The 4th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, Delft, the Netherlands, May 13-16 2007. Game-friendly. Submissions due January 15, 2007.

The 4th International Conference on Information Systems for
Crisis Response and Management

Delft, the Netherlands, May 13-16 2007
http://www.iscram.org

CALL FOR PAPERS
FOR A SPECIAL
ACADEMIC/PRACTITIONER/DEMONSTRATION
SESSION ON

==== Serious gaming and crisis management ====
Session ID: 60GAME

Motivation for this session:
Experiments in crisis management are expensive and difficult to
realize. In addition there is a lack of training facilities in
real crisis environments. Serious games and simulation can provide
an alternative.

Research Area
In recent years the world witnessed an enormous growth in the
scale, complexity and severity of terrorist attacks and natural
disasters. There is real a need for additional research,
training methods and training facilities to extend and improve
our information systems for crisis response and management. A
compounding complexity is the need for experimentation and
validation in real-life crisis situations. It is infeasible to
research, for example, communications and its corresponding
infrastructures during terrorist attacks or flooding.

A viable alternative to real-life tests is to use virtual
environments and/or simulations. For example, software from the
games industry can be applied to a crisis context, to provide a
virtual simulation environment for research or an interactive
method for training in the field of emergency response. For
successful adaptations of such gaming software, the crisis
environment has to be modeled in sufficient detail. There is
also a need for tools and methods to assess the reality and
validity of the applied models, as well as experiences with
actual applications of serious games and crisis simulations.

Topics
Researchers from academia or research labs are invited to
present their research or research-in-progress in papers on the
following topics or areas related to serious games and
simulations for crisis response and management. We explicitly
encourage practitioners (players, users, developers, etc.) to
also (co-)contribute, e.g. by reporting on their experiences
with and needs for serious games and simulations. In addition,
demonstrations of serious games and simulations are most welcome
(see also below).
* games for crisis situations
* ontologies for crisis environments
* modeling crisis situations
* scenario generation, adaptation, and monitoring
* architecture and event generators
* simulation tools for crisis situations
* application of serious gaming in crisis situations
* reality and validity aspects of serious gaming in crisis
situations
* user interaction models
* multimodal interfaces for games and simulation tools

Type of contributions:
* Academic Session: we invite researchers from academia or
research labs to present their research or research-in-progress
papers. Prospective presenters submit a regular research (or
research in progress) paper which will be reviewed according to
the usual academic standards.
* Practitioner Session: we invite practitioners to present their
practice or experiences in information systems development, use
or needs. Prospective presenters submit a powerpoint
presentation which will be reviewed according to standards of
relevance and contents.
* Demonstration and Simulation Session: we invite presentations of
non-commercial demonstrations of information systems. Simulation
(games) are also welcome. Prospective contributors submit a
description of the demonstration or simulation they intend to
present at the conference. These will be reviewed according to
standards of relevance to the general theme of the conference.

Important Notice: All submissions must be submitted to the
ISCRAM2007 central email address: iscram2007@iscram.org.

All submissions must be formatted according to the ISCRAM2007
instructions published on iscram.org. All papers, presentations
or demos will go through a double-blind review process, leading
to a decision of (conditional) acceptance or rejection.
Acceptance rates at previous conferences were at 50-60 percent.

Accepted papers will be included in the ISCRAM2007 program and
published in the official proceedings if and only if (1) the
paper is formatted according to the instructions, (2) the
authors sign the copyright transfer form (see iscram.org) and
(3) one of the authors registers for the conference and pays the
registration fee before the cut-off date for early registration.
Authors who have multiple papers accepted can only register for
and present one paper at the conference; co-authors need to
register separately.

Session Chairs:
Dr. N.J.E. Wijngaards
niek.wijngaards@icis.decis.nl
Thales Research & Technology Netherlands
Thales Nederland
DECIS Lab, Delft
Dr. Drs. L.J.M. Rothkrantz
L.J.M.Rothkrantz@ewi.tudelft.nl
Man-Machine Interaction Group,
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer
Science (EEMCS), Delft University of Technology (TU-Delft)
DECIS Lab, Delft
Dr. G. te Brake
guido.tebrake@tno.nl
TNO
Defence, Security and Safety

Important ISCRAM2007 Deadlines:
* Paper Submission Deadline: January 15, 2007
* Notification of acceptance: February 22, 2007
* Closing date Early Registration: March 1, 2007
* Final version submission deadline: March 15, 2007
* ISCRAM2007: May 13-16 2007

About ISCRAM:
The ISCRAM Community is a worldwide community of researchers,
scholars, teachers, students, practitioners and policy makers
interested or actively involved in the subject of Information
Systems for Crisis Response and Management. At its annual
international conference alternating between the US and Europe,
the ISCRAM Community gathers to present and discuss the latest
research and developments in this growing area during an
interactive and stimulating 3 day program. The ISCRAM Community
also organizes ISCRAM-CHINA, an annual conference for ISCRAM
research in China. All information on ISCRAM can be found at
http://www.iscram.org

This year the conference will be held from 13-16 May in the
Netherlands in the city of Delft. All details on this conference
will be made available via the ISCRAM website mentioned above.

TIP!
If you have the intent to submit a paper or presentation to one
or more sessions, the session organizers would greatly
appreciate an early, voluntary, notification. Please send your
abstract TO: the Session Chair(s) (See e-mail addresses above)
and CC it to: iscram2007@iscram.org.

The subject of the mail should be:
"Abstract for [session ID] on [your short title]"

The content of the mail should include:
* The type of contribution you want to submit: an academic
paper, a presentation or a demo
* The title of your contribution
* A short description (abstract) of your contribution (10 lines)
* Any remarks/questions you have.

The session organizers will answer any questions you have, and
may provide you with some tips.

Please note that submitting an abstract is not obligatory; it
will be appreciated however. The organizing committees will not
review the abstracts, or make a selection on the basis of
abstracts. Only the final and full submissions will be used for
this purpose. Sending an abstract does not oblige you to submit
the full paper.

End.