III.B.3. Fr: Informatica Journal Re: Business Information Systems '98 BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS - BIS'98 2nd International Conference Poznan, Poland 22-24 April 1998 (during the International Fair of Electronics, Telecommunication and Computer Engineering - INFOSYSTEM'98) CO-ORGANIZERS: * University of Economics in Poznan- Poland * Poznan International Fair, Co. Ltd. - Poland * Technical Information Office of PoznanInternational Fair - Poland * Gesellschaft fur Informatik, FA 2.5 Informationssysteme - Germany * Polish Association of Information * Polish Chapter of the ACM * Polish Ministry of Treasury * Scientific Society of Business Information - Poland * Wirtschaftsinformatik Verband fur Forschung und Praxis e.V. in Europa - Germany MEDIA SUPPORT: Glos Wielkopolski (Poznan region newspaper); Informatyka (magazine); PCKurier (magazine); Teleinfo (magazine). CONFERENCE SCOPE AND MISSION: The International Conference on Business Information Systems provides a forum for presenting and discussing research and industrial reports in the area of development and implementation of information systems as well as exploitation and improvement of information technology as applicable to business processes. Competitive market forces lead to shorter innovation cycles and to technological improvements and cost reductions that necessitate significant changes within enterprises: flattening and simplification of organizational structures, orientation on implementation rather than function, tasks fulfillment based on their priority and not chronological order, customization of products to satisfy specific needs of individual people, etc. The topics of BIS conferences derive from a fundamental observation that IT systems must support these evolving business objectives and processes. The conference builds on the success of the BIS'97 event attended by speakers from all over the world. This three-day forum is the initiative of the University of Economics in Poznanand the PoznanInternational Fair Inc. A strict refereeing process imposed on the Program Committee members ensures the quality of the papers. The Proceedings of the conference papers are edited and published. For BIS'98, we will attempt to achieve wider dissemination of BIS papers by inviting a recognized publishing house to print a number of selected papers and invited presentations in a book form. Papers can be presented in any of the three conference languages (English, German or Polish - with simultaneous translation to delegates). TOPICS OF INTEREST: BIS'98 invites researchers and practitioners to submit papers that contribute to research in business information systems as well as papers that report on industrial IT projects. The Program Committee particularly encourages presentation of practical papers reporting on industry experiences or validated by prototype implementations. Topics are only restricted by the scope of the conference as defined above and they include inter alia: * IT support for different levels of decision making: operational control, business management, and strategic planning. * Information systems for different business sectors: industry, commerce and services, banks, insurance, public and local administration, etc. * Integration of information systems: workflow, data warehouses, data replication, distributed databases, groupware, decision support, data mining, archiving and retrieval systems, coping with legacy systems, etc. * Lifecycle process and methods: architectures and modeling of information systems, business process reengineering, structured and object development methods, self learning organizations, quality management, metrics, project management, requirements trace-ability, training, outsourcing, etc. * Electronic transactions: commerce and payments in the Internet, information systems communication, virtual organizations, hypertext, distributed object computing, standards, etc. * Enabling technologies: relational and object databases, networks, mobile computing, multimedia, interoperability issues, data security, object reuse, patterns and frameworks, information superhighways, CASE tools, etc. TUTORIALS: The Program Committee invites proposals for additional activities supporting the major conference subject. We are particularly interested in tutorials presenting: * new research directions, * overviews of a discipline or a research area, * technological innovations and new products. MINISYMPOSIA: The Program Committee invites proposals of Minisymposia addressing one or more of the conference topics. A Minisymposium should consist of 4-8 thirty-minute presentations. Minisymposia will take place on April 21, 1998. To contribute a Minisymposium, please submit the Minisymposium title, an extended abstract (one page) and a list of speakers (including their affiliations and presentation titles) to the Program Committee. SUBMISSIONS: * Long papers - max. 5000 words, not exceeding 16 double-spaced pages. * Short papers - reports from projects, work in progress - max. 2500 words (8 double-spaced pages). * Submissions through hard copies as well as by e-mail (more details on our web page). * The text should be prepared in A-4 format using Times