EMCIS 2004 PhD Consortium

EMCIS 2004 will be running a PhD consortium for the research students present at the conference. The purpose of the consortium, which follows Professor Ray Hackney's plenary session on IS research methods, is to give you the chance to meet other research students and to discuss your work. To give some structure to the session I plan to ask a few of you to present a brief resume of your research plan – focusing in particular how you are setting about the research.

If you wish to offer your project as one of the ones presented for discussion you need to submit a brief outline (see below) for review by 15 July 2004. Project selection will be based on the clarity of the outline and the ability to stimulate a good discussion during the consortium. You will be informed of the projects selected for presentation by email on the 20 July.

I look forward to meeting you all in Tunis.

Dr Tony Elliman
Colloquium Chair

Project Outline
Your outline should focus on research design – how you plan to carryout the research – rather than the value or results of research that has already been done. If you are using multiple methods for data triangulation then it may be best to focus on just one of the methods you plan to uses. The outline should make clear the research hypothesis being investigated, and then set out the specific method of investigation and analysis of data that you plan to use. The more specific you are in setting out the plan the more useful any discussion can be in helping you develop your work.

Project outlines should be prepared as MS Word or PDF files and submitted by email to tony.elliman@brunel.ac.uk  on or before 15 July 2004. The outline should consist of a single page (not more than 600 words) describing the project and one of the research activities planned. The text should be in Times 10pt with 2cm margins.

You may add up to two pages as an appendix containing a survey design, interview agenda or observation or visit schedule if you would like to get feedback on the details.

Presentation
If you are invited to present your work in the colloquium you will need to prepare some overhead slides to support your presentation. The presentation should be short, 5 or 6 minutes, so that most of the time is spent in discussion. Think in terms of the following slides:
• A title slide – Name, Title and what the project is about
• One slide with the hypothesis you want to investigate
• 2 to 4 slides covering your current plan

Prepare your slides a PowerPoint file using the Microsoft PowerPoint slide layout style Notebook.pot and bring it to the conference. These will all be merged before the session so we don’t have to keep changing computers around during the colloquium.