A-Lex-I-Con

I attended 5–6 June the Triangular Post-Graduate Conference 2008 organized jointly by University College Dublin, Lancaster University and Cambridge University. If you are doing a Ph.D. in information systems and looking for constructive critique on your project try to sneak in next year. Why?

First, they require the participants to write a full paper. Just couple of months into my fieldwork, it was a grueling experience to put together a paper that would hang together satisfactorily. The papers not only contribute to the discussion but you can also choose to include yours in the conference proceedings. A publication!

Second, they dedicate a full, more than one-hour session for each paper/presenter. This not only gives you much more time to discuss your project but also forces you to expose the problems in it. If found the both aspects very valuable.

Third, assuming you are not from the organizing institutions you will get in-depth comments from outside of your own faculty. This is extremely valuable as your thesis will anyway be assessed by external reviewers and, for instance, we at LSE are unlikely to be permanently employed by our home institution after receiving our credentials.

And, where is the link for my paper… well, after all the critique I got I rather modify it a bit before putting it online.