Dear Colleagues
I started this newsletter three weeks ago just as the 2003 conference organisers were issuing the second call for papers. But then I was reminded that the EUNIS Board of Directors would be meeting at the end of November in Amsterdam and we decided to hold onto this issue so that I could report on the discussions that have now taken place and the decisions that have been made. But more about that later. Firstly let me remind you of the very successful conference held this summer in Portugal.
As is fast becoming the pattern, it was a very successful event with 326 participants from 31 countries including the USA, Australia and South Africa. The conference web site is still accessible and contains the full text and visuals of all the 110 papers that were presented. There are also many photographs taken during the event including several showing the delegates having what can only be described as a very enjoyable time. The pictures submitted by Jens Doerup are particularly interesting and show many scenes of Porto as a tourist centre.
Go to http://www.fe.up.pt/eunis2002 and have a look, particularly if you want to be reminded what real sunshine looks like and what it feels like to be very warm. The presentations are in a section called 'Day by Day Programme' and the pictures are in the 'Portfolio' section. But be warned - there are a lot of photographs and my 56K modem creaked under the load. (I live in a rural part of the UK and my local telephone exchange does not yet support high speed internet access)
Two further points are worthy of
extra attention. This year the EUNIS Elite Award for excellence in implementing
Administrative Information Systems for Higher Education was won by the London
School of
Economics. The award was received by Chris Cobb, Director, Business Systems
& Services, who also gave a brief presentation of the system 'LSE for you'.
The prize was a glass trophy given by the EUNIS Organisation and a monetary
award of 2000 Euros donated by ORACLE. This prize was presented by Mr Bill Hollowsky
from ORACLE at the Awards Ceremony.
The second award made at the conference was for 'Best Paper EUNIS2002' Of the 98 refereed papers, 37 were entered for this award and joint winners were eventually chosen. These were 'Experiences with Distributed Open Source Courses' by Kirsti Ala-Mutka and Tommi Mikkonen from the Tampere University of Technology, Finland, and 'Information infrastructures, information behaviour and trust' by David Allen from the University of Salford, UK. The winners shared a monetary prize of 1000 Euros which was given by Sun Microsystems and which was presented by Director Jan Staes of EMEA Education & Research of Sun Microsystems.
Let me now go back to my original theme - the next conference. Those of you who are actively preparing papers will probably know all about it, but for the others I shall say what is obvious - that it will be in Amsterdam from the 2nd to the 4th of July 2003. The conference is being organised by the Informatiseringscentrum, which is the Central Computing Services of the University of Amsterdam, and the SURF Foundation. The SURF Foundation is the Dutch national organisation that coordinates IT and networking for universities, other HE schools and research institutions in the Netherlands. Since its establishment in 1987 its co-ordination role has expanded and it is now a nation-wide supplier of services through its operating subsidiaries: SURFnet bv and SURFdiensten bv.
The theme for the conference is 'Beyond the Network' and if you want to submit a paper it should address one of the following topics:
As usual, the first day will be devoted to tutorials, which are being arranged by EUNIS Academia. These are designed to discuss a topic in more depth than is possible in a general conference paper and should be very useful for those of you who are thinking of undertaking an actual project or implementing a new system. These tutorials may be for a full day, or half a day; there is usually a charge and the attendance is limited to a manageable number.
The final date for the submission of abstracts of papers or proposals for tutorials is January 1, 2003. Further details about abstracts for full papers, short papers, posters or tutorial proposals are, of course, on the conference web site at http://www.ic.uva.nl/eunis2003. And don't forget, if your paper is selected, you can enter it into the 'Best Paper' competition for which the prize is 1000 Euro!
Marij Veugelers attended the recent Board meeting as the Chair of the Conference Organising Committee. She reported that arrangements are well in hand and that further publicity about the conference will shortly be available for general circulation.
When you have finished the abstract
of your paper, you can work on your submission to the Elite Award of Excellence
2003. The rules this year are the same as for last year and I have reproduced
them below to
refresh your memory:
One of the topics, which I discussed in my last newsletter, was related to membership of EUNIS. You will recall that, currently, countries are the actual members on behalf of all the institutions and research organisations within their territory. The suggestion was that individual institutions, and even some significant parts of institutions, should be invited to become the members. This would resolve a problem that exists today in those countries that do not have a national organisation that co-ordinates the activities of its member institutions - but it would mean re-defining the role of such national organisations where they currently exist. The benefit for EUNIS is that it would increase by an order of magnitude the number of bodies paying a subscription and, most importantly, would give more direct access to people who are actively involved in defining and implementing institutional information systems in all our member countries.
This topic was discussed at the last
General Assembly meeting in Porto and the outcome was supportive. However, there
was concern about how the members of the GA would be chosen and what other effects
such a change would have on the current Statutes. These issues were debated
further at the Board meeting in Amsterdam and Andrew Rothery was actioned to
produce a consistent document from the discussion. This has already been circulated
amongst the Board members and I am told that Ivan Vrana has now sent it to the
General Assembly. Members of the GA have been asked to post their comments to
the GA discussion list by the end of January 2003. The next full meeting of
the GA is on the first day of the Amsterdam conference - on Wednesday, July
2nd at 17.00 hrs when these proposals will be on the agenda and can be
formally voted on.
If they are accepted, these alterations to the rules will mark the most significant change to the structure of EUNIS since it was conceived in 1993. You may have an opinion about what is being proposed and you are entitled - indeed encouraged - to make your views known. The correct route is to e-mail your country representative but I am sure that any Board or GA member will happily consider any constructive suggestions that you have to make.
One of the Task Forces set up recently was to address the relatively new and growing topics of e-learning. Andrew Rothery of the UK, and one of the EUNIS vice-Presidents, was elected as Chair of this Task Force. Andrew tells me that some progress has already been made in this area. There are 19 members of the Task Force and an electronic E-Learning Forum has been established as an aid to getting an international perspective on how developments in this field should be encouraged to take place. Over 70 members have already joined the discussion group and further advertising will take place after Christmas about its existence, what it is intended to achieve and how to join.
The Board suggested that the following activities for the Task Force:
Well, that is all for the time being. Get busy with your submissions to the next conference in Amsterdam and your entry into the Elite competition.
I hope you all have a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year,
Ron