INTRODUCTION

On February 16 and 17 2009 the School for Information and Knowledge Systems (SIKS) will organize an advanced course on "Organizational Principles for Information and Knowledge Systems". The course takes two days, will be given in English and is part of the Advanced Components Stage of the Educational Program for SIKS-PhD Students. Although these courses are primarily intended for SIKS-PhD Students, other participants are not excluded. However, their number of passes will be restricted and depends on the number of students taking the course. The course is given by experienced lecturers actively involved in the research areas related to the topics of the course. Especially PhD-students working on the SIKS-focus "Agent Systems" and "Enterprise Information Systems" are strongly encouraged to participate.

Organization concepts and models are increasingly being adopted for the design and specification of complex computational systems. As systems grow to include hundreds or thousands of components, it is necessary to must move from an agent-centric view of coordination and control to an organization-centric one. Furthermore open environments pose new demands on traditional architectures. These demands include the integration of organizational and individual perspectives and the dynamic adaptation of models to organizational and environmental changes. Organizational design plays a critical role in the development of larger and more complex (information) systems.

On the other hand, human organizations can be seen as a set of entities regulated by mechanisms of social order and created by more or less autonomous actors to achieve common goals. Organization supports an individual (be it a person, a computer system, or an institution) to recognize its role, and the roles of others, in accomplishing those collective goals. Organizational Theory sees organizations as instruments of purpose, as they are seen as coordinated by intentions and goals. Agent models are therefore increasingly used to model, simulated and support human organizations.

In this advanced SIKS course, we will discuss these two perspectives and present different approaches to the study of organizations both from the perspective of social science and management sciences, as from the perspective of information science and artificial intelligence. Speakers will cover a wide range of topics, and we will have an hands-on session on the design of organization models.

LOCATION: Conference Center Woudschoten, Zeist

DATE: 16-17 February 2009

SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR:
Dr. Virginia Dignum (UU)

PROGRAM:

Monday, February 16

00.15 Registration, coffee and tea

09.30 "Introduction: IS in organizations and Organization for IS" (Dr. Virginia Dignum, UU)

10.00 "Theories of organization" (Dr. Hans Weigand, UvT)

11.15 Break

11.45 "The relation between agents and organisation specification" (Prof. Dr. Catholijn Jonker, TUD)

13.00 Lunch

14.00 "Complexity and Social Simulation" (Dr. Wander Jager, RUG)

15.15 "Social Network Analysis for Organizations" (Dr. Vincent Buskens, UU – Social Sciences)

16.30 Break

17.00 "Work practice modeling" (Dr. Maarten Sierhuis, NASA/TUD)

18.15 Dinner

Tuesday, February 17

09.00 "Tutorial OperettA" (drs. Daniel Okouya, Dr. Virginia Dignum, UU)

12.00 Lunch

13.00 "Dimensions of organizational dynamics" (Dr. Frank Dignum, UU)

14.15 "Innovation/Organizational learning" (mr. Wichert van Engelen, independent adviser)

15.30 Break

16.00 "Hybrid Organizations - Human agent teams" (Dr. Jurriaan van Diggelen, TNO)

17.15 Discussion OperettA

18.00 End of Course

REGISTRATION
In the conference center there is a limited number of places and there is interest from other groups in the topic as well. Therefore, an early registration is required.

Deadline for registration for SIKS-Ph.D.-students: January 31 2009

After that date, applications to participate will be honoured in a first-come first-serve manner. Of course, applications to participate from other interested groups are welcome already. They will receive a notification whether they can participate as soon as possible.

For registration you are kindly requested to fill in the registration form

Arrangement 1 includes single room, all meals, and course material. Arrangement 2 includes two lunches, one dinner and course material. So no stay in the hotel and no breakfast.