AMCIS 2000 will feature a Doctoral Consortium for PhD students in the early to middle phases of their dissertation or related doctoral research. This all day workshop will be held on Thursday, August 10th, 2000.

The coordinators for the Doctoral Consortium are:

Joe Valacich (*)	Len Jessup
Washington State University	Indiana University
(509) 335-1112	(812) 855-2691
Fax: (509) 335-7736	Fax: (812) 855-8679
jsv@wsu.edu	ljessup@indiana.edu

(*) Forward submissions to Joe Valacich, jsv@wsu.edu

Important Dates
Submission Deadline	Friday, March 24, 2000
Notification of Acceptance	Saturday, April 15, 2000
Camera Ready Copy Due	Friday, May 5, 2000
Conference Registration Deadline	Thursday, June 1, 2000
Doctoral Consortium	Thursday, August 10, 2000

 

Description of the Doctoral Consortium

The focus of the Doctoral Consortium is to provide an opportunity for Ph.D. students making progress on their dissertation research to share and discuss their research with peers and a faculty mentor. The Consortium will be held as a pre-conference activity on Thursday, August 10th, 2000. At the Consortium students will give formal presentations of their current progress in developing a dissertation. Subjects to be covered in the presentations include, a statement of the problem and research question(s), literature review, theory development and model, research methodology and preliminary findings. Proposals from those students who are at an earlier stage in their disseratation will also be considered.

The Consortium consists of multiple concurrent sessions (with a relatively small number of students in each) addressing related topical areas or using common methodological approaches. A faculty member with expertise in the topical area or methodological approach will facilitate each session. A preliminary schedule of the planned activities will be available soon.

The primary objective of the Consortium is that students have an opportunity to share their research with future colleagues and receive feedback from the other students and from faculty outside the students' universities.

 

Application Process

Each application must include following in one packet:

1.  Faculty Nomination Letter. A faculty nomination letter must accompany each application. This letter must include two key items. First, a description of the student's intended research area and probable research methodology must be included. This will help to assist the organizers in placing the student in the most appropriate session. Second, the faculty must also provide an assessment of the candidate's chances of completing his/her dissertation and successfully participating in the job market during the Fall 2000/Spring 2001 school year. Because the consortium will have a size limitation, participants described as being likely to complete their dissertations by the end of summer 2001 will be given preference over students described as being unlikely to complete their dissertation. The letter should be submitted electronically by the student as an MS Word attachment (See item 3 below for more details).

2. Extended Abstract. Students will submit an extended abstract describing their dissertation work. The abstract should be no longer than THREE pages including all text, figures, tables, and everything else listed below.

2.1 The first few lines within the file should include the name, e-mail address, mailing address, university/organizational affiliation, and phone/fax numbers for the student submitting the abstract.

2.2 Just below the affiliation information, students are to provide at least five keywords from the keyword scheme used by the MIS Quarterly.

2.3 The text of the abstract should describe the primary research area (e.g., knowledge acquisition), the research problem and or question, relevant theories being applied (e.g., machine learning), and planned methodology (e.g., field experiment).

2.4 The abstract should end with a short bibliography of the literature that is most relevant to the work and the references should follow the MIS Quarterly formatting guidelines. The information in the abstract, keywords, and bibliography will be used to assist the Consortium Chairs in placing students into the most appropriate session. Students are therefore encouraged to be as specific as possible about their work.

3. Each submission must be FORWARDED ELECTRONICALLY AS A WORD PROCESSING FILE (MS WORD 6.0 OR ABOVE FORMAT only) ATTACHED TO AN E-MAIL MESSAGE to the Chair highlighted above (Joe Valacich, jsv@wsu.edu). If this is not possible, then authors should contact the Chairs and arrange for a suitable workaround. Please check all files for possible viral contamination before sending.

3.1 For all submissions and related e-mail communications, the subject Line should start with 'AMCIS Doctoral Consortium.' For the abstract, the attached MS Word File name should be 'DoctoralYourFirstInitialYourLastName.' (For example, 'DoctoralJValacich') For the faculty recommendation letter, the MS Word File should be named as 'RecommStudent'sFirstInitialLastName.' (For example, 'RecommJValacich') Both the MSWORD file for the abstract and the MSWORD file for the recommendation letter should be included as attachments within the same e-mail message. Please follow these formatting instructions.

Eligibility

Students wishing to participate in the Doctoral Consortium must meet the following criteria:

1. Students must be studying Information Systems (or a closely related discipline) and plan to address an Information Systems-related topic for their dissertation.

2. Students must be on-track to complete the dissertation and participate in the job market during the Fall 2000/Spring 2001 school year (or else be finished with the dissertation during the summer of 2001). The faculty recommendation letter (described above) essentially certifies this intent and is required.

3. Students should not be currently employed in a faculty position.

Review Procedure

The Consortium Chairs and outside reviewers will review each submission. The review process will focus on selecting high quality, well constructed proposals and on identifying the most appropriate "track" for the topical and methodological area being addressed by the candidate. There is no limit to the number of students that can participate in the consortium from a single school. The overall size of the Consortium, however, is generally kept small and the quality of the proposal and the strength of the faculty recommendation are important. Students who have accepted proposals will provide a revision that will be published in the conference proceedings.