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Vol.30 No.1, January 1998
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Vol.30 No.1, January 1998 |
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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.
Donna Baglio, Director of SIG Services
Joe DeBlasi, Executive Director
Chuck House, President
Mark Scott Johnson, Western Region Representative to Council
Doris Lidtke, SIG Board Chair
Pat Ryan, Deputy Executive Director
John White, Former President
Stu Zweben, Past President (committee chair)
March 21, 1997 (conference call)
June 17, 1997 (conference call)
July 18, 1997 (Lansdowne resort)
August 12, 1997 (conference call)
In late spring 1996, the ACM president and Executive Director were approached by SIGCHI with a proposal that CHI become an ACM society. There were several issues that arose in this discussion, and this resulted in further work by SIGCHI to clarify their desires. By this time, a new ACM administration was in office. In September 1996, after consultation with the (extended) Executive Committee, President House appointed an adhoc committee to examine in detail the question of ACM's having societies, and to make recommendations to the EC on this matter and its related issues.
Since this subject directly involved ACM's SIGs, and since the adhoc committee couldn't do any real work until after the ACM97 conference in March, the SIG Board asked to study this matter and obtain more broad-based SIG input for the adhoc committee. Randy Dipner chaired a SIG task force to do so, and this task force reported to the SIG Chairs in February and to ACM Council in March 1997.
Upon reviewing the Dipner task force report, the adhoc committee asked for further clarification of various issues surrounding the concept of a society, and also asked for information about other organizations that have society-like subunits. The SIG Board held a retreat on the society matter in April 1997, and its report became the primary focal point for the adhoc committee's deliberations. Information about organizations with society-like entities embedded within them also was provided to the adhoc committee. Example organizations included the American Anthropological Association, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, the IEEE, and the American Physical Society.
The basic conclusions of the Committee can be summarized as follows.
The major benefit of having societies, in the opinion of the Committee, is the external recognition and visibility that the title "society" conveys relative to that of a "SIG." The increased recognition and visibility should offer enhanced opportunities to attract members, volunteer leaders, and external support for activities.
The related issues that formed the basis for the committee deliberations, from the SIG Board retreat report, were categorized into three areas, as follows.
The remainder of this report is organized around these areas, followed by an overall recommendation concerning ACM's allowing societies. For each topic, we report our observations and recommendations. In reviewing the issues, the committee found that most of them (other than the name itself) were not specifically tied to whether or not ACM allowed societies. Thus, the observations and recommendations frequently are couched in terms of "ACM units" rather than "societies" or even "SIGs." We feel that these observations and recommendations should guide ACM's actions whether or not Council ultimately authorizes the formation of societies within ACM.
1.1 Units currently can spend on approved budget items except when explicit ACM policies require other approvals (e.g., can't approve one's own travel, conference budgets > $250K require EC approval).
1.1 Review conference approval process for overall simplification, with specific consideration of:
1.2 Review travel policy to consider allowing the SIG Board Chair to grant certain blanket approvals for SIG Chairs to travel.
2.1 Pubs Board has approval authority for ACM publications; Pubs Board is responsible to Council so Council is a point of redress for disagreements with the Pubs Board over major policy issues.
2.2 SIGs have been given authority to publish newsletters and conference proceedings; Pubs Board can grant other authority for pubs, either individually or collectively.
2.3 As the Digital Library era gains prominence, there likely will be the need to evolve new understandings of ACM, unit, and individual control over publications.
2.4 Currently there seems to be a continuing unresolved issue concerning reviewed and refereed pubications and its impact on SIG ability to control publication.
2.1 Continue the authority of the Pubs Board over ACM publication policies, as guardian of ACM's quality imprimatur and point of management of associated legal issues such as copyright, conflict of interest, etc. Publication policies should balance these concerns against the desire that ACM be able to take advantage of new publication opportunities, particularly in the electronic publication arena, in a timely manner.
2.2 Disagreements over major publications policy issues should be redressed quickly, through special working groups such as was successful in the copyright area, or through Council decision.
2.3 Create a working group of SIG & Pub interested parties to try to resolve the "reviewed - refereed" issue.
3.1 USACM-EC has authority for USACM positions; ACM Council for ACM level positions. SIG Board appoints two representatives to the 7-member USACM-EC. USACM reports to the EC and ultimately Council.
