First Scandinavian Conference on IS & The 33rd IRIS Seminar

The First Conference of Information Systems has struck a deal with the Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems. During the review of papers submitted to SCIS the program committee will indicate which papers they find that potentially should also go directly into a review process for the journal. The editors of SJIS will then carefully assess which papers will be invited into this process. The purpose of this deal between SCIS and SJIS is to feature the best of the papers from SCIS and also to encourage Scandinavian researchers to publish their work in SJIS.

SJIS was created in 1989 at IRIS in Røros. The purpose was to create an high-quality outlet for Scandinavian IS research. The founding editors were Lars Mathiassen (DK), Jens Kaasbøll (N), Markku Nurminen (FIN), and Agneta Olerup (S) with Peter Axel Nielsen as their production editor. The journal has now published Scandinavian research for 20 years. Many editors have contributed over the years to improve the journal and hundreds of researchers have used SJIS as their research outlet. The journal experiences an increasing impact both in numbers and in quality. SJIS is by now a primary outlet for Scandinavian IS research and the reader community is growing. This has happened not only because of an increase in quality of published papers; it is also because the journal is available for free at www.e-sjis.org and soon it will be included in the AIS e-library at www.aisnet.org.

Call for papers

First Scandinavian Conference on Information Systems
- in conjunction with IRIS33

http://www.scandinavian-iris.org/2010

Time has come for the IRIS research community to launch its own – full-fledged – conference. This first Scandinavian Conference on Information Systems will be held in 20^th – 22^ndAugust 2010 in Northern Jutland, Denmark, in conjunction with the traditional IRIS seminar. The conference will have a format which is known from other conferences such as the IFIP working conference series. The submitted papers and panels will be selected through a rigorous and double blind review process performed by a program committee consisting of senior Scandinavian and international researchers in our field. The selected manuscripts will be presented in formal papers sessions and be discussed by appointed discussants.

The conference will be followed directly by IRIS in its traditional format with working groups and workshop on 22^nd and 24^th August, 2010.

The theme of the conference is “Engaged Scandinavian IS research”.

Scandinavian IS research has for several decades been concerned with its relevance to practitioners of the field, to users, to industry, and to society at large. This concern for the usefulness outside the realms of research has shaped Scandinavian IS researchers awareness, attention, research conduct, and most importantly who we interact with on which issues, why we do this, and for whom we do it.

In his book Engaged Scholarship which was published in 2007 Van de Ven offered an enlightening view on organizational and social research that is highly relevant for Scandinavian IS research. He suggests an interactional view in which professional and research practices contribute to each other through different types of activity. Embracing qualitative as well as quantitative methods and promoting process studies as well as variance studies, engaged scholarship offers opportunities to transcend the traditional dichotomies of rigor versus relevance, and positivist versus interpretive. Van de Ven defines engaged scholarship as “a participative form of research for obtaining the different perspectives of key stakeholders (researchers, users, clients, sponsors, and practitioners) in studying complex problems”. Much of the Scandinavian IS research has already followed this line as can be seen in an retrospective analysis which was presented in the Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, Vol. 20, No. 2. The conference will address and further promote a view on Scandinavian IS research with a particular focus on how ‘engaged’ unfolds in different studies.

The conference will favour research papers and panels addressing the research theme, but will not be limited exclusively to this subject. Within the theme priority will be given to research contributing with prototypical and exemplary engaged Scandinavian IS research with a good explanation of the research approach rather than expositions and theoretical studies of research methods. Examples of topics covered by the conference are:

• Case studies with different stakeholders’ perspectives
• Examples of action research with a particular focus on how practitioners and researchers have engaged in action
• Examples of design science research with a particular view on stakeholders’ evaluation of the artefact

We are soliciting full research papers for the Scandinavian Conference of IS and they should be submitted through the conference web site before 24^th November, 2009. Research-in-progress should in stead be submitted to the traditional IRIS before its deadline on 1^st April, 2010.

Web site: http://www.scandinavian-iris.org/2010

Paper submission: check the web site for instructions on size, format and online submission.

Important dates:

• 24^th November, 2009: Paper submission for SCIS
• 15^th January, 2010: Panel submission for SCIS
• 1^st March, 2010: Notification of acceptance for SCIS
• 1^st April, 2010: Paper submission for IRIS
• 20^th-22^ndAugust 2010: Conference, North Jutland, Denmark
• 22^nd-24^th August 2010: IRIS, North Jutland, Denmark

Program chairs:

• Karlheinz Kautz, Denmark
• Peter Axel Nielsen, Denmark

Program committee:

• Kim Normann Andersen, Denmark
• Karin Axelsson, Sweden
• Jørgen Bansler, Denmark
• Tone Bratteteig, Norway
• Keld Bødker, Denmark
• Susanne Bødker, Denmark
• Jan Damsgaard, Denmark
• Ole Hanseth, Norway
• Liisa von Hellens, Australia
• Ola Henfridsson, Sweden
• Jonny Holmström, Sweden
• Pertti Järvinen, Finland
• Rikard Lindgren, Sweden
• Kalle Lyytinen, USA
• Lars Mathiassen, USA
• Eric Monteiro, Norway
• Bjørn Erik Munkvold, Norway
• Markku Nurminen, Finland
• Helena Holmström Olsson, Sweden
• Samuli Pekkola, Finland
• Matti Rossi, Finland
• Maung K. Sein, Norway
• Jesper Simonsen, Denmark
• Erik Stolterman, USA
• Reima Suomi, Finland
• Carsten Sørensen, UK
• Virpi Tuunainen, Finland
• Margunn Aaenestad, Norway
• Pär Ågerfalk, Sweden