New Roman or similar, 11pt font with the margins: top - 5.7 cm, bottom - 5 cm, left and right - 4.2 cm. Preferably, the text should be prepared using Microsoft Word or ASCII code. * Figures within text should be black and white /gray scale/ (max. 12,6 x 19 cm). Separate graphic file will be appreciated. * Language of publication: English, German, Polish, with a strong preference for English. * About 60-word abstracts in English should be included at th beginning of the paper. * In addition, a cover page that includes the title, the author(s)'s name, affiliation and complete address, as well as the abstract should be submitted by e-mail. * If the paper is accepted, the author(s) will be required to sign the following commitment: "All organizational approvals for the publication of this paper have been obtained. The author(s) will prepare the final manuscript in time for inclusion in the conference proceedings and will present the paper at the conference." IMPORTANT DATES: * 30 October 1997 - submission of Minisymposia Proposals * 10 November 1997 - submission of contributed papers * 20 December 1997 - notification of acceptance/rejection * 20 December 1997 - notification of Minisympsia acceptance/rejection * 15 January 1998 - submission of proposals for tutorials * 31 January 1998 - submission of corrected and ready-to-print contributions * 31 January 1998 - notification of tutorial acceptance/rejection * 21 April 1998 - tutorials and minisymposia * 22-24 April 1998 - the Conference ADDRESSES FOR CORRESPONDENCE Program Committee: University of Economics in Poznan Department of Computer Science Al. Niepodleglosci 10 60-987 Poznan Poland tel. +48/61/869 92 61 fax. +48/61/866 89 24 e-mail: bis@sylaba.poznan.pl URL: http://www.bis.pozn.com Organizing Committee: Technical Information Office of Poznan International Fair Glogowska 14 60-734 Poznan Poland tel. +48/61/869 22 06 fax. +48/61/866 66 50 e-mail: fagir@capella.ae.poznan.pl. ********** III.C.1. Fr: Richard Hill Re: Borgman is UC Presidential Chair in IS [From a UCLANEWS release. August 15, 1997] "UCLA Professor Christine Borgman has been appointed to the University of California's Presidential Chair in Information Studies, which she will hold for five years. UC President Richard Atkinson approved establishment of the endowed chair specifically in honor of Borgman's distinguished career and in recognition of the growing importance and interdisciplinary nature of her field. "In his letter of congratulations to Borgman, UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale noted that her interdisciplinary research is "at the nexus of information technology, information-related behavior and information policy (which) is an important area where innovative activities will be taking place on this campus...Your appointment to this endowed chair honors your creative contributions to UCLA as well as nationally and internationhally, in this field." ********************************************************** IV. PROJECTS IV.C.1. Fr: Maria Zemankova Re: US Researchers: New NSF Grant Proposal Guide This message is to notify you of important changes in NSF proposal preparation guidelines. Revised versions of the NSF Grant Proposal Guide (GPG)(NSF 98-2) and Proposal Forms Kit (NSF 98-3) are currently being printed. They will replace the prior versions of the GPG (NSF 95-27) and the Proposal Forms Kit (NSF 95-28). Among other things, this revision implements the new NSF merit review criteria that were approved by the National Science Board on March 28, 1997, and disseminated in Important Notice 121, New Criteria for NSF Proposals, dated July 10, 1997. Other sections of the GPG have been revised, as appropriate, for clarity as well as to make the Guide consistent with current NSF policies, practices and procedures. A complete list of significant changes is included on pages iii and iv of the GPG. Highlights from that list, for use in proposal preparation, are included below. As stated in Important Notice 121, the new merit review criteria for reviewing proposals will be effective for proposals submitted on or after October 1, 1997. For consistency with this requirement, this version of the GPG also will be effective October 1, 1997. The complete text of the revised GPG is now available electronically on NSF's home page at http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/cpo/gpg/start.htm. The Proposal Forms Kit containing revised forms formatted in Microsoft Word for Windows 6.0. also is available on the NSF home page. Effective October 1, 1997, these electronic versions may be used in submission of proposals to NSF. We are strongly encouraging our customers make use of the Web in accessing the new GPG. Paper copies of the revised GPG will be sent to NSF customer communities in late August. Please address any questions or comments about the GPG to the Division of Contracts, Policy & Oversight, Policy Office, on 703-306-1243 or by e-mail to policy@nsf.gov. Jean I. Feldman Head, Policy Office Division of Contracts, Policy & Oversight SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT PROPOSAL PREPARATION CHANGES o Chapter I, Introduction, Paragraph E, "When to Submit Proposals" has been revised