3.2 Individual SIGs have been represented on the broader USACM committee to provide a discipline focus.
3.1 Continue USACM-EC and ACM Council authority as the official voice for policy positions and actions. This provides appropriate responsibility and accountability for ACM's 501c3 status and its international scope, and affords policy-making bodies a high-level, uniform point of contact.
3.2 Individual units should be able to have representation on USACM and/or request USACM consideration of issues important to them.
If USACM is not able to consider the issue (e.g., because of resource limitations), the unit should be able to pursue the issue on its own and propose a statement on behalf of the unit for consideration as a USACM position.
If USACM cannot reach consensus on a position, but the discipline can, a statement authorized by USACM can be issued to this effect.
If USACM believes that an issue should not be considered or that a proposed position is inappropriate, units should respect this decision and take no further action on their own unless approved by ACM EC or Council.
4.1 ACM, within the SIG Board, has a technical standards committee which is supposed to be the focal point for ACM standards activities.
4.2 ACM, nor any of its units, are not standards writing bodies.
4.1 SIGs should be able to send reps to recognized standards bodies to provide technical advice without further approval; SIG reps to standards bodies should not be able to take official ACM or SIG positions without further ACM approval.
4.2 SIGs can work on development of proposed standards for adoption by other recognized standards bodies without further approval.
4.3 ACM or one of its units should be able to serve as umbrella for development of industry standards only with appropriate ACM approval (antitrust protection).
4.4 ACM units cannot act as a standards-writing body (unless ACM changes its stance on this, through action by ACM Council).
4.5 The charter of the technical standards committee should be reviewed and, if necessary, modified to clarify these points.
5.1 The Membership Activities Board (MAB) has recently appointed Scott Lang to work on a Model Chapter Program, to promote stronger chapters including special interest chapters.
5.1 It is important for SIGs to have meaningful interaction with special interest chapters in their discipline, and for ACM policies to allow this to happen easily. Current policies involving special interest chapters should be reviewed to ensure that inappropriate barriers do not inhibit this interaction.
6.1 SIGs may contract with outside agents for services not performed by ACM HQ (e.g., conference management, minor printing). Any such contracted services must be approved by the ACM Executive Director or his/her designee.
6.2 HQ provides a set of standard marketing services for the SIGs collectively. Such marketing services are covered by the allocation.
6.3 SIGs are permitted to have dedicated staff who are employees of the Association. The ultimate responsibility for hiring and dismissing such staff must be retained by ACM HQ in keeping with personnel, state, and local laws.
6.1 In general, the above practices should continue. During the hiring process and for staff evaluations, input from appropriate volunteers should be sought routinely.
6.2 SIG input should be sought regularly by marketing staff. Any SIG requiring more targeted marketing may use its resources to contract through ACM HQ to perform these tasks at a cost above the allocation. The SIG would be responsible for paying the direct costs associated with the campaign.
7.1 SIGs currently can engage in joint conference sponsorship or cooperative relationships with other societies, subject to ACM conference policies.
7.1 The Committee was not able to formulate a clear recommendation on this issue. In general, the Committee believes that latitude regarding engaging in such relationships must protect against actions that are detrimental to the finances of the unit, detrimental to the image of ACM, and in violation of any prior ACM agreements.
8.1 The allocation provides an aggregate level of support for SIG services and the SIG share of other ACM overhead and activities.
8.2 The SIG Board is responsible for periodic reviews of the allocation formula. The recommendation of the Presidential Commission was that the allocation and its components be reviewed every 3 to 5 years.
8.1 The SIG Board's periodic review process should continue. As part of this review, recommendations could be made for differential allocations for units with significant unique needs, as well as a different system for the basic allocation, provided total costs are recovered.
8.2 Separately negotiated fees, for services above those expected for the basic allocation, is reasonable.
9.1 Currently, the SIG Board Chair sits on the 15-member ACM Council, and the 7-member Extended Executive Committee. The SIG Board also appoints two members to the 5-member ACM Nominating Committee.
9.1 The SIG Board should be replaced by a Technical Activities Board (TAB) which would be comprised of the Chairs of the SIGs and any Societies. The TAB would elect its executive committee from among its members. The TAB EC would handle appropriate administrative duties now performed by the SIG Board.
9.2 The consensus of the Committee was that the technical units deserve greater representation on Council. The TAB Chair would serve on Council. In addition, the TAB would elect 3 representatives (possibly on some rotating basis to ensure diversity of representation for individual technical units) who also would serve on Council.
