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Vol.30 No.3, July 1998
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Chair (non-voting), Mike Atwood
Past Chair, Jim Miller
Executive Vice-chair, Guy Boy
Vice-chair for Operations, Bob Mack
Vice-chair for Finance, Jean Scholtz
Vice-chair for Communications, Cathleen Wharton (minutes)
Advisory Board (1 vote) John Karat, Allison Druin
SIGCHI Bulletin Editor-in-Chief, Steven Pemberton
ACM SIGCHI Program Director, David Riederman
SIGCHI Adjunct-chair for Public Relations, Rosemary Wick Stevens
SIGCHI Information Director, Keith Instone
SIGCHI Adjunct Chair for Organizational Design, Clare-Marie Karat
ACM SIGCHI Program Director Administrative Assistant, James Vant
(These minutes were created on December 30, 1997, and approved by a vote of 6-0-2 on 4 February 1998.)
The EC reviewed their plans for the face-to-face meeting to be held in New York from December 12-14. The main purpose of the meeting is to perform a detailed analysis of the budget and all budget proposals that have been put forth by the SIGCHI membership. At this time, the known agenda items for the December meeting include:
Jean Scholtz reviewed the current collection of budget proposals. To date she has received 10 budget proposals totaling $56,600. Several more proposals are expected to be turned in prior to the December meeting. The proposals received to date have been sent to all EC members for their review prior to the December meeting. The 10 budget proposals received so far are concerned with the following issues:
As soon as the other proposals are received, they will be sent out as well. All proposals will be archived.
Beyond the membership's proposals, it was noted that we needed to make sure that the following items were addressed, as appropriate, in our annual budget:
Additionally, Jean Scholtz noted that she has received two development proposals for a total of $7500. One of these proposals is for $5500 (a Usability Workshop) and one is for $2000 (Tom Hewett). We will discuss these proposals further at the December meeting. At this point, $7415 remains in the Development Proposal Fund. We have spent $400 (actual) to date, and the rest of the budget has already been allocated.
The next SIGCHI EC meeting will be a face-to-face meeting from December 12th-14th, 1997 at the Crown Plaza UN in New York City. The Summer 1998 Meeting will be with the Local Italy SIG from July 31-August 2, 1998 in Rome, Italy. The next teleconference call will be January 26, 1998 at 1530-1700 UTC.
Chair (non-voting), Mike Atwood
Past Chair, Jim Miller
Executive Vice-chair, Guy Boy
Vice-chair for Operations, Bob Mack
Vice-chair for Finance, Jean Scholtz
Vice-chair for Conferences, Gerrit van der Veer
Vice-chair for Publications, Dan Olsen, Jr.
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
SIGCHI Adjunct-chair for Public Relations, Rosemary Wick Stevens
SIGCHI Adjunct Chair for Organizational Design, Clare-Marie Karat
(These minutes were created on December 30, 1997, and approved by a vote of 8-0-0 on 13 April 1998.)
The SIGCHI EC spent a good portion of the first day meeting with ACM Staff Members to better understand their core areas and the work that they perform on behalf of the SIGCHI organization. A summary of the key functions and relevant parties follows.
Mark Mandelbaum, Director of Publications, gave an overview of ACM's publications activities. He reviewed the journals, books, CD-ROMS efforts, and then spent much of his time discussing the ACM Digital Library initiative.
The Digital Library effort is committed to capturing a full-text SGML database for text-searching and use assorted translators as needed. Currently, the Digital Library contains information from 1991 onward. It is about 95% complete and contains roughly 150K pages of material.
CHI 98 will include its materials in the Digital Library this spring. The process will work as follows.
Although there is the possibility for CHI 98 to also support SGML (or xGML) format, it is not guaranteed. SGML format, however, will be available for CHI 99.
All papers being added to the Digital Library are being scanned by either Sony or CADMUS. Scanning goes through two separate OCR engines and then are compared for accuracy. The OCR version is used for searching but it is the bitmap version which is downloaded and displayed.
The next phase during 1998 for the Digital Library is to capture all SIG newsletters. However, to put these online there also needs to be a formal procedure to let authors give copyright agreement for both paper and electronic form. Currently for the paper-based newsletters there is no copyright requirement.
