GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS AND PRESENTERS

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PAPERS

The aim of the conference is to develop research themes in the fields of IT Law and the application of IT to Law.  We therefore accept papers which cover relatively wide disciplinary areas.  

‘Developing research themes' means that your paper must deal with a topic in a way which adds to the debate or to knowledge about that topic.  An overview of a well developed legal area, for example, will not be of particular interest to other attendees – most will have at least a basic understanding of what is happening in other relevant areas and many will have a very high level of understanding.

Your paper should have a clear point to it.

It is useful to very briefly describe and/or justify your research methodology (e.g. orthodox legal doctrine examination, case review, case study, survey etc) or philosophical position in your paper. With growing interdisciplinarity in IT and law, legal academics must better explain the approach they take and make their choices subject to greater transparency.

There is no set length or style for papers (past conference papers can be seen at www.bileta.ac.uk)

BILETA's aim through the conference is to develop the research area and as part of this process we expect that authors will allow their conference paper to be made available on the BILETA web site.  This is a valuable resource for those unable to attend and also for researchers in other, particularly developing, countries.  

The copyright in papers remains with the author, and we encourage authors to rework their papers after the conference for a more polished journal publication.  

PRESENTATIONS

Only an author or co-author should present a paper.

Authors must email presentations to papers.bileta2006@um.edu.mt by not later than Friday March 31st 2006 . All presentations will be pre-loaded onto the resident conference pc running PowerPoint that will be used for the presentations.

You will have 20 minutes to present your paper. This includes any setting up time, so it is important that you provide the conference organisers with your presentation by the 31st of March to allow sufficient time for your presentation to be loaded and tested on the resident machine prior to the conference.

We actively discourage/disallow presenters to use their own laptops/disks/memory sticks etc.  This can cause substantial problems in setting up which disrupts the flow of the conference.  If you have special needs (e.g. your presentation is not standard PowerPoint or uses additional programmes, or you intend to use equipment other than the standard pc that will be provided) let us know as soon as possible and by not later than Friday March 31st 2006. We may otherwise be unable to provide the equipment you need.

You will have a maximum of 10 minutes for questions (depending upon whether you have kept to the 20 minutes limit). 

The most common fault in presentations is to spend too long in introductory comments. It is not uncommon to find even long established academics giving background information for 15 minutes and then be surprised to discover they have only 5 or so more minutes to talk about the important part of their presentation.

To a presenter, 20 minutes seems like 5 minutes.  You must therefore be aware of the passage of real, rather than imagined, time.

Remember that the audience will have a reasonably high level of understanding of the topic and you should present your paper as to an expert audience.  In preparing for your presentation, consider what is the most novel part of your paper and concentrate upon that.

SUBMISSIONS

All queries regarding papers as well as abstracts should be addressed to papers.bileta2006@um.edu.mt