reviews towards improving on your doctoral work.

Thank you for submitting to the UbiComp 2014 Doctoral School.


Max Mühlhäuser
Nadir Weibel
Rene Mayrhofer

UbiComp 2016 Doctoral School Chairs


------------------------ Submission 124, Review 1 ------------------------

Title: Investigating Smart Metering in the Home


Confidence

   3  (Very confident - I am knowledgeable in the area)

Contribution to UbiComp

   Smart metering has of Course a potential to fit for Ubicomp. However, the
   paper concentrates very much on empirics around energy related persuasive
   computing (in the wide sense) for SmartMeter equipped household

Overall Rating

   2  (Probably reject: I would argue for rejecting this paper.)

The Review

   The author situates his research in the context of Smart Meters, more
   precisely residential energy feedback systems (REFS). Given the
   increasingly wide spread of such devices, the question is how and how
   much they can be used to influence user behavior w.r.t. energy awareness
   and saving. One of the subquestions concerns the advantage of
   device-specific consumption data vs. household-wide data.
   The particular emphasis of the work lies on the way in which energy
   consumption data can be processed for successfully stimulating energy
   saving behavior. Here comes a major problem of the PhD presented w.r.t.
   the UbiComp doctoral colloq (DC): the research is very much empirical,
   based on off-the-shelf Smart Meters etc. Adding up the conducted and the
   planned studies, the overall work plan appears to be rather slim for a
   UbiComp PhD thesis. The author does not plan to touch any devices, not
   even the user interaction. To me as a reviewer, this implies that the
   work should compensate this attitude of “not making one’s hands
   dirty” by a big effort on the empirical side; alas, I cannot see this
   big effort. Actually, the last section states: “the contribution of
   this research is to inform the theory of how [smart meter] data (…) may
   lead to behavior change”. Which theory is the author talking about? Why
   does the author not dare to establish such a theory – too much work??
   Given the remoteness from core Ubicomp work and the – in my assessment
   – rather shallow content planned, the paper should not be preferred
   over more pertinent and more “heavy” content.


------------------------ Submission 124, Review 2 ------------------------

Title: Investigating Smart Metering in the Home


Confidence

   4  (Highly confident - I consider myself an expert in the area)

Contribution to UbiComp

   This research contributes to the theory of personal informatics and
   behavior change specifically looking at how to enact behavior change as a
   response to awareness of energy consumption.

Overall Rating

   1  (Definite reject: I would argue strongly for rejecting this paper.)

The Review

   This research is interesting, and the proposed approach contains some
   interesting ideas, such as the parallel with quantified self. The
   methodology followed by the author is sound and will potentially lead to
   more insight, which hopefully can inform new model of behavior change.

   What this submission does not do is to outline the real contribution to
   Ubicomp. It is unclear that the described behavior change model really
   contributes to this field, and really the only tie to it is the "smart"
   meter, and the sensing possibilities of those meters. It seems that the
   research is very much classic HCI, and not on the technical side, so a
   participation to a Ubicomp DC would not be something that the PhD student
   would benefit.