The purpose of panels in ECIS 2019 is to provide the opportunity to present topics and ideas that are ground-breaking and perhaps controversial for the IS community.

Panels are expected to engage the panelists and the audience in a discussion that will stimulate interaction and enhance the learning experience with a goal of moving the topic forward to greater understanding and application. Panel topics can vary, but generally, they pertain to new and controversial research questions, innovative research challenges, changes to the status quo of the discipline, and technology-led transformations that give rise to problems that are worthwhile to build new research agenda around. We encourage proposals that challenge the traditional panel format, and include innovative and inspirational elements that are likely to prompt the sharing of potentially important new ideas, surprising and spirited reactions, and new conclusions about how IS researchers should be targeting new areas.

Possible topics for the panels include – but are not limited to:

Information Systems: Impact, Career, and Identity as a Discipline

  • Information Systems: What is our impact?
  • Making a career in IS and having an impact - contradiction?
  • Academic careers: How to make it in Information Systems?
  • Business, Computer Science, Society: What is the Home of IS?
  • What’s the role of conferences, proceedings and journals in IS?
  • Women in IS: Where do they get lost and how do we find them?
  • The Battle of Methods: Lab Experiments vs. Field Experiments vs. Design Science
  • Open Science, Open Data, Open Everything: Are we ready?
  • Curriculum of Information Systems: Does Data Science “belong” to us?

Data, Privacy and Ethics

  • Self-determination in the Digital Age: The beginning of the end
  • Artificial Intelligence and Inequality: Two Sides of the same Coin?
  • Who is Accountable? The Ethics of Building AI/Autonomous Systems
  • Social Scoring: The inevitable future?
  • GDPR: A New Solution or a new challenge?

ECIS 2019 Required Elements of Panel Proposals

A panel proposal should include the following seven sections:

  • Introduction: General description of the panel or issues to be discussed or debated stating the motivation for the panel.
  • Issues: Issues or dilemma that will be discussed.
  • Panelists: Names and positions of those who will take varied viewpoints. For debates, identification of proponents and opponents is necessary.
  • Panel Structure: Description of timing of the session and the format of interaction among participants and with the audience. Panels should be designed to result in a “meeting of the minds,” and not as a few short linear presentations that are disconnected. Assume 90 minutes in total.
  • Participation Statement: A statement that all participants have made a commitment to attend the conference and serve on the panel if the panel is accepted.
  • Biographies: A brief description of each participant’s background, including expertise related to the topic and views of the issues. About 120 words per person.
  • References: As appropriate.

Review Criteria

  • Panel Topic: Topic must be novel, invite debate and discussion, and showcase leading- edge issues that IS research should revisit or undertake.
  • Panel Format: Panel focuses on discussion and not the presentation of research results; format is innovative, engages the audience, and is not just “a set of talking heads.”
  • Panelists: Panelists include thought leaders and well-published experts, and represent a diversity of opinions, backgrounds and geographic regions.
  • Implications: The outcome of the panel has likely implications for practice or conduct of research in IS.
  • Panel Interest: The panel seems likely to draw a wide audience.

Panel Proposal Format and Page Limit Requirements

The panel proposal must not exceed five (5) pages and must conform to the ECIS 2019 Required Elements of Panel Proposals. The 5-page count must include all text, figures, tables, and appendices. The abstract, keywords, and references are excluded from this page count. Submissions may include a video clip or similar to illustrate the intended format.

Please submit your panel proposals no later than March 15, 2019 to Panel Chairs using the email: panelchairs@ecis2019.eu 

Notification will be sent on April 15, 2019.

ECIS 2019 Panel Chairs

Hanna Krasnova, University of Potsdam, Germany

Alexander Richter, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand