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Vol.30 No.1, January 1998
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Vol.30 No.1, January 1998 |
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Mike Atwood, Chair (non-voting)
Clare-Marie Karat, Vice Chair for Finances
Barbee Teasley, Vice Chair for Communications (minutes)
Marian Williams, Vice Chair for Operations
Robin Jeffries, Member, Advisory Board
Keith Instone, Information Director
Arnold Lund, CHI 98 Co-chair
Steven Pemberton, Editor-in-Chief, SIGCHI Bulletin
David Riederman, Program Director, ACM
Jean Scholtz, Candidate for EC
Gerrit van der Veer, CHI 98 CMC Liaison
Rosemary Wick Stevens, Adjunct Chair for Public Relations
(These minutes were created on July 29, 1997, and approved by a vote of 3-0-2 on 7 October 1997.)
CHI 98 Budget
Claire-Marie Karat, CHI 98 co-chair, reported on the CHI 98 budget proposal, which requires approval by the EC and the CMC (Conference Management Committee). The budget assumes attendance will be somewhat less than for CHI 97, and that the basic fee will be $395, which is the same as CHI 97. The proposed budget breaks even in its current form, but required deep cuts in some areas compared to CHI 97. Sources of increased expenses are that labor is more expensive in Los Angeles, increased cost of Internet access, and the cost of conference management. It is hoped that items that had to be eliminated, such as food for the student volunteers, can be covered with contingency funds.
Atwood pointed out that while SIGCHI wants to keeps conference fees as low as possible, there is a continuing desire for more features and programs. It may be time to raise fees for future conferences.
The CHI conference proceedings will be published online using resources within ACM. There will be a charge to access the proceedings. In the past, SIGCHI published the CHI conference proceedings online as an experiment. However, this year there will be no SIGCHI conference budget or personnel, outside of that provided by ACM.
CHI 98 requested that SIGCHI cover $12,000 of the $40,000 budgeted for the CHIkids program at CHI 98. The funds will be used to pay for the CHIkids leaders' travel expenses. The rest of the $40K will come from corporate sponsors. Atwood has committed to this expenditure from the Chair's discretionary fund. Discussion among the EC dealt with strategic issues. In general, the CHI conference budget is created so that each area is self-sustaining in terms of income versus expenses. So far, this has not been the case for CHIkids. Expenses are not covered by the fees. Participants in the CHIkids program at CHI 98 will pay $75 per day for what arguably has a market value of up to $200. Furthermore, the CHIkids program competes for sponsors with the conference itself. These issues need further discussion and a long term plan.
Atwood also committed $13,500 to CHI 98 to defer some of the $20K expenses for the new Application Domain Panel program. The funds will cover travel and expenses for invited speakers and some of the panelists for the engineered parts of the three application domain area tracks. Historically, seed money has been needed to support the introduction of innovations to the conference. In subsequent years, the innovations become self-supporting.
The search for a new program director has been successfully concluded. David Riederman has joined ACM as the SIGCHI Program Director.
van der Veer appointed Michael Tauber as the CMC liaison to the Policy 98 conference. van der Veer has also agreed to serve as the CMC liaison to the CSCW conference.
Doris Lidtke, Chair of the ACM SIG Board, responded to Atwood's letter to her concerning the fact that the SIG membership form has not been published along with the ACM membership form in the Communications of the ACM. The July issue will contain the SIG form, and the impact will be monitored.
The August EC meeting will be held at the Timberline Lodge outside of Portland, OR. The meeting will run from Friday, August 1, at 6 p.m., until Sunday, August 3, at 3 p.m. The meeting will include a hand-off from the current EC to the newly-elected EC.
Held at Timberline Lodge, outside of Portland, Oregon; Hand-off meeting between the incoming and outgoing officers.
Chair (non-voting), Mike Atwood
Executive Vice-chair, Guy Boy
Vice-chair for Operations, Marian Williams
Vice-chair for Conferences, Gene Lynch
Vice-chair for Finance, Clare-Marie Karat
Robin Jeffries and John Karat
Chair (non-voting), Mike Atwood
Executive Vice-chair, Guy Boy
Vice-chair for Operations, Bob Mack
Vice-chair for Conferences, Gerrit van der Veer
Vice-chair for Publications, Dan Olsen, Jr.
Vice-chair for Finance Jean Scholtz
Vice-chair for Communications, Cathleen Wharton (minutes)
Advisory Board (1 vote), John Karat, Allison Druin, Richard Anderson
SIGCHI Bulletin Editor-in-Chief, Steven Pemberton
ACM SIGCHI Program Director, David Riederman
Adjunct Chair for Public Relations, Rosemary Wick Stevens
(These minutes were created on September 15, 1997, and approved by a vote of 9-0-2 on 7 October 1997.)
SIGCHI Accomplishments and Challenges (Mike Atwood and Outgoing Officers)
Mike Atwood, SIGCHI Chair, started the discussion for the outgoing officers. Mike noted that during the past term, there were three key accomplishments for the SIGCHI committee as a whole. These include: (1) starting the discussion with ACM about societies, (2) getting the SIGCHI development fund activities going, and (3) starting to restructure CHI's infrastructure (e.g., conference support and a full-time program director). After Mike's general list, the rest of the committee listed the top few items that they felt were accomplished during their terms. These items follow.
Gary was not at the meeting, but accomplishments attributed to him included the following:
Barbee was not at the meeting, but accomplishments attributed to her included the following:
After the outgoing officers had listed their accomplishments, they generated a list of "hot items." Hot items are those items that are ongoing or need to resolved in the context of CHI as a possible ACM society.
Gary was not at the meeting, but items relevant to the Publications position for the future included the following:
Barbee was not at the meeting, but items relevant to the Communications position for the future included the following:
Finally, after the officers noted their items, other concerns were added to the general list from previously created lists. These additional items included the following:
Overarching goal: Enhance the research track and emphasis of the CHI Conference by creating a research forum for researchers
Overarching goal: broaden outreach
David Riederman, Mike Atwood, and Officers
David Riederman reviewed, with the officers, the ACM SIG Officer Manual, including ACM SIG and SIG Board Organization charts. The team also reviewed the ACM Handy Dandy Officer Survival Kit. For travel, it was noted that the current ACM policy is to have travel request forms in prior to a trip. Steven Pemberton added that he would like ACM to work on the fact that 31 cents/mile (U.S. dollars) is not a useful or realistic value for mileage outside of the United States.
Robin Jeffries
Robin Jeffries, SIGCHI Advisory Board, reviewed her motion sent out prior to the meeting by e-mail (29 July 1997). The reason for the motion is to inform the ACM Publications Board as to the SIGCHI view on ACM's plans. The main concerns are:
The motion was then revised to better address these concerns. The actual text of the motion is as follows:
"The SIGCHI EC strongly supports the ACM Digital Library project. This includes the electronic capture of journals and conference proceedings, the ability for all individuals to search bibliographic items via the World Wide Web, and the ability for people who have paid for a subscription to download the full text of individual items.A vote on a revised version of the motion was taken. The motion was made by Robin Jeffries and seconded by Dan Olsen. All outgoing and all incoming elected members voted on the motion and the vote was unanimous (12-0): the motion was approved. Mike Atwood then was charged with presenting this motion to the ACM by forwarding it to Jim Cohoon, the Liaison of the Publications Board, and asking for it to be shared with the ACM Publications Board.To this end, SIGCHI will work closely with the ACM Digital Library project to clarify policies for the Digital Library. In particular, we have charged the SIGCHI Vice-chair for Publications to resolve the following issues:
- The products created by SIGCHI will be part of the ACM Digital Library, and SIGCHI assumes we will be consulted on any future uses of those products beyond those currently established.
- SIGCHI will continue to disseminate products created by SIGCHI via our own means, at the same time as those products are part of the ACM Digital Library.
- SIGCHI will work with the ACM Digital Library to establish a revenue sharing model.
- Products in the ACM Digital Library that were created by SIGCHI will be made available in SIGCHI member benefits packages.
- SIGCHI expects to provide online access to Conference Proceedings shortly after the conference, rather than the year's delay that ACM currently assumes.
- All Digital Library materials created by SIGCHI need to include SIGCHI identity.
- SIGCHI wants to be involved in decisions concerning the form the Digital Library will take in the future, including formats (PDF vs. HTML)."
