18th Research Challenges in Information Science

RCIS aims to bring together scientists, researchers, engineers and practitioners from information science in a wide sense. TheRCIS 2024 Doctoral consortium aimsto offer a supportive learning opportunity for doctoral students in the early stage of their research on Information Science related problems to discuss their work in progress and to receive feedback and guidance from the RCIS 2024audience. Apanel of senior researchersin the field of information science will serve as mentors during the Doctoral Consortium sessions.

Doctoral studentsthat are somewhere in the middle of their research are invited to submit extended abstracts of their work and participate in the dedicated sessions. The topics eligible for extended abstract submissions are the same as that of the RCIS 2024and include:

• Information System Engineering
• Data and Information Management
• Domain-specific IS Engineering
• Information Infrastructures
• User-Oriented Approaches
• Enterprise Management and Engineering
• Data Science
• Reflective Research and Practice

Papers may address one or more of the listed sub-topics, although authors should not feel limited by them. Unlisted but related topics are also acceptable, provided they fit in one of the conference main topics.

Interested PhD students are invited to submit papers, in agreement with their supervisors, addressing the following instructions. Please bear in mind that we are not prescribing a specific structure of sections; we just expect that you cover these topics in the paper. The maximum length of the paper should be ten pages, including references, appendices, etc. and include the following:

• Introduce the field of research and identify the significant problems in it.
• Clearly formulate the research questions and objectives, justifying why they were chosen.
• Outline the current knowledge of the problem domain, as well as the state of existing solutions.
• Sketch the research methodology and empirical research instruments (e.g., interviews, case study, controlled experiment) that are being applied and justify their convenience (in particular, why they have been chosen among other possible alternatives).
• Introduce the proposed solution of the problem and the results achieved so far; state in what aspects the suggested solution is different, newer or better as compared to the existing approaches,
• Indicate the issues still to be resolved and describe the next steps that are planned.
• Provide a list of references.
• Reflect how you plan to follow open science principles (e.g., availability of research data, replication of studies, …).

Keep in mind that for reviewers the most important is to understand the problem you are addressing, the motivation for it, the proposed solution, and the research methodology that you intend to apply.

Submissions must be single-author (PhD student only) and indicate the name of the supervisor after the conclusion and before the references section. Students should mention if they have presented their work in former Doctoral Consortiums in other conferences.

Papers shall be formatted according to the Springer LNCS/LNBIP conference proceedings template (for LaTeX and Word): https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines. Submissions must be written in English and must be authored by the student only. The maximum length of the paper should be ten (10) pages, including references, appendices, etc.

Authors of accepted submissions will submit the camera-ready version using the same format as the initial submission (some additional instructions might be issued at this stage). The reviewers’ comments shall be taken into account in the camera-ready paper. Authors will receive information on the presentation, and how to register for the conference. There will be a discounted registration fee for Doctoral Consortium students.

The accepted papers will be published in a Springer LNBIP volume, along with the other papers accepted for RCIS 2024. This will give visibility to the work of the doctoral student and contribute to building their CV.

The submission site is https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rcis2024. On submission, you will be asked to select a track. Please choose the “RCIS Doctoral Consortium 2024” track.

By submitting a Doctoral Consortium paper, doctoral students commit that they will attend the conference to present their research. The appearance of a paper in the Springer proceedings is dependent on the registration of the author within the early registration deadline.

The review and decision of acceptance will be based on the opinions of at least two reviewers. Several factors will be considered, including the quality of the proposal, the clarity of the paper, and the stage within the doctoral education program. The selection process will, when possible, maximize a good coverage of the topics of the conference and the diversity of participants' background, research objectives, and research methods. In case of high number of submissions, students who have not yet presented their work in other Doctoral Consortiums will be given priority.

Students will present their work to the participants with substantial time allowed for discussion and questions by participating researchers and other students. The discussion will be guided by two members of the committee of senior researchers acting as mentors, who will play the role of proposal discussant together with another PhD student that has been accepted at the Doctoral Consortium.

Each student will be invited to carefully read another accepted Doctoral Consortium paper and prepare a few questions to be discussed during the Doctoral Consortium sessions. The papers will be assigned in advance such that the students will have sufficient time to review the paper and prepare their questions.

The consortium sessions will have an informal and friendly atmosphere where every participant is encouraged to be actively involved in the discussion, the core objective being to learn how to conduct excellent research, as well as provide and receive useful feedback to improve one’s work.