At their core, blockchains execute and register transactions in distributed ledgers, using communication and cryptographic frameworks that allow for the tamper-proof sharing and maintenance of signed information. Blockchain technology is natively multi-disciplinary as it builds upon knowledge stemming from cryptography, game theory, programming language theory, data structures and algorithms, and distributed computing, among others.

Blockchain technology has opened up opportunities to redesign cooperative business in a wide range of fields, including healthcare, supply chain, logistics, and finance. That is mainly due to its unprecedented capability to operate in a decentralised fashion, without central authorities governing the workflow. Blockchains and smart contracts thus enable processes to be run in a distributed manner without delegating trust to central authorities and reducing the need for some aspects of mutual trust between parties. Furthermore, they potentially allow for automated fine-grained run-time tracking and monitoring as well as ex-post auditing and forensics.

The opportunities brought about by blockchains are accompanied by challenges. For blockchain infrastructure, this includes crucial matters such as privacy, data provenance and management, compliance and control, security, governance, in addition to scalability and performance. For blockchain-based applications, there are as well new challenges in devising novel process and architectures supporting new kinds of decentralised collaborative business models. The multifaceted themes of the research questions reflect the multidisciplinary nature of the blockchains.

This forum aims to provide a platform for the discussion and introduction of new ideas related to research directions pertaining to the adoption of blockchains for collaborative information systems. Conceptual, technical and application-oriented contributions are pursued within the scope of this theme.

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Modelling paradigms for blockchain-based information systems
  • User-friendly specification and monitoring of smart contracts
  • Synthesis of smart contracts from high-level specifications of business collaborations
  • Verification and validation of blockchain-based collaborative information systems
  • Enforcing regulations and business rules with smart contracts
  • Collaborative business process optimisation on blockchains
  • Privacy models for blockchain-based collaborative information systems
  • Data provenance in blockchain-based cooperative processes
  • Security requirements engineering for blockchain-based collaborative information systems
  • Data management in blockchain-based information systems
  • Process auditing on blockchains
  • Integration of ubiquitous computing and blockchains for process monitoring
  • Novel paradigms for process design utilising the blockchain
  • Novel paradigms for information systems design utilising the blockchain
  • Linking blockchain platform properties with business and compliance goals
  • Novel business collaboration models enabled by blockchain
  • Blockchain and ethical business practices
  • Inter-organisational, cross-chain communications among parties in a collaborative process
  • Vertical applications of blockchain-based collaborative information systems (e.g. healthcare, supply chain, finance, logistics)

The format will be structured to be highly interactive and discussion-oriented. The talks will be fostering fruitful conversation and aimed at exchanging experiences and ideas.

Paper Submission
Prospective authors are invited to submit papers on any of the topics of the workshop. Papers must be written in English. The maximum length of the paper is 15 pages. Shorter papers are very welcome too.

Submissions must be prepared according to the format of Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP) specified by Springer (http://www.springer.com/series/7911). The title page must contain a short abstract and a list of keywords, preferably taking inspiration from the list of topics given above. Papers must be submitted electronically via EasyChair: enter the main conference installation (BPM 2019) and select “Blockchain Forum” as the submission track.

At least one author of each accepted manuscript must register for the conference and present the paper.

Important Dates
Abstract submission: 31 May 2019
Paper submission: 24 May 2019 31 May 2019 (extended)
Notification: 28 June 2019
Camera-ready submission: 12 July 2019
Forum: 3-4 September 2019

Program Committee
Mayutan Arumaithurai, University of Göttingen, Germany
Clemens H. Cap, University of Rostock, Germany
Riccardo De Masellis, Stockholm University, Sweden
Alevtina Dubovitskaya, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland
Gilbert Fridgen, Fraunhofer FIT, Germany
Marko Hölbl, University of Maribor, Slovenia
Sabrina Kirrane, WU Vienna, Austria
Qingua Lu, Data61, CSIRO, Australia
Raimundas Matulevicius, University of Tartu, Estonia
Giovanni Meroni, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Alexander Norta, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia
Petr Novotny, IBM, USA
Sooyong Park, Sogang University, South Korea
Stefanie Rinderle-Ma, University of Vienna, Austria
Matti Rossi, Aalto University, Finland
Stefan Schulte, TU Wien, Austria
Volker Skwarek, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Stefan Tai, Technical University of Berlin, Germany
Nils Urbach, University of Bayreuth, Germany
Shermin Voshmgir, WU Vienna, Austria
Edgar Weippl, SBA Research, Austria
Kaiwen Zhang, École de technologie supérieure ÉTS, Canada

Chairs
Claudio Di Ciccio, WU Vienna, Austria
Luciano García-Bañuelos, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
Rick Hull, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY USA
Mark Staples, Data61, CSIRO, Sydney, Australia