Editorial

Dear reader,

as we launch into the 18^th volume of i-com with the present issue, I would like to share with you some advancements the journal has made in the past year. The most significant step is probably that i-com has been accepted for indexing by Scopus, one of the most prominent indexing services. Scopus is considered particularly relevant in computer science and related fields since, in addition to journal papers, it includes more conferences than other services. It is particularly gratifying to see that Scopus will not only index future issues but also all past volumes of i-com. Another positive development we have seen in the past year is the increasing number of citations that were received by articles published in our journal. This fact makes us hopeful to be included in further indices, particularly ISI, in the future. Since citations are the most important criterion for being accepted in an index, it would, of course, be helpful if the writers of research papers in our readership consider referencing i-com papers in their future publications where appropriate. Finally, I would like to sincerely thank the numerous authors and reviewers who have all contributed to making i-com a successful and increasingly visible publication.

The present issue comprises two sections with research papers and a UPA contribution. The first section has a special thematic focus on Active Self and Presence in Virtual Reality which has been coordinated by Raphael Zender as guest editor. Raphael Zender and colleagues start off this section by reviewing the potentials of Virtual Reality as an instrument for research and education. Following an introduction to the topic and a description of six different VR use cases, the authors provide a systematic overview of the potential of VR applications and critically reflect their characteristics. The second paper in this section by Marie-Luise Brandi et al. introduces the concept of self-experience and social presence and discusses it in the context of the simulated social interaction when communicating with a virtual agent. They propose a computational model of social agency and investigate the relation of social agency and psychiatric disorders. The third paper, contributed by Markus von der Heyde, discusses the phenomenon of self-encounter in robot-based telepresence and analyzes the effect of showing users of robotic telepresence their past trajectories in remote spaces.

The second paper section contains a selection of highly-ranked papers from last year’s Mensch und Computer Conference which are presented here in a revised and extended form. The first paper by Moritz Skowronski, Daniel Klinkhammer and Harald Reiterer is also the winner of the best paper award at MuC 2018. It introduces Argus Vision, a tool that supports interdisciplinary exhibition designers in using camera-tracking for designing engaging exhibitions. Valentin Lohmüller et al. present a set of empirically validated heuristics for evaluating second screen scenarios, i. e. applications where users interact with more than one screen. In addition to heuristics, the authors also provide more detailed guidance for the design of such systems. The third paper in this section by Börge Kordts et al, presents a novel interaction device for patients in intensive care and describes requirements and interaction patterns for this type of device. The final paper from the MuC selection by Hanna Stellmach and Felix Lindner investigates the interesting question whether expressions of certainty or uncertainty would influence whether a robot’s reasoning about a moral dilemma is considered ethical or not. The authors report the results of an empirical study and discuss implications for the design of social robots. Finally, in the Usability Professionals section, Jutta Fortmann and Frank Glanert report on the experiences made in a project that applied a user-centered design process for developing an interface to support energy turnaround. In their scenario, users will be both consumers and producers of energy and will be supported in taking a more active role in the control of the energy flows.

I wish you an informative and inspiring reading!

Jürgen Ziegler

Editor-in-Chief