Building a Better World through Information Systems

This page contains:

- Call for Nomination

- Committee Information

- Submission Instructions

For submission, please read and follow all the instructions below to ensure your submission meets all requirements: Submission Process 

A) Eligibility
B) Selection Process
C) Documents Needed for Nomination Sheet 
D) Submission Process 
E) Step-by-Step Instructions for Submitting to Manuscript Central 

ICIS invites nominations for its 2014 Doctoral Consortium in Auckland, New Zealand.

Since the 1980s, the Consortium has provided students who are doing their doctoral dissertations with the chance to present and obtain comments on their research, to hear about the work of their peers at other universities, and to gain an understanding of what academic and research careers are all about. It also offers students opportunities to make new friendships with other students and leading faculty from around the globe. In the past such friendships and networks developed at ICIS Doctoral Consortia have proved to be long-lasting and of great benefit.

The Doctoral Consortium of the International Conference on Information Systems will begin on Wednesday evening, 10 December 2014, with a welcome event, and will end with a late evening farewell reception on Friday 12 December 2014, with departure on the morning of Saturday 13th December. The event will be held at Castaways Resort, a coastal cliff top location, described as one of Auckland's most stunning conference venues, and situated just 50 minutes from the centre of Auckland. Doctoral Consortium student participants will be invited to stay at the resort for three nights, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

To view the Call for Nominations in PDF, click here.

Students nominated by their respective institutions must complete three separate documents and submit those three documents through the online submission system. Details on the document requirements and online submission process are below.

Guy Fitzgerald

University of Loughborough, UK

Shirley Gregor

Australian National University, Australia

Benoit Aubert

Victoria University of Wellington

Elizabeth Davidson

University of Hawaii

Ming-Hui Huang

National Taiwan University

Allen Lee

Virginia Commonwealth University

Eric Monteiro

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Jan Pries-Heje

The IT University of Copenhagen

Arun Rai

Georgia State University

Du Rong

Xidian University

Matti Rossi

Aalto University

Ulrike Schultze

Southern Methodist University

Participation in the Consortium is by invitation only. Each university may submit only one nominee. (If two units of a university hold separate memberships in AIS, they may each submit one nominee from their respective units.) Each student selected for the Consortium is expected to attend all Consortium meetings and activities, from the opening on Wednesday evening to the closing on Friday evening (e.g. participants will not be able to participate in any pre-ICIS activities that conflict with the Consortium schedule). Candidates who are not able to make this commitment to the Consortium should not apply.

Ph.D. students currently working on Information Systems dissertations are eligible to be nominated. Candidates should have successfully defended their thesis proposals (or their institutions equivalent) prior to December 1, 2014 (students need not have defended their proposals before the submission deadline). Students who will have defended their final dissertations prior to December 1, 2014 will not be eligible. Nominated candidates should intend to pursue an academic career in Information Systems following the completion of their Ph.D. studies.

The language of the Consortium is English, and all submitted materials must be in English. Students must have sufficient proficiency in English to participate effectively in the presentations, discussions, and other activities.

Prospective candidates should also note that the Consortium is designed as an intensive personal development experience and, therefore, participants should be fully committed to the Consortium in all respects. For example, this means not being absent from any part of the Consortium, not bringing guests to the Consortium, nor staying away from the Consortium hotel.

Students who are selected to participate in the Consortium will be given more detail on how to prepare their research papers for presentation during the Consortium, following their selection.

Selection to the ICIS Doctoral Consortium is very competitive. Typically many more nominations are received than can be accommodated. This year participation will be restricted to 40 students. Participants will be selected based on the following:

• the quality of the proposed research and its potential significance and contribution to the IS discipline,
• the potential contribution the student can make to the Consortium, and
• the potential benefit of the Consortium to the student's research and professional development,
• the desire to balance representation of research topics, methods, regions, schools and cultures.

The assessment will be based on a review of the dissertation proposal and other nomination information by the DC Faculty. Previous attendance by other students from the nominating school is not a criterion for selecting Consortium participants.

