EUNIS News

                                                                        July 2006

"Did you read the Proceedings?"

EUNIS in Estonia

The 12th annual EUNIS Conference took place at the University of Tartu, Estonia from 28 to 30 June 2006, with the theme “Is Information Technology shaping the future of higher education?”

There were approximately 300 delegates from 25 countries at the event. Keynote speakers were Dr Jaak Aaviksoo (Rector, University of Tartu), Dr Jiri Zlatuska (Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic), Neil Thelander (Queensland University of Technology, Australia), Dr David Fergusson (National eScience Centre, Edinburgh University, UK), Stephen McGibbon (Microsoft), Athanassios Siaperas (Cedefop, Greece) and Dr Michael Zastrocky (GartnerGroup, USA). In addition there were almost 100 presentations from members of the EUNIS community and a company track for Corporate members.

After the Gala Dinner in the splendid Vanemuine Concert Hall guests were entertained by several demonstrations of Estonian culture including the Tartu University male choir and traditional folk dancing.

We owe enormous thanks to the local Organising Committee (Andres Salu, Sirje Üprus, Tiia Lillemaa, Hanka Veetõusme) and their colleagues at the University of Tartu who all worked extremely hard to make EUNIS2006 one of the best conferences ever. Aitäh!

Details of the Conference Programme are available on the web. Several of the plenary sessions were broadcast and may still be downloaded from http://www.ut.ee/EUNIS2006/122581.

EUNIS2006 Photo Contest

This year the conference organising committee introduced a new competition to replace the traditional Best Paper Award. Delegates were invited to submit any photographs they had taken in and around Tartu with a ‘EUNIS2006’ theme, and quite a number took part. You can see the results of their efforts at http://www.ut.ee/EUNIS2006/contest.

The first prize (a digital camera) went to Bronislovas Balvocius of Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania for his memorable study of a hard-working fellow delegate!

Second prize went to Christine Michielsens of Leuven, Belgium for “Did you read the proceedings?” and third to Asko Tidumaa of Tartu for “Metaphotography 3”.

EUNIS Elite Award for Excellence 2006

The scope of the EUNIS Elite Award was widened in 2006 to include any aspect of the use of information systems in higher education in Europe. Previously the Award had been restricted to administrative systems only.

The  2000 prize, generously donated by SAP, was awarded to Modesto Jesús Fabra Valls, Manuel Mollar Villanueva, José Pascual Gumbau Mezquita, and Vicente Andreu Navarro of Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain for their Project “Clauer” (the Catalan word for keyring). This is an initiative to promote the use of digital signatures throughout the university using a USB flash memory device.  

Dr Malcolm Woodfield of SAP presented the EUNIS Elite Award for Excellence to Vicente Andreu Navarro at the closing session of EUNIS2006, when Vicente Andreu gave a short presentation about his Project “Clauer”.

The winning submission is available on the EUNIS web site at http://www.eunis.org

Jens Dørup

Jens was Associate Professor in Health Informatics at the University of Århus in Denmark and headed the University’s E-Learning Unit which he had established in 2003. He first became involved in EUNIS at Helsinki in 1999 and represented his Danish colleagues on the General Assembly from that time. He had attended nearly all EUNIS conferences since then, taking an active part by presenting papers and contributing to the series of tutorials preceding the conference. Jens was elected to the Board of Directors in 2001 and remained an active member until he died. He was also joint leader of the EUNIS E-Learning Task Force.

Jens will be greatly missed by the EUNIS community, by the University of Århus, but above all by his family. We send our condolences to his widow Margrethe and their children Maj, Mads and Magnus.

News from the General Assembly, Council and Board of Directors:

Membership Fee 2006-7

The annual membership fee for Full and Corresponding Members will be increased to €200 from 1 September 2006. For Corporate Members the annual fee will be €1000.

Liaison with CAUDIT

EUNIS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Council of Australian University Directors of Information Technology (CAUDIT), its counterpart in Australia. Both organisations will promote each others events and work together where appropriate. Council agreed to set up a mechanism with CAUDIT to advertise opportunities for staff exchanges between Europe and Australasia. Peter Tinson (UCISA, UK) volunteered to take this on.