Robin Jeffries
At the meeting Robin distributed a handout containing a draft of the SIGCHI/CHI conference database policy (Draft 1, dated 1 July 97). The purpose of this policy is to ensure that as we continue to focus on the SIGCHI infrastructure that we address both the security and continued development of our SIGCHI/CHI Conference Database. This draft of the policy is based on our case law and additionally is based on tactical decisions as to how we anticipate the database to be technologically supported and used in the future with regard to security and underlying infrastructure. Robin Jeffries, Dan Olsen, and Keith Instone will form a sub-committee to further evaluate and consider the draft proposal. Their progress will be reported later.
Outgoing & Continuing Officers
Motivations for making SIGCHI a "Society" were discussed. The reason that SIGCHI is seeking "society" status is to better represent the membership's interdisciplinary nature, beyond the computing sciences. ACM has created a Presidential Commission to further investigate and evaluate SIGCHI's proposal. Mike Atwood will talk with ACM personnel more about SIGCHI's proposal for "Society" status.
Clare-Marie Karat & David Riederman
Clare-Marie explained SIGCHI's financial structure and the budgetary process. SIGCHI's fiscal year runs from July 1st-June 30th. Key items that SIGCHI's funds are used to cover, beyond the annual CHI conference, include professional staff to better support our continually growing membership and the development of new SIGCHI programs.
Dan Olsen made a motion to show appreciation of the outgoing committee members. Jean Scholtz seconded the motion. The motion was voted on by the incoming officers and passed unanimously (7-0).
EC Review Committees
Andrew Sears' proposal for a SIGCHI Educational Resource Development Group was discussed. Marian Williams led the discussion on behalf of the review team consisting of herself, Jean Scholtz, and Allison Druin. The proposal contains a description of future activities that would empower HCI Educators to better establish dynamic HCI curricula and degree programs, and to better identify mechanism for the dissemination of such educational resources. The review committee was in favor of funding the proposal with stipulations:
Allison Druin made a motion to approval this proposal with modifications, and John Karat seconded the motion. The incoming SIGCHI EC voted unanimously (7-0) to fund this proposal as modified with the above stipulations. The proposal was funded for the amount of $3500.
Susan Wiedenbeck's proposal for SIGCHI support of the Empirical Studies of Programmers 7th (ESP7) Workshop Publication was discussed. Dan Olsen led the discussion on behalf of the review team consisting of himself, Clare Marie-Karat, and Cathleen Wharton. The proposal contains a request to provide support for dissemination of the ESP7 proceedings to the CHI community due to an unexpected contract renewal problem with Ablex Publishing: Ablex has decided to not publish additional computer science materials at this time. As a result, ESP7 needs partial funding to ensure that the proceedings are produced and disseminated to the CHI community. It is anticipated that SIGCHI will eventually earn the funds back as the proceedings are sold. The review committee was in favor of funding the proposal. Dan Olsen made a motion to pass the proposal as is and Cathleen Wharton seconded it. The motion passed (6-0-1, with the 1 abstaining vote from Jean Scholtz, a Co-chair of ESP7). The proposal was funded for $4000.
Steven Pemberton's proposal regarding SIGCHI Russian Infrastructure to build a SIGCHI Web Site and also translate the SIGCHI Bulletin into Russian was discussed. The discussion was led by Guy Boy on behalf of the review committee consisting of himself, Richard Anderson, and Bob Mack. The review committee was in favor of funding the proposal with the following stipulations:
The vote on this proposal was deferred until Steven could talk more with the relevant parties from Russia. After Steven has spoken with Russia, this proposal will be discussed at a SIGCHI EC Meeting. The amount being considered for funding is $8685.
Mike Atwood
Tentative dates and locations were selected for the next face-to-face EC meetings (held three times each year). The Winter 1997 meeting will be held at ACM Headquarters in New York City around December 12-14th. The Spring 1998 meeting will be held April 24-25, the weekend after CHI `98, in Los Angeles. The Summer 1998 meeting will be targeted for Italy on dates and in a location conducive to the participation of Italy SIGCHI; Richard Anderson will consult with the Chair of Italy SIGCHI on this matter.
The EC's monthly telephone conference calls have been scheduled for 11:30 AM Eastern time, on the last Monday of each month. The next meeting, however, will be an exception. This next meeting will be held on September 8th.
