Download the charter here: ACIS-Charter-V6 Draft Part I Final Mar 2022

Based on the reediting of v5 of the ACIS Charter, ACIS Charter v6 now consists of three corresponding sections (i) ACIS Policy and Regulations, (ii) Best Practices and Procedures and (iii) Historical Documentation.

• Part I: Policy and Regulations consist of the important policy and regulations surrounding the identification of potential hosts (and host consortia) and the principles of operation of the ACIS Charter. Only this part is available for public download.
• Part II: Procedures and Best Practices consists of those work practices that are either prescribed, accepted or proven to be effective in operation and collectively represent the experience and knowledge of successive ACIS Conference Hosts and related stakeholders. Most of this material comes from the existing Appendices. Other material has been added to accommodate different conference modalities. This part of the Charter is not made available to the general public.
• Part III: Historical Information consists of Appendices in v5 that were historical in nature, eg. the History of ACIS Conferences. But importantly it also contains some stubs for historical information that is becoming more important over time including a History of the ACIS Executive Committee and the Evolving Charter.

Each of these parts could have their own specialised documentation and so Appendices are renamed Attachments.

Governance Issues and Actions

It became obvious that the deregistration of ACPHIS (see ACIS Contingency Fund) was adversely effecting the ability of the ACIS Executive Committee (the body representing the broader IS Community) from discharging its obligations with respect to this community. The pandemic was also exacerbating the planning and execution of conferences as well. It became necessary to find a way of trying to engage the Australian IS community and professoriate in order to revise the ACIS Charter.

The AAIS called for an Extraordinary ACIS Executive Committee Meeting (28th Oct 2021, 10:30:12:00 AEST). All of the 10 motions proposed were unanimously passed and incorporated into V6 of the ACIS Charter. These motions are listed here:

• Motion 1: “Minor changes to the ACIS Evolving Charter as defined above do not require ratification. Their occurrence will be signaled by a change in Charter’s increment number.”
• Motion 2: “to recognise AAIS is the responsible entity for managing the ACIS Process”
• Motion 3: “The Permanent members of the ACIS Executive (defined in 1.1) may vote to invite additional entities into the affiliation as Permanent members, where their inclusion provides demonstrable and tangible benefits consistent with the purposes of this charter (as described in 1.2).”
• Motion 4: “In the abnormal circumstance that a permanent member of the affiliation is considered by a majority of the permanent members to be unable to represent its constituency (as described in 1.2) and that entity is unable to meet their responsibilities in relation to the ACIS Charter and to further the ACIS Process then the affiliation with that entity can be terminated”.
• Motion 5: “In those cases where there is a tied vote between members of the ACIS affiliation, the Secretary for the ACIS  Executive Committee has a tie-braking vote.”
• Motion 6: “In abnormal circumstances, the AAIS is obligated to take whatever steps it can reasonably undertake to determine the representative or, if possible, the majority view of a constituency whose affiliated entity is unable to represent it.”
• Motion 7: “In the case where the ACIS Executive Committee has not been fully constituted, or for any reason a Chair of the ACIS Executive Committee has not been appointed at the previous AGM, then the AAIS President will automatically become the Chair of the ACIS Executive Committee for the following calendar year.”
• Motion 8: “In the abnormal circumstances defined in Motion 7, a majority of the Permanent Members determined by vote (as defined in 0.2) of the ACIS Executive Committee may then undertake the following activities on behalf of the IS Community:
  • (a) communicate with the IS Community (as defined in 0.1),
  • (b) hold an Extraordinary ACIS Executive Committee meeting in order to fulfill its purpose and discharge its responsibilities (as defined in 1.2), and
  • (c) make any other decisions consistent with its purpose (as defined in 1.2)
• Motion 9: “So that stakeholders in the ACIS Process understand their responsibilities, a Calendar of Events will be made available from the ACIS Webpages on the AAIS site.”
• Motion 10: “The conference may be hosted by several institutions that form a consortium for that purpose. This may be useful in order to encourage smaller or more remote institutions being involved in the opportunity to run an ACIS while sharing the administrative load and burden of organising and running ACIS in any one year.”