Call for Participation

16th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER'97)

Los Angeles, California, USA

3 - 6 November 1997

ER'97 returns to UCLA, the site of the first ER Conference in 1981. To mark this event, a special symposium, Conceptual modeling: Historical perspectives and future directions, will be held on the Sunday prior to the conference and open to all ER'97 registrants. The symposium will be summarized at an extra pre-conference panel discussion on Monday evening. Both the symposium and the panel will be chaired by Dr. Peter P. Chen, originator of the Entity-Relationship model.

The program for ER'97 has been designed specifically to appeal to consultants and information systems professionals outside the computer industry, as well as information technology academics and researchers in computer-company laboratories. To this end, three conference sessions are devoted entirely to presentations by leading researchers based in industry.

The keynote speakers for ER'97 were both active conceptual modelers early in their careers. Dr. Alan G. Merten is currently the president of George Mason University, and Dr. Michael L. Brodie is a senior staff scientist at GTE Laboratories.

Two half-day tutorials by internationally-known experts will be offered on the day prior to the conference. In addition, three workshops on topics of current interest will be offered immediately following the conference. Contact the appropriate organizer if you are interested in participating in any of these workshops.

The ER'97 conference banquet will be held at the Bel Air Bay Club, a private club in Pacific Palisades with a beautiful view of the ocean. You can find further descriptions and a map here.

There will be three workshops held simultaneously on Thursday, November 6 and continuing Friday, November 7. Workshops require an additional registration fee. Here is an ASCII registration form.

The availability of non-textual ("multimedia") documents has given a new twist to information retrieval research, unfortunately setting even farther in the future the time in which generalized, automatic indexing methods will allow answering of content-based queries. Conceptual modeling and knowledge representation methodologies offer a promising approach to this problem.

Cognition is the branch of cognitive psychology that seeks to understand thought processes and the structure of knowledge. This workshop will focus on using cognition to understand existing conceptual modeling techniques, to guide the design of new techniques, and to provide criteria for evaluating techniques and methods.

Researchers are devoting increasingly more energy to the problems of behavioral modeling in conjunction with traditional conceptual data modeling. The goals of this workshop are to better understand theoretical aspects of behavioral models, and to use that understanding to suggest transformations that would be helpful in the design of active systems.

There will be two half-day tutorials held Monday, November 3. Tutorials require an additional registration fee. Here is an ASCII registration form.

Modeling an O-O system is facilitated by a sound meta-model and an accompanying notational tool which fully represents the pure object-oriented ideas. Participants will learn how to apply the notation in a business environment, and why meta-modeling is important as an underpinning for notations and methodologies. For system developers, analysts, and designers.

A unique approach to information systems modeling is presented based on a generic model that is customized to the management strategies of the organization. The model can be used to help a business to better utilize its resources, to predict the impact of strategic direction on information technology, to insure correct measurement of Critical Success Factors, and to identify out-of-control data. For practitioners.

In 1997, the ER conference returns to its roots at the University of California, Los Angeles. ER'97 will be held at the UCLA Faculty Center (Building 40), not far from the Anderson Graduate School of management (Building 17) where Peter Chen organized the first ER conference almost twenty years ago.

ER'97 accommodations will be provided by the DoubleTree Hotel, conveniently located in Westwood. The rate before Oct. 12 is $89 per night (single or double) plus 14% tax. After Oct. 12 the rate goes up to $94. This rate is valid through the weekend following the conference. Here is an ASCII hotel registration form. Directions on how to get to the hotel, as well as information about weather and local attractions, are available through the DoubleTree Web page.

Please use this ASCII registration form to register for ER'97. Conference fees are shown below.

All prices are quoted in US dollars, and all payments should be made in that currency.

Conference registration includes admission to all sessions, a copy of the conference proceedings, continental breakfasts each day, coffee breaks, lunches, and the conference banquet.

Tutorials and workshop fees include lecture notes and coffee breaks.

Mail or fax the ASCII registration form to:

Inquiries may be directed to Hua Yang by email: hua@cs.ucla.edu, phone: 310-206-0068 or fax: 310-825-2273.

Sponsored By The ER Institute UCLA In Cooperation With ACM/ SIGMOD More Information http://osm7.cs.byu.edu/ER97/