SIGPrag
SIGPrag Matters: Newsletter of the Pragmatist IS/IT Research Community
March 2009
Annual Meeting Report/Minutes
Executive Committee Activity
Membership Status
Ongoing Activities
1. Annual Meeting Report/Minutes
The inaugural meeting of SIGPrag took place December 14th in Paris as an ICIS Preconference. "It surely was an exciting event! SIGPrag reaches out to IS/IT scholars whose research engages with pragmatic and action-oriented perspectives while also continuing an extraordinary tradition from the LAP, ALOIS, Pragmatic Web, and other related communities" said SIGPrag President Pär Ågerfalk. The scientific meeting included 14 presentations taking positions on directions for Pragmatic IT/IS research. The meeting was attended by 18 participants who joined in an energetic discussion of the issues following the presentations. The proceedings are available at the SIGPrag website (http://www.sigprag.org/paris_2008.html). Those who attended the scientific meeting also participated in the business meeting. A wide range of foundational issues were discussed at the meeting including SIGPrag management structure, publications outlets for SIGPrag scholarship, programming and structuring of yearly meetings, and outreach. Next year's meeting will be held in conjunction with ICIS 2009 (http://www.icis09.org/). The business meeting minutes are appended here:
Minutes for ICIS2008 SIGPrag Business Meeting December 14 2008
Present: Pär Ågerfalk, Mikael Lind, Mark Aakhus, Hans Weigand, Raija Halonen, Gäella Lortal, Ulf Seigerroth, Daniel Rudmark, Mareike Schoop, Katja Ostertag, F. Miralle, Göran Goldkuhl, Karin Axelson, Jan Dietz, Owen Ericsson, Jos van Hillegensberg, Roland Kaschek, Tony Bryant
Management Structure of SIGPrag:
The leadership structure for SIGPrag was clarified and agreed to as follows: The positions of President, Secretary, and Treasurer will be for two years. The elections will be staggered so that President and Secretary are elected the same year and the Treasurer the succeeding year. Given that this was the inaugural meeting, it was agreed that in order to establish the staggered election of officers, this first election would result in 1 year term for the President and Secretary with a regular election to be held for those positions in 2009 at which time the term of service would be 2 years. The 2008 election of the Treasurer was a regular election commencing the 2 year term. The results of the election was a unanimous vote for Pär Ågerfalk of Uppsala University, for President, Mark Aakhus of Rutgers University, as Secretary, and Mikael Lind, of Boras University, as Treasurer.
Journal:
The status of the open-access journal Systems, Signs, and Actions (SySiAc, www.sysiac.org) and its prospects for becoming the premier SIGPrag outlet were discussed. Göran Goldkuhl described the current editorial structure: Editor in Chief: Göran Goldkuhl; Sr. Editor: Pär Ågerfalk; Associate Editors: Hans Weigand, Mikael Lind, Mark Aakhus, Rodney Clarke. Three volumes have been published. The 4th will likely be a special issue based on submission of revised papers from the SIGPrag Inaugural Meeting. The possibility that SySiAc could become a journal representing SIGPrag was discussed. The original proposal to AIS to form SIGPrag included the creation of a publication for SIGPrag. There was general agreement that the SIGPrag leadership and the SySiAc editorial board should work toward establishing SySiAc as the journal for SIGPrag.
Yearly Working Conference:
It was agreed that SIGPrag would hold a yearly working conference and business meeting, for the foreseeable future in conjunction with the ICIS conference. ICIS provides means for handling local arrangements and registration. It was agreed that the SIGPrag event will be free of charge or at least heavily reduced for SIGPrag members. ICIS also provides the opportunity to draw in researchers associated with AIS who have interests relevant to SIGPrag. There are also possibilities for collaborting with other SIGs in AIS to jointly run pre-ICIS workshops.
Website:
It was agreed to continue and further develop and maintain a website (www.sigprag.org) where members can share information and ideas (hosted by Uppsala University). The site would serve as a place for the workshop proceedings.
Outreach:
The members agreed that SIGPrag should work to provide a reference point for other conferences and events in the same general area and support related initiatives and local industry-focused events (in-coop arrangements).
2. Executive Committee Activity
The executive committee has met four times since the annual meeting. The committee met on Dec 16 during the ICIS conference and on Jan 13, Jan 27, and Feb 17 by internet conference call. The exec committee also attended a workshop for SIGs sponsored by the AIS at ICIS. Each of the meetings involved following through on the discussion at the annual meeting as well as attending to the AIS requirements for sustaining a SIG. In particular, much attention has been given to resolving with AIS the tracking of SIGPrag membership and dues and to finalizing the bylaws for SIGPrag.
The executive committee plans to meet on a monthly basis for the foreseeable future as there are several practical matters to be addressed in getting SIGPrag off to a strong start.
3. Membership Status
We strongly encourage recipients of this newsletter to go to AIS to check their membership status and sign up for SIGPrag. Also, encourage others to register for SIGPrag. Currently, we have 36 in the community considering board members, registered participants and inaugural meeting attendees. 17 people are registered as SigPrag members. We have 8 new members since the inaugural meeting.
4. Ongoing Activities
Current related outreach includes work on a SIGPrag related minitrack within the Positive Design Track at AMCIS2009 and the PragWeb 2009 conference that will be held as a track at "I-Semantics" organized by Hans Weigand and Adrian Paschke. SIGPrag recognizes the PragWeb community as an important contributor to SIGPrag and looks forward to further future coordination and collaboration.
The executive committee is currently working on the CFP for the 2009 SIGPrag event at ICIS 2009. Stay tuned.
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