The IBM Institute of Advanced Commerce (IAC) and the Penn State eBusiness Research Center (eBRC) are pleased to announce the e-Business Research Center Directors' Forum. The Forum is scheduled for Friday, November 16, 2001 at the Chicago O'Hare airport. We will start at 10 am and close around 4 pm to allow many people to fly in and out for the day.

A remarkable number of research institute and centers focusing on e-commerce and e-business have been established in the past few years. Many have similar goals, and probably share a lot of problems too. We are hosting this initial forum, in what we hope will be a continuing annual event, to lay the foundations for a community of e-business research. Our goal is to bring together the directors of these centers to identify areas of collaboration such as sharing of information on structure and best practices, faculty and student affiliations, publications and conferences, and identifying emerging e-business research imperatives along with the challenges and opportunities facing us. We will organize a web site that provides basic information and pointers for all the members. The forum should create an environment to identify other areas of collaboration such as research funding, curriculum development, joint sponsorship of conferences, incubators, environment scanning, special publications, shared resources etc.

If you are interested in attending the forum, please contact Mark Loomis or Bill Rubin as soon as possible.

PRELIMINARY AGENDA

9:00 AM: Continental Breakfast & Networking (optional)

10:00 AM: Welcome: Stuart Feldman, Director, IBM Institute for Advanced Commerce
                                   Nirmal Pal, Executive Director, Penn State eBusiness Research Center

• Outline goals for the meeting
• Outline goals for the forum
  

10:30 AM: Brief personal introduction from attending directors

12:00 PM: Break for Lunch (buffet, served in meeting room)

1:00-3:00 PM: Presentations

• e-Business Research Center Directors’ Forum, Stuart Feldman, Director, IBM Institute of Advanced Commerce Nirmal Pal, Executive Director, Penn State eBusiness Research
• Rollins Center for eBusiness@BYU, Owen Cherrington, Director
• The Fisher Center for Information Technology and Marketplace Transformation(CITM), Arie Segev, Professor and Director CITM, University of California, Berkeley
• Globalization of E-Commerce, Kenneth L. Kraemer Center for Research on IT and Organizations University of California, Irvine
• eBRC Research: Vision and Programs, Arvind Rangaswamy, Jonas H. Anchel Professor of Marketing Research Director, eBusiness Research Center Penn State University

3:00 PM: Coffee Break

3:15 PM: Group Discussion

• Formation of the Director's Forum
• Governance of the Forum
• Annual Meeting
• Value to be received from the Forum
• Ongoing activities

4:00 PM: Adjourn