to clarify that it is when the proposal is received by the Foundation that determines whether a proposal has met an established deadline date. For late proposals, the "postmark" policy has been expanded to include carriers other than the U.S. Postal Service. This section also has been supplemented with language regarding deadlines that fall on weekends and holidays. o Chapter I - Paragraph F has been renamed "How to Submit Proposals" as well as reorganized to: - clarify that a proposal only needs to be submitted once to NSF, even if review by multiple programs is envisioned. This shoul help reduce the submission of multiple copies of the same proposal for simultaneous review by different program offices. The submission of duplicate or substantially similar proposals concurrently for review by more than one program without prior NSF approval may result in the return of the redundant proposals.- expand the coverage to include a "receipt policy" for proposals submitted electronically via the NSF FastLane Project. - revise the address to move the NSF program from the first line of the address in order to avoid having proposals delivered directly to NSF program offices. o Chapter II, Instructions for Proposal Preparation, has been supplemented with language indicating that, "For standard proposals, FastLane preparation and submission is the preferred method. Unless otherwise specified in a program announcement or solicitation, however, proposals may continue to be submitted in paper form." o Chapter II - Paragraph C, Format of the Proposal, has been modified to permit copies other than the original to use a simple binding, such as a comb binding, for use in proposal submission. o Chapter II - Paragraph D, Sections of the Proposal, has been revised to delete the following four proposal forms: - Project Summary, NSF Form 1358; - Project Description, NSF Form 1360; - References Cited, NSF Form 1361; and - Biographical Sketch, NSF Form 1362. In lieu of these forms, proposers are requested to use the instructions in the Grant Proposal Guide to complete these sections of the proposal. o Chapter II - Paragraph D.2, Project Summary, has been updated to require the Project Summary to also describe the potential impact of the project on advancing knowledge, science and mathematics education, and/or human resource development. o Chapter II - Paragraph D.4, Project Description, has been revised to: - remind proposers that proposals to NSF will now be reviewed using the new merit review criteria - require the proposal to indicate as part of the Project Description, "any broader impacts of the proposed activity." o Chapter II - Paragraph D.5, References Cited, has been clarified to require the names of authors to appear in the same sequence in which they appear in the referenced publication. o Chapter II - Paragraph D.6, Biographical Sketches, has been revised to require one listing of persons who have collaborated on a project. Previously, this information was located in two places in the Biographical Sketch. In addition, when providing names of individuals, the organizational affiliation should be added to differentiate between individuals with duplicate names. o Chapter II - Paragraph D.7.f.(v) has been updated to specify that subaward budgets need to be signed by the Authorized Organizational Representative of the organization receiving the subaward. o Chapter II - Paragraphs D.12.d. and e. Vertebrate Animals and Human Subjects, have been modified to reflect "just-in-time" submission for organizational approvals for use of Vertebrate Animals and Human Subjects in the proposal submission process. o Chapter III - NSF Proposal Processing and Review, Paragraph A, has been revised to reflect changes to NSF's merit review criteria. o Chapter IV - Withdrawals, Returns, and Declinations, Paragraph B, has been updated to include two additional reasons for the return of proposals by NSF: (1) the proposal was previously reviewed and declined and has not been substantially revised; or (2) the proposal is a duplicate of or substantially similar to a proposal already under consideration by NSF. ********************************************************** IRLIST Digest is distributed from the University of California, Division of Library Automation, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, CA. 94612-3550. Send subscription requests and submissions to: nancy.gusack@ucop.edu Editorial Staff: Nancy Gusack nancy.gusack@ucop.edu Cliff Lynch (emeritus) cliff@cni.org The IRLIST Archives is set up for anonymous FTP. Using anonymous FTP via the host ftp.dla.ucop.edu, the files will be found in the directory /data/ftp/pub/irl, stored in subdirectories by year (e.g., data/ftp/pub/irl/1993). Search or browse archived IR-L Digest issues on the Web at: http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/idom/irlist/ These files are not to be sold or used for commercial purposes. Contact Nancy Gusack for more information on IRLIST. THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN IRLIST DO NOT REPRESENT THOSE OF THE EDITORS OR THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. AUTHORS ASSUME FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR MATERIAL.