EUNIS Task Force on E-Learning 

Starting in September 2006, the EUNIS E-Learning Task Force (ELTF) will expand its activities and would welcome new members. If you work at a EUNIS member university and you would like to give some time to work on one of the Task Force projects, or you would like to start a new project, please get in touch with Andrew Rothery (a.rothery@worc.ac.uk). At present the ELTF runs the EUNIS Snapshots Scheme in which we maintain information about the way e-learning is organised and supported in European Universities. It will also arrange judging of the Jens Dorup Award. But the ELTF would like to start some new projects too. As well as keeping in touch online, a meeting in the UK is planned for the Autumn.

EUNIS Task Force on the Implications of the Bologna Process

EUNIS is setting up a second Task Force to work on the implications of the Bologna Process for IT services in Higher Education. A bid (jointly with CSIESR, EUA, UCISA and ZKI) has already been submitted to the EC Socrates Programme to fund a project in this area. The Task Force will be established whether or not the bid is successful. The leader will be Pierre Ageron (CSIESR, France).

Jens Dørup Elite Award for E-Learning

An additional EUNIS Award is being created in memory of Jens Dørup, in the area of E-Learning where he had done so much pioneering work.  The first competition for this Award will take place in 2007.

EUNIS Web site

The EUNIS web site is being redeveloped by Yves Epelboin and colleagues at Université P et M Curie, Paris, France. The new version will be ready in a few months time. Members are invited to suggest and contribute content for the new site, either to Yves (yves.epelboin@upmc.fr) or to the Executive Secretary.

Elections at EUNIS2006

To serve for 3 years:-
Javier Franco (Spain)
Alf Hansen (Norway)
Hans Ogg (Netherlands)

Council elections to Board of Directors

To serve for 3 years:-
Jean-Francois Desnos (France)
Jan Madey (Poland)
Andrew Rothery (UK)

To serve for one year:-
Hans-Dieter Weckmann (Germany)

Bas Cordewener (Netherlands) and Ivan Vrana (Czech Republic) remain members of the Board until 2007.
Markku Kuula (Finland), Viljan Mahnic (Slovenia) and Andres Salu (Estonia) remain members until 2008.

Board of Directors elections of Officers

To serve for 1 year:-
President:            Jean-Francois Desnos (France)
Treasurer:           Markku Kuula (Finland)
Vice-President:   Andrew Rothery (UK)

Further elections to Secretary and Vice-President will take place when the Board next meets.

Farewell to President Ligia Ribeiro

Ligia Ribeiro stepped down from the Presidency of EUNIS when her term of office as a member of the EUNIS Board of Directors came to an end during EUNIS2006. She had been a Director since 2001 and President for the past two years. Despite heavy work and family commitments Ligia has made a huge contribution to EUNIS, especially as President. Her excellent leadership qualities will be greatly missed, but we will not lose her completely because she is planning to remain involved with several EUNIS activities.
Obrigada, Ligia!

EUNIS Conference to return to Grenoble in 2007

The 13th annual EUNIS Conference will be held in Grenoble, France from 26 to 29 June 2007. The association first visited that lovely city in the Alps for EUNIS1997.

A Call For Papers will be issued in the Autumn 2006 after the EUNIS Board of Directors and the local organising committee have discussed themes.

Welcome to new members!

We warmly welcome the following who have recently joined EUNIS:

Letterkenny Institute of Technology (Ireland)
Universitat Jaume I de Castellón (Spain)
Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spain)

Framework Solutions  - Corporate member

There are currently 98 members of EUNIS, an increase of 24% since last year.

Would you like to join EUNIS?

Is your institution/organisation/company a member of EUNIS?
(See http://www.eunis.org/html3/organisation/board/ga.html for a current list)

If not why not join now? There is a modest annual fee of €200 which will cover the period from now until 31 August 2007. Members are entitled to discounts at EUNIS events.

The Application Form is at http://www.eunis.org/html3/organisation/application/membership_application.rtf

Remember: 

Note the dates in your Diary now! 

Martin Price
EUNIS Executive Secretary
Mail: eunis@reading.ac.uk