In terms of the projected growth for ACM's Digital Library, currently ACM publishes roughly 50,000 total pages/year. Additionally, the size of proceedings are increasing with an average size at 320 pages/proceeding with a current total of about 60-65 proceedings.
The current cost is $40.00-$80.00 (U.S. Dollars) per page to make both an electronic and paper version. If paper is not needed, then the cost is about $25. The incremental cost for electronic pages is about $2.00/page.
Mark also addressed some questions regarding interactions magazine and talked about some strategic directions to enhance the publications for the SIGCHI community within ACM; e.g., the possibility of merging interactions with the SIGCHI Bulletin should SIGCHI become an official ACM society.
Steven Cherry, Executive Editor of interactions, spoke to the SIGCHI EC regarding Design Awards. Design Awards are part of the ACM Awards Committee efforts. The first judging's results were printed in the May 1996 edition of interactions. The second judging's results are not known at this time. There is still committee and sponsorship work that needs to be wrapped up from the last awards contest and policies and committee members organized for moving forward with the next awards program.
SIGCHI has not traditionally been involved with the Design Awards program, but the SIGCHI EC strongly indicated their desire to be tied into the process and award program since it is squarely in our SIG's venue.
There was discussion that perhaps SIGCHI could own these awards going forward and thus take the lead in the effort. As part of this SIGCHI EC would need to draft a proposal for taking on this effort. This could be a separate committee to later be determined by a SIGCHI task force. This committee would help to initially identify the many issues and long-term policies that need to be worked out with respect to this program (e.g., videotaped usage of a system, talking to users, talking to experts, traveling to see the actual system in use that was submitted for award consideration, charging fees for entry, processes and methods used during a design review). Decisions about what to do with the Design Awards program will be followed up by the EC later this weekend.
The ACM staff reviewed their Marketing and Membership efforts as well as shared with us some of their ideas for providing more value to SIGCHI membership.
Lillian Israel told us that ACM had just decided that SIGs can have student chapters. There are no local student SIGs presently; there are only local student chapters of ACM. She also talked about how SIGCHI might work with ACM on a student chapter contest for designing Web pages. This activity could be used as a student promotion vehicle. She also discussed company- sponsored contests (e.g., IBM sponsorship of Web-based contests for 400 students) and how ACM uses these contests to recruit students whereas the sponsor (e.g., IBM) can use the contests to recruit employees.
Laura Adams summarized the current ACM marketing activities that are underway. Key activities for 1997 include the redesign of the ACM Web page, assorted targeted mailings, recruitment of high school students, Digital Library promotions, redesign of the ACM SIG renewal guide, and the development of SIGCHI Welcome and Retention letters. Also under consideration are multi-lingual brochures (individual brochures written in languages other than English).
Lillian Israel then led a discussion regarding ideas for how ACM and SIGCHI might further partner to increase membership. Four key ideas were discussed.
Allison Druin then reviewed the membership task force proposal working document and some of the SIGCHI EC's ideas for increasing membership and for retaining new members more effectively.
From these discussions, the SIGCHI EC and ACM concluded that there needs to be more flow of information between SIGCHI and ACM to ensure that we are well aligned with each other and that we can better coordinate our efforts. Steps for moving forward were discussed and will be further pursued by the SIGCHI Membership Task Force among others.
Fred Aronson, ACM Associate Director General Programs, discussed the goals and strategies for ACM's International Plan.
Currently, ACM has about 20,000 (26%) members outside of the United States. ACM (like SIGCHI) would like to make ACM activities more accessible to both members and non-members outside of the United States. Not only would this increase ACM's visibility and better its image, but also allow for dissemination of more information worldwide and a more global perspective to the information being disseminated.
As part of this discussion we talked about the soft currency issue for groups in economically disadvantaged countries, summer schools in computer science in Poland and Bulgaria, ways to enhance the ACM Lectureship Program, an International Speakers Bureau, and how to better get SIGCHI involved in the new programs being planned.
Other concerns that came up were the need to carefully address and understand our goals in light of other cultures. For example, is the goal to increase the membership of the organization, increase communication and idea sharing amongst members, the desire or ability to support national chapters, how to best match the needs of the local SIGs with their larger, parent organization. It is clear that there is not a single model of operation and organization that will work across all cultures and so we must treat each situation differently.
There was also discussion of how some of these international concerns impact our cooperating society concerns. We do not want to be seen as a catalyst for changing the direction or organizational setup within existing organizations across the various countries and cultures. Instead our goal is to augment the base of HCI knowledge world-wide and to have researchers and practitioners around the world share their ideas. Several examples from organizations and localities around the world were cited during the discussion.
Stu Zweben, ACM's Past President, reviewed the history of the ACM Society issue. He highlighted three key concerns: autonomy, governance, and society naming and leadership. ACM spent much time during the course of 1997 discussing these issues, beginning with a SIG Board retreat in the Spring of 1997 and with the completion of a final report in September 1997, that was presented to the ACM Council in October of 1997. Currently the SIG Board is meeting with three large SIGs (SIGGRAPH, SIGCHI, and SIGPLAN) to get feedback on this latest version of the proposal in preparation for a February ACM Council meeting. They have already met with SIGGRAPH, are meeting now with us today, and soon will meet with SIGPLAN in January to gather their feedback.
Some of the benefits of societies were noted: respect, recognition, visibility beyond what a group can achieve as a SIG. Additionally, some groups might benefit greatly by better attracting leaders, support, members, etc. Beyond the name change from a SIG to a society, other name changes would include changing the name of Chair of a SIG to President of a Society.
The criteria for a SIG to become a society include the following. The SIG needs to be a significant technical leader in the area of education, standards, or government. The SIG needs to administer award programs where members are recognized for excellence, strong history of strong volunteer leadership and membership. The SIG needs to be able to expand beyond its own discipline and help address broader issues that allow ACM to thrive more generally. Such contributions to ACM include financial support as well as volunteer assistance toward the development of new programs.
Societies have other expectations as well. For example, it is expected that societies will "push the envelope" in terms of conferences and publications. Conferences in a society's discipline will need to be solely sponsored by the Society where the exposure and risk to the society is modest (about $100K). There would also need to be no unresolved issues for Technical Meeting Request Form (TMRF)-approved conferences, etc.
As for publications, societies would be allowed to appoint their own editors of their publications and then get approval from the ACM Publications Board (this is opposite of the current process). However, the ACM Publications Board will be the ultimate authority for ACM publications to ensure high quality and uniformity as necessary. There may be other processes that can be streamlined for societies in conjunction with the ACM Publications Board, as well. Also, it was acknowledged that the ACM Publications Board needs to continue to address the ever-changing world of publishing (especially electronic publishing, as well as how publications are reviewed and refereed).
Other recommendations from the report include giving more authority over budget expenditures to society presidents (e.g., travel for society officers and presidents, conference approval, fiduciary approval up to $500K).
In terms of governance, there are some legal concerns that societies must adhere to because of the ACM entity relationship, but there will be changes to give the technical units greater representation, especially on the ACM Council.
At this time there is a draft of constitutional amendments that will be presented to the SIG Chairs in January and that eventually will need to be approved by the general ACM membership this next Spring. In these amendments the following changes will be proposed.
For the Council there would be increased representation for the SIGs and Societies. The sixteen member Council would include President, Vice-President, a merged Secretary/Treasurer position, Past President, seven At-Large Members, the Publications Board Chair, four technical community representatives from the Technical Communities Board (currently known as the SIG Chairs Board). The voting membership of the Council would be increased to five people (the President, Vice-President, Secretary/Treasurer, Past President, and 1 Technical Communities vote). The notion of regional representatives will go away.
Jim Miller has also been working with ACM to help devise a straw proposal of the ACM Bylaws. For the Bylaws, there are a few governance items that are still unresolved, however, the current proposal is to have different voting procedures for the different types of SIGs (e.g., each SIG has one vote generally and for the larger SIGs there would be one additional vote per 1000 members). Votes from the SIGs are important during elections and policy changes. When the changes to the Bylaws are finalized, it would be necessary for the ACM Council to actually amend the Bylaws and then the ACM Executive Committee will need to accordingly modify the Operating Rules.
