CALL for PAPERS

 

CONFENIS 2012, 19 – 21 September 2012, Ghent Belgium

 

ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS OF THE FUTURE

EVOLVING TOWARDS MORE PERFORMANCE THROUGH TRANSPARENCY AND AGILITY

 

Enterprise information systems (EIS) are large-scale modular software systems, such as ERP, that support and integrate process information flows, information reporting and business analytics within and between complex organizations. They provide a technology platform that enables organizations to integrate their information assets and coordinate their business processes. As the central nervous system of the organization, they ensure that information can be shared across all functional departments and managerial levels. EIS are invaluable because they eliminate the problem of information fragmentation caused by multiple information systems in an organization.

The CONFENIS series of conferences offers an annual opportunity to EIS researchers and practitioners to present recent research or application experiences, to provide feedback to peers, to set out the vision for future research and developments in the field, and to create or confirm long-lasting and fruitful collaborations.

With the theme of CONFENIS 2012 we wish to emphasize two evolutions in the science and practice of EIS. The first evolution is the development of more open systems, for instance, the creation of interoperation between systems from collaborating organizations or the composition of systems from standard modules and packages offered by different vendors. The second evolution is the move towards more flexible systems, meaning easily configurable and adaptable systems based on service-oriented software architectures, the software as a service business model, cloud computing infrastructures, and software product line approaches. We therefore especially welcome Design Science research and technical or evaluation papers on methods, techniques and technologies to make EIS more transparent, e.g. research on enterprise modelling, ontology and architecture that would ‘open up’ the structure and behaviour of enterprise systems, as well as empirically-driven research and theoretical, conceptual or even visionary papers on how flexible EIS solutions can foster business agility and innovation.

Apart from research papers, the call for papers is also open to practice-driven experience reports that reflect upon openness and flexibility in the context of the acquisition, implementation, use and management of EIS in organizations. The conference is hosting an industry & service track aimed at exploring emerging topics in depth. We therefore particularly welcome contributions from starters, SME’s, social profit organizations, organizations within non-business sectors or any other kind of organization that was not targeted by the standard monolithic enterprise system software packages of the past.

Accepted papers will be published as full or short papers in a Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP) volume by Springer.

 

Topics of interest

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Enterprise Information System (EIS): evolution in concept, technology, and application

• EIS classifications and typologies

• Design of EIS: approaches to variability, adaptability and flexibility

• Acquiring, implementing and managing EIS: approaches, experiences, lessons learned

• Success of EIS: satisfaction, acceptance, adoption

• Integration and interoperability of enterprise systems

• Enterprise modelling, ontology, architecture, and engineering

• Business process management and service-oriented architecture for enterprise systems

• New platforms for EIS: Web-based EIS, cloud computing for enterprise systems, platform/infrastructure as a service

• New EIS delivery and commercial models, e.g., Software as a Service (SaaS), software on demand, from proprietary to open source in enterprise system packages

• IT governance and EIS: trust, security and privacy issues in EIS, compliance issues, risk management, value delivery, alignment of business and enterprise systems

• Quality assurance of enterprise systems and enterprise information

• ERP and social media (social ERP): integration of social media software in EIS, sense-making of enterprise information via social media

• Market trends, opportunities, and future strategies for EIS software vendors, integrators and implementers

• Making sense of EIS: application of theories used in organization studies and the social sciences

• Behavioural and social studies of the impact of EIS on individuals, teams, and organizations

• Economic studies of EIS: benefits, costs and risks, productivity studies, impact on organizational performance

• The art of researching EIS: research methodologies and paradigms

• EIS best practices and use cases

• EIS and more specifically ERP in sme’s and start-ups: needs, thresholds, lessons learned, opportunities and visionary trends

• EIS in social profit organisations, in healthcare, in other economic domains: media, accounting,..

• ERP and cloud computing (cloud ERP)

• ERP and open source

 

Four types of papers, two different tracks

We are soliciting four types of papers for two different tracks: an academic track that is mainly focused on research issues in EIS and an industry & service track that is mainly focused on practical issues in EIS.

1. Regular research papers (academic track) report on completed EIS research that complies with rigorous scientific standards. These papers present original results of completed research studies with the aim of obtaining feedback from fellow researchers. The ambition level for these papers, after revision incorporating the expert feedback, is a publication in an academic journal or as a book chapter published by an internationally recognized publisher.

2. Work-in-progress papers (academic track) are short papers that present the design and preliminary results of ongoing EIS research studies with the aim of obtaining early feedback and further guidance from experts and peers. Work-in-progress papers will be evaluated using the same academic standards as regular research papers (except for completeness requirements).

3. Conceptual or visionary papers (industry & service track) are papers that may target practitioners, researchers, or both. Their aim is to convey a clear message based on well-founded arguments, though not necessarily based on the results of specific scientific studies. The ideas expressed may be driven by experience with the practice of EIS or research in EIS. These papers will be evaluated mainly for their readability, innovativeness, and soundness of the ideas expressed.

4. Experience reports (industry & service track) describe real-life experiences with EIS that authors wish to share with fellow practitioners and EIS researchers. They focus on specific problems and solutions in specific contexts. Their aim may be to help other practitioners facing similar problems or to solicit help and possible solutions from other practitioners (or EIS researchers). We especially welcome papers aiming at following domains: healthcare IT, sme’s and ERP: from design for large enterprises towards adaptation for smaller organizations (sme’s) and social profit organisations, from transactional systems to decision-making systems, from ERP and SCM over CRM, Office Systems towards Business Intelligence and Web 2.0, approaches for training and communication when implementing ERP, change management in the context of planning and/or implementing ERP, sources of success and failure when selecting, planning, implementing ERP, evaluation and benefits management of EIS projects, characteristics, skills and competencies of planning and/or implementation teams

 

The evaluation of these papers will be based mainly on readability, relevance to the conference, and potential interest to the conference participants. The submission process will be handled by the EasyChair conference management system. Only submission of electronic manuscripts via EasyChair is allowed. The submission guidelines provide further information on the submission requirements for these different tracks and types of paper.

 

Important dates

EasyChair submission system open: 1 February 2012

Abstract submission deadline: 15 April 2012

Paper submission deadline: 1 May 2012

Notification of acceptance: 15 June 2012

Camera-ready version deadline: 1 August 2012

Conference: 19-21 September 2012

Revised paper submission deadline: 1 November 2012 (TBC)

Publication post-conference proceedings: end 2012 – early 2013

 

More information

www.confenis2012.be or LinkedIn group: CONFENIS 2012

 

Academic track and papers Prof. dr. Geert Poels

Professor in the rank of Senior lecturer Department of Management Information and Operations Management

Ghent University geert.poels@ugent.be

SME track and papers

Prof. dr. ir. Jan Devos ELIT-Lab University College West-Flanders Ghent University jan.devos@howest.be

General info and industry & service track Karolien Meersman Deputy director Economic Council for East Flanders karolien.meersman@oost-vlaanderen.be

 

Prof. em. dr. ir. Dirk Deschoolmeester

Representative for Belgium IFIP TC8 - Chairman FBVI-FAIB

Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Department Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Ghent University, dirk.deschoolmeester@ugent.be

 

 

Sincerely,

Jan Devos

 

 

Dr. ir Jan Devos

ELIT - Lab

University College West-Flanders

Ghent University

Graaf Karel De Goedelaan 5

BE-8500 KORTRIJK - BELGIUM

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F: +32 56 24 12 24

e-mail: jan.devos@howest.be

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