The Committee recognizes that there may be reluctance to significantly increase the size of Council, and also recognizes that changing Council's structure at all affords an opportunity to review other issues such as international representation and the whole notion of ACM regions. Though we may be going a bit beyond the scope of our charter, we offer the following suggestion for the proposed composition of Council: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Past President, Publications Board Chair, TAB Chair, 3 other TAB Representatives, 2 International Representatives, and 4 Members-at-Large for a total of 16 Councillors. Whatever the final composition, the guiding principle is that the TAB reps (including the TAB Chair) can be no more than 1/3 of the Council.
These recommendations would require constitutional amendments.
9.3 The ACM leadership needs to be in greater touch with the goings-on of its major units. We recommend periodic program presentations to Council by major ACM units, and that Council be invited regularly to SIG Board (TAB) reviews of other key technical units.
10.1 ACM must be part of any society's formal name. We recommend that the formal name be the "ACM xxx Society."
10.2 A society leader should be referred to as the President of the ACM XXX Society.
11.1 The Committee agreed that, with the development of an appropriate set of major obligations, the idea of having societies within ACM is reasonable to consider. The obligations should go well beyond sustained financial stability and a multi-service nature. A starting point on the obligations of a society are as follows:
11.2 The procedure for becoming a society would require a formal proposal to the TAB by the desired unit. The proposal would outline how the criteria have been met. The TAB would then be responsible for recommending such action to Council for approval. At some point in the formation process, the unit's membership should approve of the action to become a society. This could follow Council action (i.e., Council would authorize the society subject to the unit's members' approval). Council also would be responsible for dissolving societies and for discontinuing the society designation for a unit.
To Stu Zweben, Committee Chair, ACM Ad Hoc Committee on ACM Societies
Stu,
On behalf of the ACM SIGCHI Executive Committee and the HCI (human-computer interaction) community that SIGCHI serves, I want to express thanks to you and the members of the Adhoc Committee on ACM Societies. Through your efforts, I believe that we are making progress on restructuring the ACM community to better serve the membership and our constituent disciplines.
Last spring, SIGCHI initiated discussions with the ACM Executive Director to explore a new relationship between SIGCHI and ACM and a partial or total society-based restructuring of ACM. Our goal was to create a self-governing, self-managing substructure within ACM, with its own separable but related identity and to do so in such a way that partnership between SIGCHI, ACM, and other ACM units would be strengthened and that all ACM units would benefit. After several discussions, and at the request of the ACM Executive Director, we initiated discussions with Stu Zweben, then ACM President. From this beginning, similar and often parallel discussions have occurred among ACM SIG Services staff, the SIG Chairs, the SIG Board, and the current Adhoc Committee on ACM Societies. We are glad that these discussions are continuing and welcome the opportunity to conduct them in an open forum involving all involved parties.
During the past year and a half, discussions of restructuring ACM have proceeded with the deliberation that is due. No one, of course, wants to make hasty changes to a prestigious professional society. Still, change is necessary for our professional society to grow and to continue to serve our disciplines and the membership. In making these changes, an evolutionary development model is most appropriate. We need to proceed with a clearly defined goal state, but recognize that it may be impractical to implement this state in one move and that we must take interim steps that permit evolution towards the goal. Our comments below are based on such a model.
SIGCHI had two motivations in initiating the discussion of ACM societies. The first was the recognition that SIGCHI supports a highly interdisciplinary field. HCI has a strong grounding in IT (represented by ACM) and integral involvement from other non-IT fields. While many HCI professionals identify closely with ACM, many receive their primary benefit from association with the HCI community in SIGCHI. Second, we recognize the need for additional, dedicated professional staff to help us implement programs to benefit HCI and SIGCHI's membership. While our volunteers can and do define needed and valuable programs, we lack the staff support to implement them.
Our goal remains to create a self-governing, self-managing substructure within ACM, with its own separable but related identity. We recognize that this goal may not be shared by others, but it is the goal against which we evaluate this report.
We concur with three of the basic conclusions of the Adhoc Committee and believe the fourth needs more clarification (see below). We concur that technical area units deserve greater voice in ACM governance at the Council level; that ACM can simplify many operational policies to make day-to-day work easier; we concur that ACM must be the sole legal entity.
The high-level issues that we believe need more attention are as follows.
