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2008 Conference Highlights
48th Annual IACIS International Conference IACIS
2008 Conference Program (.pdf
file--requires newest version of Adobe Reader
Comments from Past Participants
2008 Conference Keynote Speakers
48th Annual IACIS International Conference Review by Jean A. Pratt
The IACIS 2008 Conference was held in Savannah, Georgia, USA. The conference was again a great success. Conference participants provide both verbal and written feedback commending the quality of keynote addresses, participant presentations and networking interactions. This review summarizes activities of the conference, including awards presented, highlights of the program and a summary of participant perceptions.
Conference Location, Participants and Theme The 48th Annual IACIS International Conference was held at the Savannah Marriott Riverfront in Savannah, Georgia, USA. This was the first time the IACIS conference was held in Savannah, but may not be the last. Conference participants thoroughly enjoyed the hospitable Southern charm. The conference registration included over 180 IACIS members representing 10 different countries. We had two excellent keynote speakers, one panel presentation requested as a result of a 2007 presentation, and 162 presentations distributed among the following mini-tracks (first list) and topics (second list):
Other papers represented the following areas of research:
Complete, double-blind reviewed, accepted papers for the Conference were published in Issues in Information Systems ( IIS ), which is an official IACIS publication. IIS is a serial publication of the Association that is registered with the US Library of Congress and listed in the Eighth Edition of Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Management. All submissions were subject to a double-blind refereed process for inclusion in the Conference program and publication in IIS, Volume IX, Issues 1 and 2.
Conference Awards Each year the Association sponsors awards that are made at the annual Conference. Awards are made for the Computer Educator of the Year, the Ben Bauman Award for Excellence, the Best Conference Research Paper, the Best Conference Pedagogy Paper, the Best Conference Technology Paper and the Top Monkey Award. The Computer Educator of the Year is the highest award presented by the Association and recognizes an individual who shows exceptional research and teaching skills, has made significant contributions to the information systems profession and education, and enjoys a national or international reputation for outstanding work throughout the information systems community. The Ben Bauman Award for Excellence recognizes either a senior faculty member with significant service to the profession, university, and community, or a junior faculty member showing outstanding scholarship, service and great promise. This year's Ben Bauman Award recognized a junior faculty member. The Best Research Paper Award is made for the best paper reporting original research; the Best Pedagogy Paper Award is for the best paper regarding pedagogical issues; the Best Technology Award is for the best integration and application of information technology. The IACIS reviewers nominated papers for each of the three award categories. The Conference Program Chair made the final selection using recommendations from the double-blind refereeing process and the IACIS Executive Board. The Top Monkey Award recognizes the institution with the most Conference participants. Recipients of these prestigious (and fun) awards from the Association for 2008 are as follows: Computer Educator of the Year
As a faculty member, Professor Pastuszak has supervised more than 100 engineer’s and master’s theses. Supporting his consulting and teaching activities is his ability to effectively communicate in Polish, French, English, and Russian. Professor Pastuszak has also drafted and participated in grants from the Polish Science Committee related to Polish competition in E-Business, developed courseware for the Polish Virtual University, served as the Polish partner in the project Information Systems and Multimedia in Education through the University of Primorska, and helped develop the HRM Strategy for 100,000 Polish Postal workers. In recognition of his outstanding achievements and dedication to technology and management education, he has received 9 awards from the Rector of Maria Sklodowska Curie University and the Rector of Lublin University of Technology. Recently he was selected as author of the Best Paper at the Management International Conference, Portoroz, Slovenia. Professor Pastuszak has truly made a significant impact on the world of Computer Information Systems through his teaching, his scholarship, his commitment to editing professional and technical journals reaching throughout the globe, and his consulting with organizations both within Poland and in the
Ben Bauman Award for Excellence
