About the Conference

Conference Theme - IS Olympics: Information Systems in a diverse world

We link this year’s CAiSE conference theme with the coming Olympic and Paralympic Games, two international multi-sport events, which bring together athletes from all the continents to celebrate sporting excellence but also human diversity. Diversity is an important concept for modern information systems. Information Systems (IS) are diverse by nature ranging from basic systems to complex and from small to large. The process of constructing such systems is also diverse ranging from ad-hoc methods, to structured and formal methods. Diversity is also present amongst information systems developers, from novice to experienced. Moreover, the wide acceptance of information systems and their usage in almost every aspect of the human life has also introduced diversity amongst users. Users range from novice to experience and they demonstrate differences related to race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, and so on. It is therefore the responsibility of the Information Systems Engineering community to engineer information systems that operate in such diverse world.

On the other hand, looking at the issues of the modern Olympic Games, we can identify a number of issues that rapidly make their appearance in the area of Information Systems. The kind of systems that are implemented and used in Olympic Games are varied and many. Every type of system that a well established multinational organisation uses is also established by the Local Organising Committee (OCOG), for example, ERP, private telecoms, HR recruitment, CAD/CAM etc. Many types of system that local governments use, such a town planning, transportation, refuge collection, medical services, also play a significant role. Many types of system that national governments use are also present such as accreditation, physical security systems. Moreover, the Olympic Games have a fixed starting date; everything needs to work perfectly from the first day; there is a large number of distributed (geographically) systems that need to be supported; requirements come from different sources (IOC, sport event specific, central administration, laws, sponsors etc). Similarly, an increasing number of information systems need to start operation on a specific day (restricted by laws and international agreements); important information is stored so full operation is required from day one; the need for international collaboration systems means that systems are becoming larger and highly distributed; various stakeholders are involved introducing different and sometimes conflicting requirements. All these issues introduce a number of challenges for the Information Systems Engineering community related to engineering, quality and interconnectivity of information systems.

Conference Dates