A few other items were also noted. For societies there will still be an allocation process in order to support the overall operating costs, but the formulas currently in use will need to change and be reviewed periodically (e.g., every 3-5 years) by the Technical Communities Board. Also, the Technical Communities Board, the ACM Council, the Technical Communities' EC and its membership will all need be involved in decisions about when a Technical Community should be sanctioned as a society.
The SIGCHI EC concluded this session by passing, by acclamation, a motion to gratefully acknowledge the hard work and efforts of the committee working on the Society issue. The motion was made by Clare-Marie Karat and seconded by Dan Olsen.
Wayne Graves, Director of MIS, is working on getting permission from ACM members to list them in a larger membership directory. As part of this effort, he will work with the SIGCHI Bulletin Editor to include an announcement of the same. There are many possibilities for the type of data to collect and to tie into the database for professional fields and areas of interest. Currently the Membership team is working on a straw proposal. The plan is to include only those that register to be in the directory, not to include everyone. The SIGCHI EC noted that they would like to see everyone included and that people would only not be included if the opted not to (e.g., via a checkbox on the membership renewal form).
Mike Atwood reviewed the remainder of this weekend's meeting agenda. In addition, he reviewed the three key goals of the SIGCHI EC.
The SIGCHI EC's three goals are:
John De Lorenzo, Director of SIG Financial Services, along with Jean Scholtz, reviewed the ACM Budget records and categories. John overviewed SIGCHI's trends and pointed out some items that the EC should consider further. In the materials provided to the EC were some placeholder numbers for Fiscal Year 1999. The main purpose of the meeting this weekend is to finalize the FY99 Budget. The finalized SIGCHI FY99 Budget and key discussion items follows next.
The SIGCHI EC began the FY99 budget process with a discussion as to whether to spend down the fund balance (the surplus that results from our conferences) to get down to the minimal Fund Requirements established by ACM. Various proposals were discussed regarding how to best spend the fund balance down without taking enormous risk as always associated with large conferences or our anticipated transition to societal status. As a result of this discussion SIGCHI ended up with the following final FY99 budget. This budget reduces the surplus total and leaves us with a FY99 surplus total of ($118.7K).
The committee arrived at the final budget as detailed in table 0.
Total Revenue for FY99 = $440K
Our core revenue for FY 99 will be $275K. We do have other revenue from interest income and anticipated conference surpluses as well.
For the core revenue for FY99, there will be a small increase over 1998 that will result from a slight increase in the following items.
The total budgeted revenue for FY99 is $440K. This total comes from table 1.
| (1.A) Member Dues | $124K |
| (1.B) Member + Package | $65K |
| (1.C) Publications | $48K |
| (1.D) All Other Income | $8K |
| (1.E) Interest Income | $30K |
| (1.F) Conferences | $165K |
| Total | $440K |
Total Professional Services Budget for FY99 = ($122K)
The total budgeted expenses for FY99 for professional services is $122K. This total comes from table 2.
| (2.A) Conference Managers | $75K |
| (2.B) Process Advisor | $12K |
| (2.C) Conference Trainer | $ 6K |
| (2.D) Site Visits | $ 9K |
| (2.E) Web Design | $20K |
| (2.F) Other from the CMC | $ 0K 1 |
| Total | $122K |
The subcategory of Professional Services named "Other from the CMC" is traditionally used for costs related to the CHI conferences. For example, for the FY1998 there was a $25K allotment ($12K for CHIKids volunteers who give their time at CHI and $13K for Domain Activities -- all for CHI98). (Note: there is also another $40K-$50K that is required for CHIkids, which typically comes from in-kind donations. While CHIkids is considered to be a core part of the CHI conference, as opposed to the Domain Activities which is a CHI98 innovation, the "Other from the CMC" category needs to be revisited.) Thus, this amount for FY99 is unknown at this point and hence marked as $0K for these items.
During discussion of the CMC budget request, the EC moved into executive session for a discussion of the roles and responsibilities of our conference support groups. It was decided that the CMC will review its charter with past and current CHI conference chairs and that this charter will address the final budget needs. The initial budget request was fully allocated, with a portion allocated to current activities and a portion held in reserve pending the charter review.