Everyone on the EC is encouraged to get their own acm.org e-mail alias. chi-ec@acm.org will become the single e-mail list for SIGCHI EC e-mail. This list will include the elected EC, the adjunct chairs, and friends of the EC as appropriate. We will use individual e-mail lists for more restricted mailings, on an as needed basis.
Incoming Officers
The incoming officers worked on their SIGCHI Mission, Vision, and Goals. Eight initial goals were identified by the group:
As the EC continued their discussions, they were able to incorporate these eight initial goals into three key foci. The EC members have each been assigned to one of these three concerns and each team is responsible for further identifying the key issues and reasonable action items that the EC can volunteer to. The three teams and their overarching goals are:
Each team assigned one member of that team to further flesh out the team's ideas as the next step.
Chair (non-voting), Mike Atwood
Past Chair, Jim Miller
Vice-chair for Operations, Bob Mack
Vice-chair for Conferences, Gerrit van der Veer
Vice-chair for Publications, Dan Olsen, Jr.
Vice-chair for Finance, Jean Scholtz
Vice-chair for Communications, Cathleen Wharton (minutes)
Allison Druin, Richard Anderson
ACM SIGCHI Program Director, David Riederman
Adjunct-chair for Public Relations, Rosemary Wick Stevens
SIGCHI Information Director, Keith Instone
Past Advisory Board Member, Robin Jeffries
(These minutes were created on October 4, 1997, and approved by a vote of 7-0-0 on 7 October 1997.)
Readout of ACM SIG Officers Orientation Session
Bob Mack, David Riederman, Cathleen Wharton
Bob Mack, David Riederman, and Cathleen Wharton attended the ACM SIG Officers Orientation Session in New York City on August 22nd, 1997. At this orientation session, new SIG officers learned about the following:
These orientation sessions are held shortly after new SIG officers are elected.
Bob Mack, David Riederman, Cathleen Wharton
Bob Mack, David Riederman, and Cathleen Wharton also discussed the August 13th, 1997 Draft Report from the Adhoc Committee on ACM Societies. This material was presented at the SIG Chairs Meeting on August 23rd, 1997. This meeting was held in conjunction with the Orientation Session on August 22nd, in New York City.
From the Draft Report: "the mission of this committee is to act as a steering group for the study and possible implementation of ACM societies; to review SIG desires in this regard and make final recommendations to EC and Council about the concept and related management, financial, and governance issues."
Bob, David, and Cathleen reported in more detail about the contents of this draft report and how well aligned this draft report is with the SIGCHI societal vision. Cathleen also noted that although it was not appropriate at the SIG Chairs Meeting to take a formal vote on the Draft Report, a straw vote was taken instead about the general changes to the governance aspects of the report. This straw vote, voted on by the SIG Chairs (or their representatives) present at the SIG Chairs Meeting, indicated that indeed SIGs were generally in favor of the governance changes outlined in the Draft Report. The Adhoc Committee noted this and planned to continue with the appropriate next steps for changes to ACM governance and "The Society Issue" more generally.
Mike Atwood will continue to work with Stu Zweben (Past ACM President and Adhoc Committee Chair) and others, on behalf of SIGCHI, as "The Society Issue" continues to be addressed.
Bob Mack, David Riederman, and Cathleen Wharton also noted some of the recent news about ACM's Digital Library project. In particular, they reported on what we know to date about ACM's pricing and distribution plans for the Library. Dan Olsen, will talk with Mark Mandelbaum (Director of ACM Publication) to learn more about the Digital Library and its impact on SIGCHI, and then report back to the SIGCHI EC.
It was noted that Andrew Sears had agreed to the stipulations put forth in the August 1997 meeting regarding his SIGCHI Educational Resource Development Group proposal. As a result, this proposal has officially been funded and is now underway.
Steven Pemberton's proposal regarding a SIGCHI Russian Infrastructure to build a SIGCHI Web Site and also translate the SIGCHI Bulletin into Russian is still being pursued. A more detailed report regarding this proposal will be given at the next meeting.
