In Search of Affiliation

 Doug Vogel, AIS President

As AIS members, we often affiliate i.e., associate with others in our larger community and use conferences as a means of interacting face-to-face to focus our different times/different places communication.  It’s a natural and useful thing to do as we exchange information regarding our teaching, research and service.  It’s intellectually stimulating and fun.  By nature, we enjoy the company of others and the colleague-ship within our community to focus on areas of mutual interest as well as broaden our interests. 

AIS has 11 affiliated conferences to promote extended interaction.  Some of these are chapter driven i.e., the Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS), the Information Systems Research Conference in Scandinavia (IRIS), the Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS (itAIS), the Midwest Association for Information Systems (MWAIS) and the Southern Association for Information Systems (SAIS).  The others are conferences hosted by affiliated organizations i.e., International Conference on Information Resources Management (Conf-IRM), Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems (MCIS), Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS), the Wuhan International Conference on E-Business (WHICEB), the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), and the International Conference on Mobile Business (ICMB).

It has been my pleasure to attend many of these affiliated conferences.  The affiliated conferences provide the occasion to focus on special topics in addition to providing regional opportunities for AIS members (and non-members) to engage.  Many of the affiliated conferences attract members from around the world.  This year, for the first time, we will hold our AIS Summer Council meeting at PACIS with our December Council meeting held, as usual, at ICIS.  As noted in the AIS Bylaws, Affiliated Conferences may receive financial sponsorship, promotion, and other benefits from AIS, as decided by the Council.  An entity that is approved to have affiliated conference status receives the following benefits from AIS:

• Use of the AIS affiliated conference logo
• Use of the phrase "An Affiliated Conference of the Association for Information Systems” 
• Use of the AIS eLibrary to store and promote the conference proceedings (fee involved)
• Promotion of the conference in all AIS materials where affiliated conferences are promoted
• Use of the AIS conference paper review system (fee involved)
• Use of the AIS registration system (fee involved)  

As further noted in the Bylaws (rev. 12/15/2012), Affiliated Conferences must offer discounted registration to AIS members. Those conferences wishing to become Affiliated Conferences should apply to the Vice President – Meetings and Conferences (Cynthia Beath), who shall review such applications and recommend to the Council the action to be taken. The benefits and responsibilities of such Affiliated Conferences shall be decided by the Council on a case-by-case basis. The status and continued mutual benefit of such affiliations shall be reviewed annually by the Vice President – Meetings and Conferences and reported to the Council.  If you have any questions about this process, please contact the AIS Executive Director (Pete Tinsley – pete@aisnet.org). As I retire to become Immediate Past President with Jane Fedorowicz becoming President, I look forward to future interactions and involvement not only through ICIS and AMCIS but also through our affiliate conferences.