Also, updated in this category was the Web Design budget. In previous years this value was only $5K. For the FY99 the amount budgeted is $20K. This is one key area that the SIGCHI team felt would be a good investment of additional resources ($$$). As we better understand our needs and can get some reasonable cost estimate bids in the future we will be better able to predict this value in subsequent years. One possible, long-term strategy is to hire someone full-time as part of the ACM staff.
Total Travel and Meetings Budget for FY99 = ($96K)
We will continue to have three SIGCHI EC face-to-face meetings each year. One of these meetings (the spring meeting) will be held in conjunction with the CHI conference with no associated travel expenses reimbursed. The summer meeting will be held in New York City on odd years to coincide with the ACM New Officer Orientation and to meet with ACM staff. The third (winter) meeting will vary in where it is held, but the meeting will be used for budget review and approval. The EC will make a concerted effort to meet with Local SIGs whenever possible. The number of people attending these meetings will remain at about 15 people. These 15 people include the elected SIGCHI officers and some of SIGCHI's adjunct chairs and the advisory board members.
The location and dates of the Winter 1998 meeting need to be finalized. The Summer 1998 meeting will be held in Rome, Italy with the Italian Local SIG.
The total budgeted expenses for FY99 for travel and meetings is $96K. This total comes from table 3.
| (3.A) EC | $45K |
| (3.B) CMC | $33K1 |
| (3.C) All Other | $18K |
| Total | $96K |
Again, if there are any changes for the CMC budget based on the proposal to be prepared by the CMC then this number may be different.
Total Special Projects Budget for FY99 = ($129.3K)
The SIGCHI Committee submitted proposals for these special projects for consideration during the final review process. A summary of these proposals is given after this Budget section.
The total budgeted expenses for FY99 for special projects is $129.3K. This total comes from table 4.
Total Other ACM and Publications Expenses for FY99 = ($211.4K)
The total budgeted expenses for FY99 other ACM- and publications-related costs. This total comes from table 5.
Total Surplus for FY99 = ($118.7K)
The overall SIGCHI EC budget, when regrouped by category is in table 6. First the name of the category is listed, then the total amount allocated to that category (in both dollar amount and overall percentage), and then next to each category or item are the SIGCHI EC people responsible for the spending in that category -- AKA the category champions.
| (5.A) ACM Allocations | $79K |
| (5.B) All Other ACM Expenses | $11K |
| (5.C) Publications | $121.4K |
| Total | $211.4K |
| (N.1) Conference Membership Survey | $ 8K |
| (N.2) Conference Managers | $75K |
| (N.3) Process Advisor | $12K (This is a $20K reduction) |
| (N.4) Conference Trainer | $ 6K |
| (N.5) CMC Travel and Meetings | $33K |
| (N.6) CHIKids | $ 0K |
| (N.7) Domain Activities | $ 0K |
| (N.8)Site Visits | $ 9K |
| (N.9)Conference Experiments (e.g., Video Papers) | $0K |
As part of the final discussion about the budget, the EC talked about the budget in light of our potential Society status. The EC reviewed the key items necessary to be a Society: significant technical leaders with an emphasis on education, standards, or government; recognized awards for excellence, a strong history of strong volunteer leadership and membership. The EC thought it important that we be able to tell a story as to how the above budget items, our conference programs, and development fund proposals funded to date make us good candidates for societal status. The EC will put together to meet this goal and clearly indicate the risks and rewards as necessary.
| (A) Total Revenue for FY99 | $440K |
| (B) Total Expenses for FY99 | ($558.7K) |
| Grand Total for FY99 | ($118.7K) |
The SIGCHI EC voted to approve the final FY99 Budget. The motion was made by Dan Olsen and seconded by Gerrit van der Veer. The motion passed 8-0-0.
Below is a list of the special projects put forth for consideration by the ACM SIGCHI EC. Underneath each project is the final funding amount for the FY99 Budget.
Submitted By: Allison Druin and Jean Scholtz
Program Champions: Allison Druin, Jean Scholtz
Proposed Budget: $4,400
Short Description: A membership retention program aimed at first year members by helping new members feel better connected to the SIGCHI community quickly.
