BOBCATSSS 2009

As the zero hour for our symposium is closing day by day, the sponsorship and finance groups of both universities are constantly looking for more company partners. The work is done mainly by email, but phone calls or even traditional mail is not excluded. Sponsors are given three different levels to choose from, each including different amount of benefits. The model is copied and modified from earlier Bobcatsss organizers.

The programme is under construction, and we’re trying to get the company presentations to fit in. The highest level, platinum sponsor, offers an opportunity to have a short presentation, which the company can use as they like. Some of our partners have already decided to take advantage of this opportunity. Participants have thus a great chance to get to know the future of information specialists in the working life.

Besides the company presentation, we’re going to have an exhibition area on the conference site. As amount of participants is expected to rise above 300, companies will have good visibility among the students and professors from several universities. Bobcatsss 2009 is built to raise discussion about the occupational and scientific future of information science, and we believe that our partners have their own opinion to say on that matter. What that might be, you’ll find out it in January.

The search for Bobcatsss 2009 partners is still underway. Should your company be interested, you can contact our organizing team (bobcatsss2009@uta.fi).

Erkka Rautio
Sponsorship and finance group

Registration to BOBCATSSS 2009 has opened. All participants, including the presenters, are required to register. You can use PayPal (faster, the preferred method, major credit cards accepted) or bank transfer to pay for your ticket or tickets. Multiple tickets can be purchased at once.

Places for workshops (see the list of workshops) and city tours will be filled on first-come, first-served basis, and only a limited amount of tickets will be made available, so be quick.

The prices for students and professionals include the conference itself, a 3-day ticket for local transportation, social events in the evenings, lunches at the university, and guided visits.

Register now, we warmly welcome you to BOBCATSSS 2009!

Update: The full programme will be made available later. Tours will be held after the conference programme has ended for the day.

Programme: Some very preliminary information about the programme of the symposium can now be found at the new programme section of the website.

Templates, new information and instructions on how to send us your full paper, poster or workshop abstract of an accepted proposal can now be found on the contributions page. The deadline is 30 October 2008. In case you encounter any problems or have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

The registration page has also opened. The actual registration period starts on 3 November 2008. But for now there’s information about the prices and what’s included.

By the way, if you wish to receive notifications by email when new blog posts are published, you can subscribe to FeedBurner’s service.

We have now selected the full papers, posters and workshops to be presented at the symposium. Notifications of acceptance or rejection have been sent by email to the authors. The number of full papers to be presented at the conference is 43, the number of posters is 30, and there will be space for 9 workshops. Congratulations to the authors of the accepted proposals!

The notification of acceptance of abstracts will be delayed by two weeks. 15 September 2008 is the new target date by which notifications will be sent at the latest. We will let your know if your proposal has been accepted as quickly as possible, but it may take two weeks longer than originally planned for all things to be sorted out.

The creation of the conference programme and the reservation of venues forces us to make this change. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience.

The criteria of acceptance for BOBCATSSS 2009 is quite similar to other scientific conferences: the papers, posters and workshops have to present new and interesting research to the target group of the symposium and, broadly speaking, stay within the topic area. There can be other considerations in the building of the programme as well, for example the balance of the different sub-topics and the balance of the presenters. BOBCATSSS’s main target group is students, and student contributions are favoured, everything else equal.

There are 10 reviewers in total from the University of Porto and the University of Tampere, who do the initial grading of the proposals. Two teachers review all abstracts, and each student member reviews a lesser portion.  In addition to a recommendation of acceptance on a 1 to 6 scale (e.g. must accept, probable reject), the reviewers can fill in a category (e.g. theoretical, practical), information about the value added, appropriate length, comments, and so on. Every abstract receives a grade from six reviewers.

In the end, we unfortunately cannot accept all proposals, for limits exist. It is possible that even very good abstracts have to be rejected, if, for example, two proposals have nearly the same focus.

Based on the numbers provided by the OpenConf system, we received 101 paper, workshop or poster submissions. The exact number is still a bit fuzzy, because not every submission has an attachment. And some people sent their abstracts by email, which we will add manually.

All in all, there were proposals sent from 24 different countries. Most of the countries are European, but we are happy to notice that South Africa, Morocco, Brazil, Israel and the United States are represented also.

Information literacy was the most popular sub-topic, closely followed by the topics on new technologies and on information management.

Countries from which we received submissions on a map:

Here are the numbers of submissions by country:

…and by topic:

The deadline for the submission of abstracts for BOBCATSSS 2009 has now passed. We received about 100 proposals in due time. Thanks to all contributors!

OpenConf though may still be open for a few days, until we actually start the reviewing process. We will let you know if your proposal has been accepted before the 1st of September.

As a short reminder, the deadline for the submission of abstracts is close at hand. 15 July 2008 is the last day set for the sending of proposals. Please see the contributions page for details.

Hi everyone!

Organizing BOBCATSSS has been a real adventure. It all started when we were given the opportunity to participate in BOBCATSSS 2008, at Zadar, in Croatia, thanks to the University of Porto, which financed the trip for one lecturer and a student. There we met our Finnish colleagues from the University of Tampere, with whom we had already exchanged a few ideas via MSN Messenger. I think it was only then that we truly realized the sheer dimension and complexity which organizing such a symposium implied. Thus, I fervently advise the future BOBCATSSS organizers to come to Porto in January 2009, as only then will they have direct contact with the work involved. The trip to Zadar was also an excellent opportunity for us to publicize the city which is going to host the upcoming BOBCATSSS, to present the theme and sub-themes and to captivate participants. We were loaded with information to distribute and there was high interest and curiosity in our stand, which was kindly conceded by our hosts.

The meeting we had with the BOB’2008 organizing team was very important, as we were able to clarify all the doubts that came up during the 3 days of the symposium. We exchanged contacts and these have proved very useful. We use them when we need to and we always get ready answers. I would thus like to thank everyone for all their help.

Once we were back in Porto, it was down to work. We had to get together with the team and show them what BOBCATSSS was really all about. We had to discuss what we had seen in Zadar so that everyone could have an idea as to what we were getting into. We organized the team into work groups, with two general coordinators and sub-coordinators, who are responsible for each of the areas. There are meetings between coordinators and sub-coordinators whenever necessary. We contact our colleagues in Finland regularly, through MSN, Moodle and we’ve also had a video-conference session with them. I think so far everything is going very well and that we have put together an excellent team.

Time stands still for no man, we’re already going on the 2nd Call for Papers and sponsors have been showing up. We hope Porto will be invaded in January 2009, that participants will benefit from the issues to be discussed and, obviously, that they will truly enjoy their stay in the magnificent and captivating city of Porto.

All the best,

Susana