ICPPIT99 NEWS - 4 July 2000

CITIDEP - Research Center on Information Technologies
and Participatory Democracy
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CITIDEP - ICPPIT99 NEWS - 4 July 2000
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Dear colleagues,

In the wake of the first International Conference on Public Participation and Information Technologies (ICPPIT99), held this past October in Lisbon, Portugal, the organizing committee and CITIDEP would like to thank all the participants for making the conference such a success.

We also want to thank the kind words and positive feedback many of you sent. We welcome all feedback and suggestions, in order to improve next edition of this Conference.

Due to delays in raising pledged funds, the publication of the Conference Proceedings was put on hold until now, and all our efforts were focused on raising funds. We are happy to inform that we are getting close, and our estimated publication deadline is October 2000.

Meanwhile we kept (and will keep) ICPPIT99 "Pos-Conference" updated news on the Conference web site.

All accepted abstracts are now published on-line (http://www.citidep.pt/icppit99/prelim.html). We ask all authors to please check if all your author/co-author information is complete and correct, according to the guidelines, and if not, to please send it to us until 15 July 2000, using the on-line form:
http://www.citidep.pt/icppit99/authorinfo.html.

As previously informed, the established (exceptional) policy for this first ICPPIT is to publish all accepted papers, even if the authors could not present them, since the first Proceedings will be an important tool to define the boundaries of this multi-disciplinary domain.

We will soon circulate the Conference Conclusions, read at the formal closing session, to allow all participants to send us feedback before publication.

Following contacts established during the Conference, it was created a ICPPIT Task Force, as an open working group, with the mission to assist the ICPPIT99 Conference Committee in regard to:
a) Raise funding to cover ICPPIT99 expenses, including Proceedings;

b) Publish and distribute ICPPIT99 Proceedings;

c) Help CITIDEP to put together the next Conference Committee (for next ICPPIT Edition, co-organized with some prestiged University, in some other country);

d) Support the ICPPIT research community network, until the creation of the next Conference Committee.

All interested colleagues are invited to join this Task Force, or to contribute in any form. (http://www.citidep.pt/icppit99/task.html)

Best wishes,