Amount Funded for FY99: $1.5K
Submitted By: Allison Druin
Program Champions: Allison Druin and Rosemary Wick Stevens
Proposed Budget: $3,500
Short Description: A task force to better address Domain Issues in HCI and to better involve SIGCHI members in targeted working groups.
Amount Funded for FY99: $3.5K
Submitted By: Allison Druin
Program Champions: Bob Mack
Proposed Budget: $3,500
Short Description: A task force to better address Industry Issues in HCI and to better involve SIGCHI members from industry.
Amount Funded for FY99: $0K
Submitted by: Allison Druin
Program Champions: Cathleen Wharton and Rosemary Wick Stevens
Proposed Budget: $3,500
Short Description: A task force to better address General Membership Issues by reaching out to SIGCHI's diverse community and supporting an active general membership.
Amount Funded for FY99: $3.5K
Submitted By: Allison Druin
Program Champions: Jean Scholtz
Proposed Budget: $3,500
Short Description: A task force to better address Government Agency Issues in HCI and to better involve SIGCHI members from governmental agencies.
Amount Funded for FY99: $0K
Submitted By: Rosemary Wick Stevens
Program Champions: Rosemary Wick Stevens, Mike Atwood, Cathleen Wharton
Proposed Budget: $15,000
Short Description: Continuous research concerning both SIGCHI members' and non-members' likes, dislikes, desires, and needs of SIGCHI.
Amount Funded for FY99: $0K
Submitted By: Rosemary Wick Stevens
Program Champions: Rosemary Wick Stevens, Mike Atwood, Jim Miller
Proposed Budget: $1,200-$4,500
Short Description: Obtain a readily recognizable, appealing graphical identity for SIGCHI.
Amount Funded for FY99: $4.5K
Submitted By: Rosemary Wick Stevens
Program Champions: Rosemary Wick Stevens, Mike Atwood
Proposed Budget: $12,000
Short Description: Interest new audiences in SIGCHI; new individuals become members; raise overall visibility of SIGCHI.
Amount Funded for FY99: $0K
Submitted By: Allison Druin, Jenny Preece, Lisa Neal
Program Champions: Jenny Preece, Lisa Neal, Allison Druin
Proposed Budget: $1,200
Short Description: Development of a new HCI symposium that looks at the design of new technologies for education.
Amount Funded for FY99: $1.2K
Submitted By: Jean Scholtz, Keith Butler
Program Champion: Jean Scholtz
Proposed Budget: $5,500
Short Description: Define a statement of direction to request vendors to report results from usability testing as part of the information on (particularly) commercial off-the-shelf end-user software products.
Amount Funded for FY99: See the section on Development Fund Proposals Later in these notes.
Submitted By: Guy Boy
Program Champion: Guy Boy
Proposed Budget: $7,100
Short Description: To form a permanent committee comprised of SIGCHI members worldwide to advise the SIGCHI EC on international issues related to HCI.
Amount Funded for FY99: $7.1K
Submitted By: Marian Williams
Program Champion: Marian Williams
Proposed Budget: $75,000
Short Description: To enhance the CHI 98 reviewer database developed by Lotus/IBM to make it of use for CHI 99 and later conferences.
Amount Funded for FY99: $0K-deferred
Submitted By: Cathleen Wharton
Program Champion: Cathleen Wharton
Proposed Budget: $4,100 +
Short Description: To upgrade the existing technology provided by ACM SIGCHI for use by the Vice-Chair of Communications. Amount Funded for FY99: $0K -- there was actually a Technology Upgrade budget in the FY98 budget, so this item will be funded under FY98 instead.
Amount funded $4.1K +.
Submitted By: Tom Hewett
Program Champion: Bob Mack for Tom Hewett
Proposed Budget: $1,000
Short Description: To provide continuing education opportunities to local organizations and small HCI-related conferences around the world using an offering of one or more days of tutorials which have a proven track record.
