Standing Committee of the European Conference on Information Systems



Minutes of meeting to be held on December 15th 1998 from 7-9AM in Lars Room at Scandic Hotel Grand Marina



1 Apologies

Present: Niels Bjorn-Andersen, Jan-Pries Heje, Edgar Whitley, Karl-Heinz Kautz,

Josep Valor, Philip Ein-Dor, Andrea Pucihar, Joze Gricar, Dirk DeSchoolmeester,

Claudio Ciborra, Bob Galliers, Martin Bichler, Harald Mahrer, Georgios Doukidis



Apologies: Ciaran Murphy, Sven Carlsson, Stan Wrycza, Walter Baets, Hans Hansen,

Ellen Christiaanse, Leslie Willcocks



In attendance: Janice Sipior, for item 4; Eph Mclean, for item 7



It was noted that the standing committee meeting clashed with the Women's breakfast at ICIS.

Steps would be taken to ensure that such clashes did not occur in future.



2 Minutes of the last meeting



2.1 Resolved

That the minutes be accepted



3 Forthcoming conferences



3.1 ECIS 1999 Copenhagen



3.1.1 Reported

Everything was proceeding to plan. Chris Argyris and Giovan Francesco Lanzra would

be the research oriented keynote speakers, with Torben Petersen, from Oticon, as the

practice led keynote speaker.



To date, sponsorship of 150,000 Kr had been received and Jørn Johansen was working

to obtain more funding



The new mechanism to improve the quality of the reviewing process seemed to work

with the introduction of associated editors. 48 programme committee members were

acting as associate editors 36 of whom acted for the research track, 12 for the case

study track. The remaining members acted for the research in progress track.



As of November 15th 135 research papers had been received, 29 case studies, 26

research in progress papers and 9 panels. A total of 199 submissions in total.



This represented a drop of about 20% from Aix, mostly in the research in progress

track. There was a noticeable drop in Finnish contributions, probably due to ICIS.

There were also very few French contributions.



Claus Heje was replacing Helle Rasmussen as administrator and publications editor for

the proceedings



Timetable: Reviews were being undertaken at this time

Chairs would meet to determine the overall layout of the conference

Authors would be notified by January 31st



February 28th Revised papers due by February 28th. Call for participation issued

Best papers selected in March



A budget was presented, assuming break even at 300 people.



Paper versions of the proceedings would be produced, and CD-ROM was being looked

into.



PhD consortium would be taking place in a 200 year old Manor House to the North of

Copenhagen. Faculty had been contacted and sponsorship was ongoing.



AIS was contributing $4000. Upto 30 students were expected. The invited speakers

would also be participating in the consortium.



3.2 ECIS 2000 Vienna

3.2.1 Reported

Everything was going to plan. The call for papers would be issued in June 1999 and

conference registration would begin at that time.



Deadline for papers would be November 15th with notification of acceptance going out

on January 30th and final papers to be submitted by February 28th. The conference

takes place in July.



There would be a web based reviewing system



The proceedings would be available both in print and in CD-ROM format.



3.2.2 Noted

It was suggested that e-mail and paper based reviewing be left open as options, as

technical support is moderate in places

That a monthly report of progress be sent to the chair of the standing committee as well

as the organisers of the conference

That Conference officers should, ideally, come from a number of different countries

That these suggestions would be taken on board by the organisers



3.3 ECIS 2001 Bled

Things were proceeding well. The internet page for the conference would be available

from January 1999. Information about the conference would be made available in

Copenhagen, with the call for papers being available at Vienna. The organisers would

meet in Vienna and Slovenia.

The database would be passed on to Poland.

There was an intention to have a strong industry presence both in panels and attendees.



Andrea Pucihar would act as administrative support.



They would be attending all ECIS meetings to learn from the experiences of others



ECIS would be linked with the e-commerce conference.



3.4 ECIS 2002 Gdansk

The status report from Gdansk was noted.



3.5 Future conferences

Initial soundings for possible sites for ECIS2003 should be made.



3.6 General issues

It was reported that the European Directory was being updated and all directories

would be available from AIS at nominal cost for conferences to us, in return for the

conference pruning and updating the lists. There were approximately 1000 Europeans

on the list.



4 SIGMIS sponsorship of PhD consortium



4.1 Reported

Janice Sipior spoke to this item and explained that SIGMIS was keen to be involved in

supporting ECIS. It was prepared to provide an on-going annual sponsorship of $3000

towards the PhD consortium plus subscriptions to Database for all PhD delegates at the

consortium.



4.2 Agreed

This proposal was agreed and conference organisers / PhD consortium organisers were

to co-ordinate with SIGMIS about advertising and payment.



5 Special issues of journals linked to ECIS

5.1 Noted

The written report by Leslie Willcocks about the forthcoming issue of JIT containing

papers from Aix. Hubert Osterle and Georgios Doukidis, who had acted as research

and case study chairs and had selected the papers for the conference, would be

co-editors of the special issue.



The Information Systems Journal would act as the special for ECIS 99.



It was noted that JSIS, due to its particular focus, would not devote a whole special

issue but would print papers as appropriate.



6 Discussion of the shape of ECIS

6.1 Noted

That the evolving document on the shape of ECIS had proved to be very helpful.

A number of ambiguous issues were resolved:

• That chair of the standing committee would revert back to the normal model,

so Jan-Pries Heje would act as the next chair.

• That a section should be added to discuss the special issues

• That a section should be added about the selection of best papers

• That there should be links between AIS, SIGMIS and ECIS on the web sites.



That the web page should be a permanent record, for when sites associated with a

particular conference are closed down.



7 Any other business

7.1 Noted

Eph Mclean spoke to this item about the links between ECIS and AIS.

He reported that ICIS and AIS were formally amalgamated and that ICIS was now seen

as the AIS international conference. The AIS Americas conference would have a name

change (AMCIS) and have its own board.



It was not the intention of AIS to stifle innovation and they would not become involved

in the administration of ECIS conferences unless specifically requested to provide

financial assistance.



Date of next meeting, June 22nd 2PM