The three SIGCHI EC working groups, as formed at the August 1997 meeting, shared with the rest of the EC their progress. The three working groups are the (1) World-wide Issues Team (Guy Boy, Richard Anderson, Steven Pemberton, and Cathleen Wharton), (2) Membership and Volunteerism Team (Allison Druin, Rosemary Wick Stevens, David Riederman, and Jean Scholtz), and the (3) Conferences Team (Gerrit van der Veer, John Karat, Mike Atwood, and Bob Mack).
At this meeting we discussed in detail the work of the Membership and Volunteerism Team. Allison Druin presented the report for her team during the call. We will discuss in more detail the other teams' efforts in subsequent SIGCHI EC meetings.
Some of the key plans put forth by this working group are highlighted below. The overarching goal of this working group is to attract new members and retain current members by providing value to the membership. This membership value includes individual growth and professional development. To meet this overarching goal, two key plans identified were (1) the expansion of certain SIGCHI programs, and (2) the development of three ongoing, new programs to supplement our existing efforts.
In terms of expanding certain SIGCHI programs, the plan is to continue promote, support, and grow our:
As for the development of three ongoing, new programs, the plan is to develop programs for:
More details on this working group's efforts are being documented in a report (underway). The working draft version of this report will be shared with the SIGCHI EC soon.
Bob Mack
Because we are refining our methods for recruiting and retaining our SIGCHI volunteers, Keith Instone will replace the current online (i.e., Web) page for volunteers with a statement stating that we are defining a new volunteer program at this time. After our volunteer program is defined, this temporary Web page will be replaced with our new solution.
Jim Miller
Jim Miller is looking more at the benefits of Cooperating Societies. He is also working with Michael Tauber to better understand this issue, particularly as it relates to SIGCHI.
Keith Instone
Keith noted that the Reviewer Database has been extended to support Conference Category chairs so that they can add new submissions to better match submissions to reviewers. Also, he is working on plans for allowing the reviewer database to better support the transition to a general SIGCHI publication reviewer. That is, to better support the notion of providing a database of reviewers across all SIGCHI publications. Keith is also working with Gerrit van der Veer on the database as it relates to the growing needs of the CHI Conferences.
The next SIGCHI EC meeting will be a teleconference call on September 29th, 1997 at the standard time of 1530-1700 Universal Time Coordinated. The Winter 1997 Meeting will be held December 12th-14th, at the Crown Plaza UN in New York City. The Summer 1998 Meeting dates with the Italy SIGCHI have not been finalized, but the meeting is expected to be in Rome, Italy.
Chair (non-voting), Mike Atwood
Past Chair, Jim Miller
Executive Vice-chair, Guy Boy
Vice-chair for Operations, Bob Mack
Vice-chair for Conferences, Gerrit van der Veer
Vice-chair for Publications, Dan Olsen, Jr.
Vice-chair for Finance, Jean Scholtz
Vice-chair for Communications, Cathleen Wharton (minutes)
Advisory Board (1 vote) John Karat, Allison Druin, Richard Anderson
SIGCHI Bulletin Editor-in-Chief, Steven Pemberton
ACM SIGCHI Program Director, David Riederman
Adjunct-chair for Public Relations, Rosemary Wick Stevens
SIGCHI Information Director, Keith Instone
(These minutes were created on October 4, 1997, and approved by a vote of 8-0-0 on 7 October 1997.)
SIGCHI Budget Template
Jean Scholtz
All members of the SIGCHI EC were requested to review the SIGCHI budget template in preparation for the December budget meeting. Jean Scholtz needs completed SIGCHI EC member budget proposals no later than the 31st of October. Jean has also posted a request for budget proposals to the SIGCHI membership via the CHI-announcements listserve, to bring in proposals from the general SIGCHI membership. After Jean receives all of the proposals, she and David Riederman will work to assemble the packets for our review at the December meeting.
To better facilitate the budget review and approval process, SIGCHI EC members need to make their proposals into reasonably-sized packages that stand alone. That is, the packages should not be structured to include a comprehensive suite of proposals, rather they should include smaller, individual program proposals. Jean and Mike Atwood will locate past proposals to provide examples of the same.
Jean Scholtz
The Annual SIGCHI Financial Report has been written and will be published in the next edition of the SIGCHI Bulletin.
The SIGCHI EC has been discussing approaches to handling SPAM e-mail messages on the various SIGCHI e-mail lists. The consensus is that we don't need to take action right now, but that we need to continue to monitor the situation.