In his short career since joining the faculty at CALU, Professor DeLorenzo has gained a reputation as someone who brings people together and gets them excited and shares his industrial wisdom with all of his students to make courses more timely and relevant. In addition to teaching, he has found a new passion in life: research. He has published a number of papers in academic journals and has made numerous conference presentations, both nationally and internationally. Also, since joining the faculty at CALU, he has formed a partnership with the John Heinz History Center to secure service learning opportunities for his students by providing database development and technical support to help manage the museum’s hundreds of thousands collections. Dr. DeLorenzo is clearly on track for an outstanding career as a university faculty member, and we congratulate him on being selected for the 2008 IACIS Ben Bauman Award for Excellence
Best Research Paper Peter Cardon, University of South Carolina, and Bryan Marshall, Georgia College and State University, for the authorship of "National Culture and Technology Acceptance:
The Impact of Uncertainty Avoidance"
Best Pedagogy Paper Christopher G. Jones, California State University, Northridge, for the authorship of "Student Perceptions of the Impact of Web-based Homework on Course Interaction and Learning in Introductory Accounting"
Best Technical Paper Manal M. Yunis, Jerald Hughes and Joseph Roge’, all from the University of Texas - Pan American, for the authorship of "Real Security in Virtual Systems: A Proposed Model for a Comprehensive Approach to Securing Virtualized Environments"
Top Monkey Award Robert Morris University
Conference Evaluation Each year the Board administers a post-conference survey (below) and conducts a post-conference debrief meeting in an attempt to continually improve the conference. The ability to bring your presentation on a Flash drive and use IACIS-provided laptops and projectors for all presentations was one of the results of previous input from conference participants. Seventy-one attendees (~ 39%) completed the survey; approximately 40 attendees attended the standing-room only post-conference debrief. Overall, the verbal and survey responses indicated that the participants were again very satisfied with the Conference. Most of the survey questions were based on a seven-point Likert scale with 1 = extremely dissatisfied to 7 = extremely satisfied. Multiple questions addressed a single topic. For reporting brevity and simplicity, the average scores for extremely/moderately satisfied responses and slightly satisfied/neutral responses for each topic are reported here. The first three post-conference survey questions addressed participant satisfaction with the conference, the program and schedule, and the planning, coordination and arrangements for the conference. Ninety-one percent of the respondents reported being extremely or moderately satisfied with conference, the program and the planning; 07% reported being slightly satisfied or had no opinion; 1% reported being dissatisfied (or accidentally reversed the matrix anchors). Supporting comments at the bottom of the surveys indicated that the overall conference, the keynote speakers, the location, the Fun Night activity, and the ability to bring presentations on Flash drives were some of the best features of the conference. The next two questions addressed participant satisfaction with the hotel accommodations and food and beverage. Eighty-one percent of the respondents reported being extremely or moderately satisfied with the hotel meeting rooms, and food/beverage service; 17% reported being slightly satisfied or had no opinion. Survey responses indicated that participants would have liked larger presentation rooms to handle some of the standing-room-only presentations; participants also found that the hotel bar/restaurant closed down at 10 p.m. Responses from a related question addressing Fun Night indicated that 75% of participants were extremely/moderately satisfied with it and 25% slightly satisfied or had no opinion. Fun Night continues to be a major networking event of the conference. Eighty-three percent of the conference participants reported extreme or moderate agreement with the statement that attending the conference was a valuable means for fulfilling career objectives; 17% indicated slight agreement or no opinion. Publishing in Issues in Information Systems (IIS) is extremely/moderately important to 72% of conference participants; 23% only slightly agreed or had no opinion. IIS continues to provide valuable for over a majority of conference participants. In line with these findings, 62% of respondents indicated publishing in IIS and networking were their primary reasons for attending the conference—this is a 7% increase from the 2007 conference. Increased conference participation and an increase in verbal, written and scored (via the post-conference surveys) provide evidence that the IACIS International Conference is achieving a major objective of providing a venue to communicate about collaborative research ventures and getting feedback on original research ideas—both critical success factors academic careers. 