First, the conclusion that societies must meet "a set of obligations to ACM and their discipline" is unclear. This is the fourth conclusion of the Adhoc Committee. Since our motivation is to associate with ACM while better supporting our discipline, we are not sure what obligations are meant beyond those implied by this association and this support.
Second, while increased recognition and visibility of societies are clearly benefits, we believe that autonomy and control of personnel are greater benefits and would like to see them recognized as such.
Third, while increased representation of technical area units in ACM governance is appropriate, we need to address the "by state or by population" issue. Should representation be allocated equally to each technical area unit or allocated based on membership. Arguments could be made for either side, but we believe they need to be considered before a decision is made. This issue also interacts with the one below.
Fourth, the role of the Technical Activities Board (TAB) should be refined. Currently, each SIG Chair has equal representation at the SIG Chairs meetings. However, we recognize, as indicated by having discussions about ACM societies, that SIGs have different needs and different goals. Combining these different needs and goals in common SIG Chairs meetings is difficult, frustrating, and ineffective. Simply replacing the SIG Chairs meetings with a TAB will not solve these problems. To better support all technical area units, we believe that we should organize based on need. We propose for consideration that those SIGs that do not become societies continue to meet at SIG Chairs meetings and receive support from ACM SIG Services and that the TAB EC consist of the society leaders and representatives from the SIG Chairs and that the TAB EC sit on Council. Also, we support the idea that the TAB EC is drawn directly from technical area unit leadership.
Fifth, staffing issues need to be clarified. We wish to strengthen our partnership with ACM by hiring staff through ACM and recognize that ACM is the legal entity involved. However, we recognize that this may not work in all cases, as was the case with hiring conference support for SIGCHI, and hiring staff directly may sometimes be more appropriate. While contracts would be initiated through ACM and we would expect advice and guidance from ACM staff on legal and related issues, approval of the ACM Executive Director, as stated in the report, should not be required. Similarly, while the ultimate responsibility for hiring and dismissing staff is legally retained by ACM, we believe that such decisions should be delegated to the society's Program Director, who is an ACM employee. The autonomy to manage staff to conduct the business of a technical area unit is crucial to the success of societies and, we believe, to any ACM technical area unit.
Sixth, financial transactions between societies and ACM need to be clarified. We believe that societies will incur increased financial allocations associated with additional staff and should continue to contribute toward ACM programs, including SIG Services. We also believe it appropriate that societies pay additional money for additional services from ACM. However, these can not be accomplished without a baseline service agreement between the society and ACM that specifies what services can be expected within the normal allocation and which require additional allocations.
Seventh, while we completely agree with the intent of having international representation on Council, we believe it is inappropriate to list these positions as "international representatives." Over the past several years, the SIGCHI leadership has worked to position SIGCHI as the international society for human-computer interaction. Our Executive Committee, Conference Management Committee, and other volunteer committees include members from many nations and we rotate our committee meetings and our conferences among many nations. We constantly remind ourselves that we not a U.S. or North American society, but are truly an international society in which all members can be viewed as "international representatives." We believe that ACM would similarly benefit both our professional society and our profession by acting as an international society. While we certainly encourage you to include representatives of many nations on Council, we ask that you reconsider how the positions are called.
We do not believe that any of these issues are "show stoppers" in the sense that we should suspend all activity until they are resolved. Rather, we suggest that the Adhoc Committee deliberate on them now and that final resolutions be made at the October Council meeting with participation by all involved parties. Once the ground rules are clear, the final decision is with the members of the ACM technical area units.
There is one final comment and we hope it is taken in a constructive manner. In the HCI field we have long recognized the value of involving all stakeholders in the development of a system and we frequently and deliberately use terms such as user-centered design and participatory design. While we appreciate the attention and effort that the Adhoc Committee and others in ACM have given to the society issue, we acknowledge that this issue was initiated by the SIGs and that we, as a SIG, are the user of the structure we are designing and must be integrally involved in this design. We appreciate the opportunity to comment on this report and look forward to more direct involvement in future activities.
I ask that you share this note with the other members of the Adhoc Committee on ACM Societies and with the ACM Council. I have shared it with the other SIG Chairs and with the SIGCHI membership.
Finally, thank you again for your efforts. We believe that we are making progress on a very difficult problem and one that the ACM community must solve to continue to grow and prosper.
Best regards,
Mike Atwood, ACM SIGCHI Chair, on behalf of the ACM SIGCHI Executive Committee
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Vol.30 No.1, January 1998 |
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