Notification of Acceptance: Acceptance and rejection notifications will be sent on or around 30th June 2014.

Note: The dates for submission and notification are earlier than in other years to allow for early booking of flights to New Zealand by accepted candidates. Early booking is strongly recommended as December is a peak holiday period in New Zealand and Australia.

Cost: All students accepted to the Consortium will be required to pay a registration fee to help defray part of the cost of the Consortium. Students attending the Consortium will receive free registration to the ICIS 2014 conference in Auckland, which immediately follows the Consortium, and are expected to attend.

(1) Nominee Information Sheet. Students complete the information on this sheet and submit it along with the other two documents mentioned below. You can download the nominee sheet here.  

(2) Nomination Letter.  Students must be nominated by an IS faculty member or academic.

• There can only be one nominee per university or institution, unless different units of the institution each hold their own AIS membership. In that case, each unit of the university may nominate one student. Multiple nominations received from the same unit of a university or institution will be rejected.
• The nomination should be in the form of a nomination letter from the nominating faculty member and should certify that:
• the candidate is the sole nominee from the university or institution, or from that unit, if the university has more than one unit with an AIS membership;
• the candidate meets the eligibility criteria mentioned above; and
• the nominating institution guarantees to provide the consortium participation fee and travel funds to the nominee in the event that they are admitted to the Consortium.
• Ideally, the nominating faculty member should be the Director of the IS Doctoral Program or the IS Department’s Chairperson. If these individuals are not available, then the nominee’s Dissertation Advisor may nominate the student. However, if this is the case, the dissertation advisor must be a faculty member at the nominee’s university or institution.
• Students must submit the completed nomination letter during the online submission process, not the nominating faculty member.

(3) Candidate’s Dissertation Proposal Paper. The paper outlining the candidate's research should be in the form of a short report summarizing the student’s dissertation/thesis proposal. This part should not exceed 10 double-spaced pages, formatted as follows: Times New Roman or equivalent font, 11-point or 12-point font, double-spaced only (not 1.5), 1 inch margins all around 8.5 x 11 inch paper (or A4), and the pages must be numbered. This paper should include the research question, a justification for why and to whom the research is addressed and why it is important. It should also include a brief review of the key literature, a presentation of the theoretical basis for the work, a research model and hypotheses (if applicable), and a description of the research design.

This 10-page limit does not include tables, figures, or references. Tables and figures should not be embedded in the text, but should be included separately, immediately following the text. References should appear last. The maximum length for this part is 6 pages.

In addition, two appendices of no more than one page each should be included. These appendices must also follow the formatting guidelines outlined above. The first appendix is a summary of any findings the student has, as of the submission date, i.e. 30 April 2014. The second appendix is an estimate of what still needs to be done to complete the dissertation, post this date. We are requesting this information in order to gauge how far the nominee is in the dissertation process.

The complete document, including the main text, tables, figures, references and appendices should not exceed 18 pages.  These various limits will be strictly enforced and the Consortium co-chairs reserve the right to reject any nominations that do not conform.

Document Submission

All three documents – the Nomination Information Sheet, the Nomination Letter, and the Candidate’s Research Paper – must be submitted through the online submission system by the nominated doctoral student, not the nominating faculty member. The system will automatically combine the three items into one document.

The student should register with this system. Upon registration and email notification of the system-generated password, the student will be able to proceed with the submission by uploading the documents.

After registering and logging into Manuscript Central, select "Doctoral Consortium" as the "Track" and follow the directions. The system is very friendly and most of our major journals use it. If you have any trouble following the prompts, please let us know.

Due Date and Time

All submissions must be received by the system no later than midnight, New Zealand Daylight Time (UTC/GMT +13 hours), Wednesday, April 30th 2014. Any previously submitted documents can also be modified until this time. Incomplete or late submissions will be rejected.

In case of problems or for further clarification about the submission process, please contact one of the consortium co-chairs noted below via email:

• Guy Fitzgerald, G.Fitzgerald@lboro.ac.uk
• Shirley Gregor, Shirley.Gregor@anu.edu.au

Information will be provided when Manuscript Central is set up.