[AISWorld] BPM 2018 - Call for Papers

[Cinzia Cappiello]

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BPM 2018 - 16th International Conference on Business Process Management
Call for Papers

September 9-14, 2018, Sydney, Australia
http://bpm2018.web.cse.unsw.edu.au/
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The annual BPM conference is the premium forum for researchers and practitioners in business process management. BPM is a broad discipline, covering topics that range from formal methods in computer science to techniques in information systems engineering, to management science methods. Therefore, not only different research topics are addressed, but also different research methods are employed that require different evaluation criteria in the peer reviewing process.
To accommodate for this diversity, the BPM conference introduces a new structure. This structure is based on three tracks that cover not only different phenomena of interest and research methods but, consequently, also different evaluation criteria. To implement this structure, each track has a dedicated track chair and a dedicated program committee. The track chairs, together with a consolidation chair, are responsible for the scientific program. Through this new structure we aim to broaden the BPM community and position the BPM conference as a forum for all aspects of the broad business process management discipline.

TRACK I: FOUNDATIONS

Track I invites papers that follow computer science research methods. This includes papers that investigate the underlying principles of BPM systems, computational theories, algorithms, and methods for modeling and analyzing business processes. This track also covers papers on novel languages, architectures, and other concepts underlying process aware information systems, as well as papers that use conceptual modeling techniques to investigate problems in the design and analysis of BPM systems. Papers in Track I are evaluated according to computer science standards, including sound formalization, convincing argumentation, and, where applicable, proof of concept implementation, which shows that the concepts can be implemented as described. Since papers typically do not have an immediate application in concrete business environments, empirical evaluation does not play a major role in Track I.

You should send your paper to Track I if:
- It provides foundational results about the underlying principles and concepts of BPM systems.
- It advances the state of the art in BPM through the investigation of formal methods and algorithms.
- It contributes to the definition of novel concepts, languages, and architectures for BPM systems.
- It tackles conceptual modelling issues of BPM systems and their environment.
- It investigates novel concepts of BPM systems through the development of proof-of-concept implementations.

Track Chair: Marco Montali 
Senior PC: Florian Daniel, Dirk Fahland, Giancarlo Guizzardi, Thomas Hildebrandt, Marcello La Rosa, John Mylopoulos, Manfred Reichert, Jianwen Su, Hagen Völzer, Matthias Weidlich.

TRACK II: ENGINEERING

Track II invites papers that follow information systems engineering methods. The focus is on the investigation of artifacts and systems in business environments, following the design science approach. Papers in this track are expected to have a strong empirical evaluation that critically tests criteria like usefulness or added value of the proposed artifact. This track covers business process intelligence, including process mining techniques, and the use of process models for enactment, model-driven engineering, as well as interaction with services and deployment architectures like the Cloud. It also covers BPM systems in particular domains, such as digital health, smart mobility, or Internet of Things. Empirical evaluations are important to show the merits of the artifact introduced. A self-critical discussion of threats to validity is expected. Formalization of problems and solutions should be used where they add clarity or are beneficial in other ways.

You should send your paper to Track II if:
- It has a significant technical contribution.
- Its results are empirically evaluated.
- It reports on a system that you designed, with a maturity of at least a prototype. i.e., it can be evaluated in an application context.
- It follows the design science approach.

Track Chair: Ingo Weber
Senior PC: Wil van der Aalst, Boualem Benatallah, Boudewijn van Dongen, Jan Mendling, Cesare Pautasso, Hajo Reijers, Stefanie Rinderle-Ma, Pnina Soffer, Barbara Weber, Jianmin Wang

TRACK III: MANAGEMENT

Track III invites papers that aim at advancing our understanding of how BPM can deliver business value, for instance how it builds organizational capabilities to improve, innovate or transform the respective business. Papers that study the application and impact of BPM methods and tools in use contexts based on empirical observation are highly welcome.

Areas of interest include a wide range of capability areas that are relevant for BPM, such as strategic alignment, governance, methods, information technology, and human aspects including people and culture. We seek contributions that advance our understanding on how organizations can develop such capabilities in order to achieve specific objectives in given organizational contexts. Papers may use various strategies of inquiry, including case study research, action research, focus group research, big data analytics research, neuroscience research, econometric research, literature review research, survey research or design science research. Papers will be evaluated according to management and information systems standards.

Authors of selected papers in this track will be invited to submit revised and extended versions of their work for a special issue in the European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS) on “Business Process Management and Digital Innovation”.

You should send your paper to Track III if:
- It makes a contribution to an organizational challenge.
- It builds on and draws from real-world organizational endeavors in BPM.
- It extends the BPM body of knowledge to better contribute to strategy delivery.
- It advances our understanding and methodology of BPM to support digital innovation.
- It contributes to solving grand societal challenges through BPM.

Track Chair: Jan vom Brocke 
Senior PC: Jörg Becker, Alan Brown, Mikael Lind, Peter Loos, Amy van Looy, Olivera Marjanovic, Jan Recker, Maximilian Röglinger, Michael Rosemann, Theresa Schmiedel, Peter Trkman

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Each paper will be submitted to exactly one track. Please use the track descriptions above to decide where to send your paper. Authors may contact track chairs for clarification. Papers must be formatted according to Springer's LNCS formatting guidelines. Submissions must be in English and must not exceed 16 pages. The title page must contain a short abstract clarifying the relation of the paper with the topics above. The paper must clearly state the problem being addressed, the goal of the work, the results achieved, and the relation to other work. Student papers are treated as regular papers in the review process. Importantly, the contribution underlying a student paper must be carried out mainly by the student(s), but others (advisors, collaborators, etc.) can appear as authors as well. When submitting the paper, student papers must be clearly marked as such in the EasyChair system. To be eligible for the best student paper award, student papers have to be presented at the conference by a student author.

Papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format via the BPM 2018 EasyChair submission site: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bpm2018.

Submissions must be original contributions that have neither been published previously nor submitted to other conferences or journals while being submitted to BPM 2018. Authors are encouraged to adhere to the best practices of Reproducible Research (RR), by making available data and software tools for reproducing the results reported in their papers.

Accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. For each accepted paper, at least one author must register for the conference and present the paper. Authors of selected papers will be invited to submit an extended version to special issues in Elsevier’s Information Systems (Tracks I and II) and in Palgrave’s European Journal of Information Systems (Track III).

The BPM Forum will host innovative research which has high potential of stimulating discussion at the conference but does not fully meet the quality criteria for the main conference. Those papers will be invited to the BPM Forum and published in full length in a separate post-proceedings volume in the Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing series, as well as being presented during the main conference. There will not be short papers at the conference.

First-time submitters to BPM may request to be considered for a pre-submission shepherding program in which a selected BPM PC member advises on the presentation and positioning of a shepherded paper. Interested candidates are encouraged to contact the PC Chairs (bpm2018 at easychair.org) by 23 January, 2018.

PC CHAIRS

Marco Montali (Track Chair, Track I)
Ingo Weber (Track Chair, Track II)
Jan vom Brocke (Track Chair, Track III)
Mathias Weske (Consolidation Chair)

KEY DATES

Abstract submission: 5 March, 2018
Full papers submission: 12 March, 2018
Notifications: 14 May, 2018
Camera ready papers: 11 June, 2018

Remark: Deadlines correspond to anywhere on earth (‘AoE’ or ‘UTC-12′)