Minutes of the board of Directors
23th-24th November 2002, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Present: KristelSarlin, Ivan Vrana, ViljanMahnic, Ligia Ribeiro, Jean-Francois Desnos, Andrew Rothery

Apologies:    Yves Epelboin, Jens Doerup

Guests:       Petra Smulders, MarijVeugelers

More than one half of the BoD members were present so that the BoD could adopt resolutions. Petra Smulders and MarijVeugelers from the hosting University of Amsterdam were present too for negotiation of the point 3 of the agenda.

1. Conference in Amsterdam

a – MarijVeugelers announced that she is now the Chair of the Conference Organising Committee and reported that the conference publicity and the call for papers are now in progress. The Board discussed membership of the Scientific Committee and the conference programme.

b – The Eunis General Assembly will take place on Wednesday, July 2, 2003 at 17:00 hrs.

c –

    • Posters should be presented 5 minutes each
    • About 50 full papers and 40 short papers are expected
    • The Board asked that the invited speakers give presentations to plenary sessions rather than in parallel tracks
    • The Board requested the following fees:

Early registration   350 euros

Late registration   450 euros

    • Eunis should send an invitation to Eunis honorary members
    • There will be 4 pre-conference seminars proposed
    • The Board agreed that the Eunis Award for Excellence should now proceed.

d – The pre-conference seminar will be held if number of participants does not fall below ten..

e – The authors of papers should be asked for copyright permission to reprint selected papers in other journals, preferably Educause Quarterly or Informatica.

4. Minutes of the BoD meeting in Porto, June 2002 were agreed.
5. Porto EUNIS2002 report
6. Modification of the Statutes

The Board discussed changes to the membership arrangements and the changes to statutes, which would then be needed. It was agreed to activate on-line discussion amongst GA members.

The Board agreed that Andrew Rothery should draft a proposal setting out the key principles. This proposal would be sent to the Board first and then to the GA for comment.

The Board agreed to propose that regular members of EUNIS should include all types of higher education institution and organisation. This includes individual universities, national organisations, research institutes etc and would include organisations within universities where appropriate. Members would each have a representative on the GA with one vote. The possibility of electronic voting would be investigated.

This form of membership will have a benefit of a more direct access to active people.

The statutes would be revised in the light of GA comments.

7. Internal rules

should be discussed after the membership forms will be cleared.

8. E-Learning task force and forum

Andrew Rothery presented a report from the E-Learning Task Force. There are 19 members of the Task Force. Its first task was to set up a discussion list called the E-Learning Forum. There are 60 – 70 members of the Forum drawn from the main EUNIS list. Board members offered to circulate an invitation to join the E-Learning Forum to lists in their countries. Andrew Rothery will send an invitation message to Board members for them to forward by mid-December.

The Board suggested the following activities for the Task Force:

  • Competition for E-Learning Projects (but liaise with EASA)
  • Status reports from different countries
  • E-Learning software surveys
  • List of projects in different countries
  • Liaison with SURF and ALT
  • Create an E-Learning Web Site
  • Ask members to list areas of concern
  • Cooperation with corporations
  • Invite Blackboard/Web CT to join Task Force
  • Contact EC
9. Current issues questionnaire / Gartner collaboration

ViljanMahnic will organise Current issues questionnaire activities in cooperation with Gartner.

KristelSarlin will find the previous questions used by Educause.

10. EUNIS Academia

Jean-Francois Desnos will check a possibility to organize workshop or presentation in rectors’ conference

LigiaRibeiro should ask Robin McDonough to offer an abstract to this presentation.

11. Membership issues

a) Ivan Vrana presented a membership report. Re-confirmation of GA members is in progress. 8 countries already nominated their representatives to the GA. Ivan Vrana should ask representatives from remaining countries to complete this task.

b) ZKI informed in written that Gerhard Peter and Jan von Knop resigned from being active members of EUNIS. Therefore, ZKI proposed Werner Fitzner and Manfred Seeding as German representatives to the EUNIS GA.

12. Fees for the year 2003

An annual fee of 150 Euros for EUNIS regular members was approved to be proposed to the next GA.

13. Newsletter

Ron Chisnall sent a draft newsletter. The Board agreed that it should be revised to take developments from the Board and be circulated mid-December. Andrew Rothery will liaise with Ron Chisnall regarding content.

14. Other activities

a) Magpi project is waiting for new EU rules. J-F. Desnos will inform by January 2003.

bThe Board received a written report from Yves Epelboin from EDUCAUSE. The Board was pleased to note that the good relationship between EDUCAUSE and EUNIS was now re-established.

c) LigiaRibeiro will make a proposal of organizing link to national web pages.

Recorded by Ivan Vrana and Andrew Rothery. Edited by Y. Epelboin for publication.