2008 was the second year that Issues in Information Systems was published in CD-ROM format as well as continuing to be available online ( http://www.iis-online.org). Forty-three percent of the conference participants reported that having a paper, hardcopy of IIS was moderately or extremely important to them; whereas 62% reported satisfaction with either a CD-ROM or online version. Fifty percent indicated extreme or moderate satisfaction with an online-only version of IIS, with one respondent suggesting that CDs were an obsolete media. When asked about paying an extra fee for a CD-ROM version of IIS, 78% indicated an unwillingness. The listing of IIS in Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Management and registration with the US Library of Congress was extremely to moderately important to 75 % of the respondents; 20% indicated only slight importance or no opinion. The changes Thom Luce made to the online submission and review process were favorably received: 81% were extremely or moderately satisfied with the online system, which is up from 73% in 2007. Eighteen percent were slightly satisfied or had no opinion. In an attempt to facilitate the online submission process for you, IACIS has provided a set of keywords from which you can choose when uploading your submission. Only 10% of conference participants selected keywords from the provided list, while 41% typed in their own keywords, 37% typed in some and selected some from the list, and 12% omitted keywords. Seventy-four participants indicated they would prefer not to limit their choice of keywords to the IACIS-provided list. Therefore, since the Program Chair uses keywords to help assign similar papers to the same session, we encourage all authors to submit keywords for their submission and to use, if possible, the provided list of keywords but to continue to type in keywords if the preferred word is not available. We will continue to build our list of words for your submission convenience. Additional feedback was elicited from participants as open-ended questions. These comments provide some corroborating evidence of participants’ satisfaction with the Conference. Here are several comments:
Post-conference Survey
Conclusion The 2008 Conference was very successful based on the number of attendees, the program participation, and the attendee perceptions. The 49th Annual IACIS International Conference will be held in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, on September 30 – October 3, 2009. The theme of the 2008 Conference, “Information Systems – The Bridge to all Business Functions," focuses on the fact that because information systems span the entire organization, it is the bridge that connects all the parts of a business to each other. Plan now to contribute to another successful IACIS conference:
For additional information on the 49th Annual IACIS International Conference to be held September 30 – October 3, 2009, please email Lori Willoughby, the 2009 Conference Program Chair at Lori.Willoughby@minotstateu.edu.
What Have Past Participants Said about this Conference?
Come join us and see for yourself the value of participating in an IACIS international conference!
We at IACIS are fortunate to have Thom Luce, an excellent photographer, willing and able to "capture the moment" in film for us. As a memento for you, Thom provided the following photographs.
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Thursday keynote speaker Kenneth Kaiser, Vice President of Corporate Systems Development, Target Corporation
Friday keynote speaker Michael J. Lynch, Manager, IT Advanced Personal and Workgroup Solutions, 3M
Zbigniew Pastuszak has served as Lecturer and Trainer, Center of Industrial Managers Education; Lecturer, School of Enterprise and Administration; and Assistant Professor and Manager of the MIS Lab, Maria Sklodowska-Curie University, Lublin, Poland. Dr. Pastuszak has been serving in various consulting and teaching posts for more than ten years, has traveled extensively throughout Europe teaching and consulting, and has assembled a remarkable record of accomplishment. Through his company E-Biz Comprehensive E-Business Service, he provides advice, contract software and technology training to clients and coordinates a team of 11 experts providing such services as database consultation to the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, the UCL, London. He has also served as a technical consultant to the Polish Agency for the Development of Enterprises and served as E-Business Project Manager for Lublin University of Technology.
Gary J. DeLorenzo is an Assistant professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, California University of Pennsylvania, Eberly College of Science and Technology. Prior to joining academia, Dr. DeLorenzo spent more than thirty years in manufacturing and banking, serving as manager, senior systems analyst, technical consultant, programmer, and various other technical positions. University teaching is not new to Professor DeLorenzo. During his business career he served for more than 15 years as an adjunct faculty member, teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses. While serving as a manager with Pittsburgh Plate Glass and pursuing graduate studies, Professor DeLorenzo effectively applied his newly learned research techniques to his work, applying qualitative ethnographic field method techniques to business information requirements analysis. During his last year with PPG he also served as a Visiting Professor in the Robert Morris University Graduate Program. In his nomination, Robert Morris Professor Fred Kohun states that “Serving as Visiting Professor confirmed what his years of adjunct teaching had led him to discover: his love of teaching and academic life.”