The Social Science Research Council  announces the launch of its newest program, the AI Disclosures Project, led by noted technology innovator Tim O’Reilly and economist Ilan Strauss. The AI Disclosures Project will work on developing best practices for firms’ disclosures about their uses of AI models, ensuring that stakeholders have access to consistent, accurate, and transparent information about how AI models are being developed and deployed.

The AI Disclosures Project focuses on addressing the potentially dangerous consequences for society’s safety and equity that might arise from how AI is commercialized. Through enhancing corporate transparency and disclosures, the AI Disclosures Project aims to ensure that economic incentives don’t lead corporations to ignore risks or otherwise harm users of their AI technology products.

There are two active Federal Register notices for the American Community Survey. Comments on the Timeline for Implementing Updated 2024 Race and Ethnicity Data Standards close August 12, 2024. Proposed changes to the Agricultural Sales and Farm Indicator Data are open for comments until August 19, 2024.

Summer Professional Development Opportunities in Science Communication and Science Policy

SciCom Consulting LLC is offering science communication and science policy professional development opportunities this summer. Upcoming Virtual Workshops:

• Science Communication Fundamentals: July 20 and July 25
• Science Policy Fundamentals: July 24 and August 21

In-Person Workshop: The Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina, will host an in-person Science Communication Fundamentals workshop on August 3, 2024. Registration deadline for this event is July 26, 2024, at 11:59 Eastern Time.

You can register for the workshops at: https://scicomconsultingllc.com/register-for-workshops/

Derek Hyra (American University) has a new book coming out soon: Slow and Sudden Violence: Why and When Uprisings Occur (University of California Press). From the publisher: "In Slow and Sudden Violence, Derek Hyra links police violence to an ongoing cycle of racial and spatial urban redevelopment repression. By delving into the real estate histories of St. Louis and Baltimore, he shows how housing and community development policies advance neighborhood inequality by segregating, gentrifying, and displacing Black communities."

Please send notices of your new publications to dcsociologicalsociety@gmail.com; we will publish brief notices as space permits.

Call for Papers | Students Have Their Say: Novel Approaches and Solutions to Current and Emerging Public Health Problems

Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD) is committed to developing the scientific writing skills of public health students. As part of that commitment, PCD is pleased to offer a new student paper publishing opportunity as a special feature of its 2025 Student Paper Contest. This new opportunity will allow high school, undergraduate, graduate, and recent postgraduate students, and medical students and residents to improve their scientific writing skills by serving as lead (first) authors, becoming familiar with a journal’s peer-review process, and receiving feedback from the journal on how to strengthen their submission regardless of whether it is accepted.

For this Call for Papers, the journal will consider manuscripts only from students. The essay may be written and submitted to the journal by one student or more than one student.

Although it is not required, interested students are encouraged to submit an inquiry to learn whether their essay idea aligns with the scope of the journal and the objective of this Call for Papers. These inquiries should be submitted by September 20, 2024. The deadline to submit a final manuscript is 5:00 PM EST on Monday, March 24, 2025.

See the complete call for papers online.

Request for Articles
Moving Beyond Deaths of Despair: Understanding Rising Mortality and Morbidity among Americans without College Degrees 

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences

We invite scholars to submit proposals that address the questions of what explains the growing educational divide in physical and mental health and what this widening means for the lives of Americans without college degrees. We expect that many of the papers will directly address differences in mortality, including not only drug abuse, alcohol-related disease, and suicide but also major causes of death such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. But we also encourage papers that will encompass topics as diverse as the changing labor market; social class; gender, racial, ethnic perspectives; studies of family and personal life; spatial variation; political processes; and social policy.

Prospective contributors should submit a CV and an abstract no later than 5 PM Eastern on September 4, 2024.

See the complete request online.

The Joint Program in Survey Methodology offers a variety of short courses. Short courses are open to the public and admission to the University of Maryland is not required.

Short courses for 2024-2025 will be delivered online through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous instruction, with the exception of Introduction to Survey Sampling.

See the complete schedule, pricing, and registration links at the JPSM website.

On June 12, 2024, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published the Federal Register notice announcing review of the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Manual for possible revision in 2028. As former DCSS President Lynda McLaughlin noted on LinkedIn, "this is your chance to help shape how federal agencies collect and classify occupations. The review committee is especially interested in comments on STEM and care worker occupations."

Comments should be submitted by August 12. See the complete notice online.

DCSS member Jordanna Matlon, of American University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, has been announced as the winner of the 2024 American Sociological Association Distinguished Scholarly Book Award for A Man among Other Men: The Crisis of Black Masculinity in Racial Capitalism (Cornell, 2022).

See the complete list of award winners and read the announcement for Dr. Matlon at the ASA website.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released the Blueprint for the Use of Social and Behavioral Science to Advance Evidence-Based Policymaking in May. According to the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), "The blueprint is the product of nearly two years of work by social and behavioral science experts from across federal agencies and departments."

Further, "the document ... takes a whole-of-government approach to assist agencies and departments with leveraging social and behavioral science insights to improve federal policies, programs, and services to the American people. It makes six recommendations for better incorporating social and behavioral science research into the work of federal agencies and outlines five immediate actions."

Read the White House announcement here and download the report here. (PDF)