Letter Page

Welcome to International Conference
on Geographic Information and Society

June 20-22, 1999

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

Over the past twenty years, geographic information technologies have emerged to play an important role in many aspects of society. More recently, research scholars in a variety of fields have begun to pay closer attention to the complex interactions that shape both implementation of the technology and the technology itself. Thus the complex inter-relationship between geographic information technologies and society has become a major focus of research for both GIS specialists and other social scientists and theorists. Specialized meetings have been held for researchers within North America and in Europe, but to date there has been no attempt to convene a wide ranging international community of scholars interested in this topic.

GISOC'99 will be the first of what we hope will be a regular, possibly biennial, sequence of international meetings, held in different places around the world, where researchers actively engaged in this area can meet to share research results, compare approaches, and collectively catalyze research in this area.

MAIN THEMES OF THE CONFERENCE

The main themes of this conference will be:

• Geographic information technologies and social theory

• Ethical and legal aspects of geographic information technologies

• Public participation geographic information technologies

• GIS, organizations and institutions

• Use and value of geographic information

• Assessing the diffusion and utility of GIS

• The history of geographic information technologies in society

• Science and technology studies and GIS

• Geographic information technologies and the information society

• Geographic information technologies and grassroots organizations

• Tackling social problems with geographic information technologies

• GIS representations of society and nature

• Geographically targeted marketing

This will be a three day conference, during which 30-35 research papers will be presented orally and discussed. Time will be reserved for informal and plenary discussions of the state of the research frontier. Topical ("birds of a feather") meetings can also be organized, and proposals from volunteer organizers are welcome at any time before or during the conference. Special efforts will be made to incorporate opportunities for graduate students to present their research, as well as to meet and discuss their work with others at a similar stage in their careers and with experienced researchers.

This is an open call for papers. Those wishing to present papers at the conference should submit original full papers (including abstracts) in English, of between 5,000 and 10,000 words, together with a two page resume. Email submissions in a standard format are encouraged (PDF is preferred; acceptable alternatives are MS Word or RTF files). If you are unable to submit electronically, as an attachment to an email message or a Web posting, please send 5 hard copies of your paper. The title page of the paper should contain the title, author(s), affiliation(s), the submitting author's mailing address, e-mail address, fax number, telephone number, a 100-200 word abstract, 5-7 keywords, and a statement indicating that the paper has not been submitted elsewhere for publication. Early career researchers and researchers from outside Europe and the US are particularly encouraged to submit papers.

The conference program will be established by the program committee. Papers will be selected through a rigorous review of all full paper contributions based on relevance to the conference, significance, novelty, originality, and clarity of argument. Arrangements are being made to publish a selection of the best paper as an edited volume with a commercial press, as soon after the conference as possible.

Extended abstracts should be submitted by April 21, 1999 to the contact address below. Final decisions will be made by May 1. Those who have already submitted full papers will be able to make any revisions they wish between now and April 21. Full papers are expected by the beginning of the conference. Shortly thereafter, a preliminary program will be posted on a World Wide Web site, linked to http://www.geog.umn.edu, which will be developed for the conference.

In addition, to those presenting papers, there will be space for up to 120 other attendees, on a first come first serve basis. Registration forms will be available on the web site after May 1, 1999, or by writing to Eric Sheppard at the following address:

Eric Sheppard

414 Social Sciences Tower

Department of Geography, University of Minnesota

Minneapolis, MN 55455

USA

PROGRAM COMMITTEE (confirmed members):

Nick Chrisman, University of Washington

Michael Curry, UCLA

Trevor Harris, West Virginia University

David Mark, SUNY Buffalo

Nancy Obermeyer, Indiana State University

Robert McMaster, University of Minnesota