On behalf of the ACM SIGCHI Executive Committee and the HCI (human-computer interaction) community that SIGCHI serves, Mike Atwood has prepared a response to the Adhoc Committee on "ACM Societies Draft Report" of August 13th, 1997. The SIGCHI EC agreed by consensus to support the response prepared by Mike and agreed that it should be sent to Stu Zweben, the Committee Chair. Mike will follow-up with Stu after his response has been sent and report back to the SIGCHI EC.
The ACM Policy '98 Conference will be held in Washington, DC on May 10-12, 1998. The conference is being sponsored by the USACM Committee (U. S. ACM Public Policy Committee) in Cooperation with SIGCAS, SIGGRAPH, and SIGCHI. The purpose of the conference is to help computer professionals better shape future applications of computing by establishing a professional foundation that can work with U.S. policymakers. The co-chairs of this conference are Ben Shneiderman, (USACM, University of Maryland) and C. Dianne Martin, (Chair of ACM SIGCAS, George Washington University).
Gerrit van der Veer is working on a solution to ensure that SIGCHI's views will be well represented at this conference. Toward this end, Austin Henderson has been asked to serve as the ACM Policy '98 Conference Liaison on behalf of SIGCHI.
Steven Pemberton's proposal regarding a SIGCHI Russian Infrastructure to build a SIGCHI Web Site and also translate the SIGCHI Bulletin into Russian was further discussed. We have received feedback on our questions to the relevant parties in Russia and Moscow and everything is now set to adequately support the proposal.
Guy Boy made a motion to approve this proposal as discussed, and Jean Scholtz seconded the motion. The SIGCHI EC voted unanimously (8-0) to fund this. The proposal was funded for the amount of $8685 to cover the necessary hardware costs.
John Karat also noted that the SIGCHI EC needs to further develop its international strategy as it relates to funding proposals such as this one. This item will need to be addressed as part of the SIGCHI World-wide Issues Team. The Russian Infrastructure vote was not intended to set precedent for funding of other such initiatives.
The three SIGCHI EC working groups, as formed at the August 1997 meeting, shared with the rest of the EC their progress. The three working groups are the (1) World-wide Issues Team (Guy Boy, Richard Anderson, Steven Pemberton, and Cathleen Wharton), (2) Membership and Volunteerism Team (Allison Druin, Rosemary Wick Stevens, David Riederman, and Jean Scholtz), and the (3) Conferences Team (Gerrit van der Veer, John Karat, Mike Atwood, and Bob Mack).
At this meeting we discussed in detail the work of World-wide Issues Team. Richard Anderson presented the report for his team during the call. We will discuss in more detail the other teams' efforts in subsequent SIGCHI EC meetings. For the next meeting, Gerrit will disseminate to the EC a draft of his team's report prior to the next conference call.
Some of the key plans put forth by this working group are highlighted below. The overarching goal of this working group is to continue supporting a world-wide HCI presence by actively supporting and nurturing regional and national groups, and by further developing awareness and education of cultural differences and similarities.
The proposal that is being drafted describes seven "mechanisms" via which SIGCHI can use to better support a world-wide HCI presence. These seven mechanisms are outlined briefly as follows.
More details on this working group's efforts are being documented in a report (underway). The working draft version of this report will be shared with the SIGCHI EC soon.
The SIGCHI EC Membership and Volunteerism team (Allison Druin, Rosemary Wick Stevens, David Riederman, and Jean Scholtz) has identified seven task forces that are needed to strengthen SIGCHI membership. These seven task forces follow.
The SIGCHI EC members now need to decide which task forces are of most interest to them personally and then send their preferences to Allison Druin no later than October 7, 1997. Allison will coordinate those individuals most interested in each task force and then the task forces will begin to undertake the necessary work.
The next SIGCHI EC meeting will be a teleconference call on October 27th, 1997 at the standard time of 1530-1700 Universal Time Coordinated. The Winter 1997 Meeting will be held December 12th-14th, at the Crown Plaza UN in New York City. The Summer 1998 Meeting dates with the Italy SIGCHI have not been finalized, but the meeting is expected to be in Rome, Italy. David Riederman and James Vant are working with the Italy SIGCHI to finalize a date during June 1998.
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