Business meeting minutes, Washington, DC, USA, 12 December, 2004

Washington, D.C., USA
December 12, 2004

Chair Julie Kendall (US) called the meeting to order at 4:00 P.M.

1. Introduction

Julie introduced the other Working Group officers, Vice Chair Michael Myers (NZ) and Secretary Nancy Russo (US), and provided an overview of the meeting.

A special thank you was given to OASIS workshop organizers Isabel Ramos (PT) and Noriko Hara (US). The workshop was very well attended.

2. Past Meetings

Julie Kendall provided a review of the Manchester Working Conference held in July 2004, "Relevant Theory and Informed Practice: Looking Forward from a 20 Year Perspective on IS Research.” General Chairs were Richard Baskerville (US) and Frank Land (UK), Program Chairs were Bonnie Kaplan (US), Duane Truex (US), Dave Wastell (UK), and Trevor Wood-Harper (UK), the Organizing Chair was Peter Kawalek (UK), and Bob Wood (UK) was in charge of Business Sponsorship.

Other past meetings have included:

* OASIS Workshop, Seattle, Washington, US, 14 Dec 2003 (before ICIS).
* IS Perspectives and Challenges in the Context of Globalization, Joint meeting WG 8.2/9.4, Athens, GR, 15-17 June 2003.
* Global and Organizational Discourse about Information Technology, Barcelona, SP,12-14 Dec, 2002.
* OASIS Workshop, New Orleans, Louisiana, US, 16 Dec 2001 (before ICIS).
* Realigning Research and Practice in IS Development: The Social and Organisational Perspective, Working Conference, Boise, Idaho, US, 27-29 July 2001.
* OASIS Workshop, Brisbane, Australia, 10-13 December, 2000 (before ICIS 2000).
* IS2000: The Social and Organizational Perspective on Research and Practice in Information Technology, Working Conference, Aalborg, DK, 9-11 June, 2000.

3. Forthcoming Working Conferences and Workshops

Matt Germonprez (US), provided details of the upcoming Working Conference to be held in August 2005, by which time the snow should be melted in Cleveland.

* Theme: “Designing Ubiquitous Information Environments: Socio Technical Issues and Challenges”
* Location: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
* Conference Dates: 1 - 3 August, 2005
* General Chair: Kalle Lyytinen (US)
* Program Chairs: Carsten Sorensen (UK) and Youngjin Yoo (US)
* Organizing Chairs: Michel Avital (US) and Matt Germonprez (US)

Eileen Trauth (US) made a brief presentation on the 2006 Working Conference in Limerick, Ireland. This conference will address the processes that create social exclusion and the issues that arise from it. The topic itself, however, is not meant to be exclusive! All are encouraged to consider how their own research fits into this general theme.

* Theme: "Social Exclusion: Societal and Organisational Implications for Information Systems”
* Location: Limerick, Ireland
* Conference Dates: TBA
* General Chair: Julie E. Kendall
* Program Chairs: Debra Howcraft (UK) and Eileen Trauth (US/EI)
* Organizing Co-Chairs: Brian Fitzgerald (EI) and Tom Butler (EI)

Kevin Crowston (US) described plans in process for the 2007 Working Conference to be held in Portland in late July 2007. Longitudinal studies of virtual organizations and discussions of technologies used in virtual work and distributed production are topics of particular relevance to this conference.

* Theme: “Virtuality and Virtualization in Organizations”
* Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
* Conference Dates: Summer 2007
* General Chair: To be announced
* Program Chairs: Kevin Crowston (US) and Sandra Seiber (ES)
* Organizing Chair: Eleanor Wynn (US)

4. IFIP Awards

Ken Kendall (US) reported at the July 2004 Business Meeting that nominations were under considerations for the Silver Core – awarded to those who have served IFIP as General Assembly members, committee and working group officers, and members of the IFIP Congress Program Committees – and the Outstanding Service Award, which recognizes other services rendered to IFIP. At this meeting, the recipients were announced:

Silver Core: Julie E. Kendall (US)

Outstanding Service Award: Kevin Crowston (US) and Rudy Hirschheim (US)

The group congratulated the recipients and thanked them for their many years of service to the organization.

5. Report of the Communications Task Force

Kevin Crowston (US) and Steve E. Little (UK) reported on the work of the task force that was established to look at how to communicate the scholarly output of the working group. The issue of the costly conference proceedings book was the focus of the presentation and following discussion.

Based on the investigation of the task force, the following pros and cons were identified:

Pros of a book

* Seen as a real publication
* Necessary for some to get funding to attend the conference
* Book has a certain prestige
* Book is archival: purchased by and available in libraries

Cons of a book

* Raises conference registration fee about US$170 ($70 editing, $100 printing)
* Publisher and editing requires 5 months lead time (2 months editing, 3 printing)
* Reduced access to work

** Only a few hundred books are printed, so papers are hard for most readers to access
** Expensive to buy afterwards—pretty much unaffordable for most individuals
** Books aren’t indexed in on-line article databases
** Authors have to give copyright to their work to a for-profit publisher

The task force found that the number of proceedings books in library holdings has fallen from 57 of the 1995 Cambridge proceedings to 27 of the 2002 Barcelona proceedings to 12 of the 2004 Manchester proceedings. The drop cannot be blamed entirely on price, which has dropped from US$278 to US$175 during that time period.

Possible alternatives presented include providing the papers on CD or on a website (perhaps IFIP sponsored), providing the book as an option, producing the book and then a website, or printing the papers in a journal (special issue).

The merits of a book versus a serial/journal and online access were discussed. IFIP conference proceedings will be moving from Kluwer to Springer Lecture Notes. New policies on electronic access are not yet determined. Follow-up information will be posted to the listserv.

6. New Business

New proposals were presented for OASIS workshops for 2005 and 2007. Elisabeth Rossen (US) and Helena Holmstrom (SE) have agreed to organize the 2005 workshop immediately preceding ICIS in Las Vegas. In addition to presentations, they hope to have panels addressing social and ethical issues in IS. Ojelanki Ngwenyama (CA) announced that his colleague at Ryerson University, Catherine Middleton (CA), has volunteered to organize the 2007 workshop.

No proposals were received for the 2008 Working Conference.

7. Election of New Members

Nominations were invited for new members. All those meeting the criteria for membership (attendance at two business meetings in the past three years) were asked to stand and introduce themselves. The following individuals were approved for membership, subject to confirmation by the secretary, and welcomed to the group:

* Rajiv Kishore, SUNY Buffalo (US)
* Galina Hansen, IT University of Copenhagen (DK)
* Karlheinz Kautz, Copenhagen Business School (DK)
* Keith Fuller, University of British Columbia (CA)
* Carsten Osterlund, Syracuse University (US)
* Shan Pan, National University of Singapore (SP)
* Julie Rennecker, Case Western Reserve University (US)
* Alex Citurs, Emory University (US)
* Jose Esteves, Instituto de Empresa (ES)
* Noriko Hara, Indiana University (US)
* Elke Wolfe University of Auckland (NZ)
* Jan Llungberg, Gothenberg University (SE)

The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 PM.

Nancy L. Russo (US), Secretary