August 1996 € Volume 23 € Number 4

INFORMS Subdivisions Report

With this issue of OR/MS Today, INFORMS is initiating a series of articles describing the activities of the various subdivisions of the Institute: societies, sections, chapters, student chapters and fora. We hope this will provide information to our members for choosing subdivisions in which to become active. Most of the leadership of INFORMS started their volunteering in subdivisions. This is a great way to get involved and make a difference in the organization.

Conference Within a Conference
The 1996 Washington meeting served as the site for the first INFORMS "Conference Within a Conference" sponsored by a subdivision. The College on Information Systems (CIS) and the College on Artificial Intelligence (CAI) cooperated to provide two days of leading-edge speakers and topics. Mike Shaw and Hasan Pirkul organized the conference and are to be commended for a superb job. Two hundred people registered for the mini-conference, which required paying a special fee in addition to the INFORMS registration.

The feedback from attendees has been enthusiastic and positive. Many said that this mini-conference was one of the most valuable activities they had ever attended at a national conference.

Keynote speakers for the mini-conference included Bezalel Gavish (Vanderbilt), John Little (MIT and the first president of INFORMS) and John King (UC-Irvine and editor-in-chief of Information Systems Research). Gavish discussed the merger of the telecommunications and computing fields and the impact that this merger will have on society. Little presented his position on the marketing information revolution that he sees currently taking place. King discussed the foundations and value of understanding infrastructure in connection with communications and information technology. In each keynote session, the participants found many points to expand on and raise issues about. All sessions were lively, well attended and provocative.

Shaw and Pirkul edited a proceedings for the mini-conference, which includes all papers presented and abstracts of the panel sessions. The proceedings were refereed, therefore, papers appearing in it can be counted toward refereed publications for tenure committees.

This CIS and CAI cooperative effort is just one of the many valuable activities these two subdivisions provide for their members. The College on Information Systems, founded in 1961, publishes a regular newsletter, "MIS Interfaces," covering current College events, people news, calls for papers, upcoming important conferences in the field, and a directory of member electronic addresses. This newsletter has served as an important communication device as well as a mechanism for bringing the information systems community together.

Starting with the fall 1996 issue, the newsletter will be modified to include "Research-in-Progress," reports on relevant conferences and a book review section.

Another important publication of CIS is an electronic one -- the CIS Home Page. This site, currently under construction, will include an expanded version of the newsletter, including extensive people news and the member electronic address book. This information can be regularly updated and will always be available on the Web. The URL is http://acs.tamu.edu/~sen/informs-cis.html.

CIS Activities
CIS has been active in conferences as well. The College was a founding sponsor of ICIS, which has become the premiere academic research conference in I/S and has sponsored ICIS doctoral students and the student reception. In addition, the College has always sponsored sessions at national meetings and launched and ran the highly successful Decision Support Systems (DSS) conferences for 12 years. The DSS conferences were unique in their day as the one conference that teamed academic state-of-the-art research with industry practice. More recently, CIS has sponsored the WITS Conference held in conjunction the ICIS in 1995 and will do so again in 1996. Future plans include sponsorship of CIST. With all this experience, it is no wonder that the current "Conference Within a Conference" was a success.

In the publishing area, CIS has also made history in launching and sponsoring Information Systems Research, one of the premier research journals in the field of information technology. Under the editorship of John King, ISR is continuing to grow and evolve as does the ever-changing information technology arena.

CIS has also served as a training ground for people who go on to higher volunteer positions. Some of its illustrious alumni include John C. Henderson, area editor for Management Science; William King, former president of TIMS and founder of AIS; Jane Fedorowicz, a chair of the DSS Conference and INFORMS Council member; David Schilling, founder and former chair of the College on Location Analysis; Christine Bullen, former TIMS vice president and current candidate for INFORMS vice president of Technology; and Paul Gray, a chair of DSS and former president of TIMS.

Under the current leadership of Arun Sen (Texas A&M), the College faces new challenges as the field of information technology becomes entangled in the World Wide Web. The field is evolving and growing quickly, and in ways that no one predicted. This makes this area challenging, but exciting, and an important one to be active in these days. We look forward to many more events and people from CIS in the headlines of the information technology field.

CAI Focuses on Publications
The College on Artificial Intelligence, dating from 1984, has focused on publication as a key communication vehicle for people interested in artificial intelligence topics. The College newsletter has consistently maintained high quality in its content and format. Each newsletter spotlights articles in leading-edge research, upcoming conferences, calls for papers and new books. In October, CAI published a comprehensive membership directory, including lists of officers, special interest group chairs, international liaisons, the advisory committee, the industrial board, the editorial board and the complete bylaws.

The College on Artificial Intelligence has an Industrial Board made up of people from industry who are working with artificial intelligence and the application of its concepts. CAI officers believe that this is a critical link between research and practice, and an important part of their value to members.
The World Wide Web Home Page for CAI is located at http://raider.mgmt.purdue.edu/MIS/caims/caims.html. The home page includes general information about CAI, such as membership lists, officers, chairs of special interest groups and past newsletters.

The "Conference Within a Conference" marks the first CAI major effort in meeting sponsorship and bodes well for the future efforts in this arena. In the past, CAI has sponsored workshops at national meetings. In April 1995, at the national meeting in Los Angeles, CAI held the Workshop on Enterprise Modeling and Knowledge Management. It was well attended and successful. Under the leadership of Mike Shaw, CAI plans to continue the delivery of creative services to its members.

E-mail to the Editorial Department of OR/MS Today: orms@lionhrtpub.com

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