Minutes of the FIRST board of Directors

20th September 1998, Prague, Czech Republic

Minutes of the EUNIS General Assembly Meeting, Prague, September 1998

EUNIS General Assembly meeting was held on Sunday, 20th September 1998 at 10.00 AM in hotel Krystal, Prague, Czech Republic.

Country representatives taking part in the meeting:

Ivan Vrana, Czech Republic, Peep Uba, Estonia, Kristel Sarlin, Finland, Jean-Francois Desnos, France, Yves Epelboin, France , Jan Knop, Germany, Gordon Young, Ireland, Nicolae Andronaty, Moldavia, Stanislav Slopien, Poland, Alexandr Sandalov, Russia, Peter Mederly, Slovakia, Viljan Mahnic, Slovenia , Robin McDonough, United Kingdom

Invited persons at the meeting:

John Bielec, United States, present since 3.00 PM., Michael Zastrocky, Gartner Group, United States, present since 3.00 PM, Ulrich Kammerer, GINIT, Germany, present since 3.00 PM

Opening of the meeting:

At the beginning, Ivan Vrana and Yves Epelboin presented opening addresses. Peter Mederly, the moderator of the meeting, then asked the participants to present their comments or suggestion to the proposed agenda. No comments were presented.

1. Report from the President about EUNIS activity

Yves Epelboin provided short comments to the document “Report on EUNIS Activities” that was distributed to the participants in advance. He stressed that the EUNIS membership encompassed the majority of European countries but there were still some that were not involved and it would be necessary to look for some contacts in these countries to get them to EUNIS. The President also appreciated the agreement between EUNIS and EDUCAUSE initiated at the CAUSE97 conference in Orlando in December 1997.

2. Approation of the proposal from the Board of Directors to:

Coming out of the proposal of the Board of Directors completed by Ivan Vrana, the General Assembly approved unanimously that:

  • The association EDUCAUSE has become member by correspondence of EUNIS
  • Michael Zastrocky and John Bielec have become honorary members of EUNIS
3. Report from the Treasurer

Jean-Francois Desnos, Treasurer, informed the Assembly that a EUNIS account was established. The only money that has been available was that remained from EUNIS97 Congress. But, by agreement with Grenoble University, it was allowed to use it just for the organisation of further congresses. Ivan Vrana informed the Assembly that part of this money was offered for the organisation of EUNIS98 but it was not necessary.

4. Modification of the Statutes:

The General Assembly approved unanimously the proposed modification to Article 5 of the Statutes.

Article 5

The association is made up of Active Members, Members by Correspondence, Honorary Members and Corporate Members.

….Corporate Members are companies interested in EUNIS activities. They are appointed by the General Assembly at the proposal of the Board of Directors. They pay a subscription. They do not have voting rights.

The further discussion dealt with the issue about subscription for corporate members. The Board of Directors was empowered to define the value of the subscription for the current year.

5. Activities for the next year:

Several activities were discussed within this point.

Kristel Sarlin informed the Assembly about the state of preparation of EUNIS99 Congress. 32 proposals were submitted so far. The deadline for submission was prolonged till 1st October. A 7 minutes long videotape about Finland was produced to promote the participation in EUNIS99. The conference fee will be set to 1.500 Finnish Marks (200 EURO apr.). The Proceedings will be published on the Web as well as in the paper form.

Yves Epelboin stressed the importance of establishing a relation with the European Community. It is necessary to complete a proposal of a project of EUNIS activities that could be of interest for the EC and to submit it to EC. As the background for the proposal the document “Report of EUNIS activities” presented in point 1 will be used.

The proposal for a EUNIS International Exchange Programme was introduced by Robin McDonough. The proposal initiated an intensive discussion and was broadly supported. The discussion concentrated mainly on possible legislative and technical problems with employment, mainly in connection with the exchange between western and eastern countries. The participants stressed that at the beginning the rules should be loose leaving to the receiving university to set the details. The universities should announce free positions for the exchange and basic conditions on the web. The discussion was closed with the general support to the proposal and the agreement that it would be necessary to start the project as soon as possible. As a first step, Robin McDonough will include the conclusions from the discussion to the document about the Exchange Programme.

Gordon Young spoke about the Microsoft software survey programme. He stressed that he still had not received necessary information from all EUNIS member countries and he asked everyone to provide this information. The special interest group will be reactivated.

6. Other subjects

The organisation of EUNIS 2000 was the first issue within this point. This will be a „small Congress”. Stanislav Slopien will find out whether the Congress could be held in Poland. The answer should be available at EUNIS99 at latest.

Further, Yves Epelboin reviewed the present state of EUNIS web pages and asked for suggestions for their further completion. He reminded the Assembly that the links to national web pages were still missing for several EUNIS member countries.

At the beginning of the afternoon‘s session the participants started with the issue of EUNIS award for a joint project between a North American and a European university. It turned out that some further clarification and discussion on this topic with EDUCAUSE representatives would be necessary. The project was abandoned for the moment.

Then the participants returned to the preparation of the proposal for EC. It was agreed that the first draft of the proposal would be worked out by the end of October. Peter Mederly will be responsible for it. The proposal should include the presentation of EUNIS (as it was written in the EUNIS Report) and proposals for future EUNIS activities including the exchange programme and conferences as well as a kind of co-ordinating role of EUNIS in the area of IT in European higher education institutions. The aim of the proposal will be to ask EC to support EUNIS activities.

7. Proposals for EUNIS awards (at 3 p.m.)

The proposal to establish a EUNIS award of excellence was introduced by Ulrich Kammerer, CEO of GINIT. GINIT is a company dealing with the development of software for integrated university information systems. This company is willing to sponsor each year the EUNIS award. Mr. Kammerer presented also a first version of the award rules.

It was agreed that the first award would be conferred at EUNIS99 in Helsinky. Kristel Sarlin as a head of the committee consisting of Yves Epelboin, Ivan Vrana, John Bielec, Peter Mederly, and Ulrich Kammerer, is responsible for establishing the award rules.

8. Election of the Board of Directors for the next 3 years

This General Assembly was the first one after the official registration of EUNIS. Therefore it was needed to elect the Board of Directors for the next 3 years.

All members of the present Board of Directors were willing to be candidates. No other proposals were made.

The General Assembly unanimously elected the Board of Directors for the next three years as follows:

President: Yves Epelboin

Vice-Presidents: Martin Price, Kristel Sarlin

Secretary: Peter Mederly

Treasurer: Jean-Francois Desnos

 

Minutes taken by: Peter Mederly, Secretary

Read and approved by: Yves Epelboin, President