Amount Funded for FY99: $1K
Submitted By: Richard Anderson
Program Champion: Richard Anderson
Proposed Budget: $18,000 + an unestimated amount
Short Description: To increase the visibility of Local SIGs, provide HCI materials, guidance, other mechanisms of support, and funds as necessary to facilitate the start-up, restart, or expansion of Local SIGs.
Amount Funded for FY99: $12K
There was one Development Fund Proposal under consideration. This proposal was not accepted and funded as it is currently defined because it involves primarily (or only) consultants. This proposal will need to be modified and resubmitted for further consideration.
Mike Atwood summarized which positions currently are part of the SIGCHI EC and which are part of the SIGCHI EEC (the SIGCHI Extended Executive Committee).
The SIGCHI EC consists our elected officers, the advisory board (which is comprised of three members), the SIGCHI Bulletin editor, and invited adjunct chairs.
The SIGCHI EEC consists of the SIGCHI EC and all other adjunct chairs.
Our SIGCHI E-mail listserves should also reflect this structure.
Gerrit gave an update regarding the various SIGCHI sponsored conferences. First he gave a quick update on CHI 98 and noted that all planning is on track and that things are going well. He noted in particular that the CHI 98 Reviewer Database worked Well and that the collection of reviewers was fairly international, With about 40% from non-North American countries. (An update about the CHI 98 Plenary Speakers is also given later in these minutes.)
CHI 99 planning is also now underway. Currently they are working on the selection of their committee members and their budget. CHI 99 will be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Pittsburgh was voted as the most livable city in the United States circa 1984. The CHI 99 team is also finalizing their new video policy.
Future sites for the CHI conference after CHI 99 have also been selected or are currently being evaluated. CHI 2000 will be held April 1-6 in The Hague, in the Netherlands. One reason that The Hague was selected was for its international interactions and business.
CHI 2001-2003 will be held in locations to be decided during in the next calendar year. CHI 2001 will be held on the West Coast. CHI 2002 will be held in the central United States or Canada. CHI 2003 will be held on the East Coast or Canada.
As for CHI 2004, there is the possibility that it will be held in Asia, perhaps on the Pacific Rim.
Gerrit also gave the SIGCHI EC an update on some of the smaller conferences that SIGCHI either sponsors or co-sponsors. A list of these conferences and SIGCHI's sponsorship status follows.
SIGCHI has "Sponsorship" or "Co-Sponsorship" status for the following conferences.
SIGCHI has an "In Cooperation" status for the following conferences.
Clare-Marie updated the SIGCHI EC with the names for the five plenary speakers for CHI 98. These plenary speakers follow.
CHI 98 will feature the standard opening and closing plenary speakers.
Additionally, to better inform the CHI 98 attendees about each of the Domains, domain-oriented plenaries will be given over the lunch hour (1230-1400) each day of the conference. These speakers follow.
Bob Mack is looking at the roles that SIGCHI Volunteers and SIGCHI Contractors can play when working on the SIGCHI Web Site and when providing conference support. Bob is discussing these concerns with Keith Instone, our current contractor, to understand how we might best support SIGCHI's needs going forward.
Mike Atwood is seeking nominations from the SIGCHI EC for people who should be acknowledged for their contributions to the SIGCHI community through SIGCHI Awards to be presented at CHI 98. Typically, SIGCHI Awards are given for service, but other Ad Hoc Awards are possible.
Jim Miller also brought up the notion of establishing SIGCHI Fellows Awards and how we should also make sure that we are nominating HCI people for ACM Awards. These suggestions will also further discussed by the much needed Awards Committee to determine how we best should handle all SIGCHI-relevant awards (i.e., the Design Awards, as well as those noted above) going forward.
David Riederman, in conjunction with ACM has been working on some new Welcome and Membership Retention letters. The SIGCHI EC was given drafts of these letters for their review and feedback.
SIGCHI is required to have a mission statement for ACM. We have agreed by acclamation to adopt our scope statement shown on the inside cover of the Bulletin as our mission statement at this time. Thus, the SIGCHI mission statement will read: "The scope of Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) is the study of human factors in the human-computer interaction process, including research, design, development, and evaluation of interactive computing systems. The focus is on human communication and interaction with computer systems. SIGCHI provides a forum for the exchange of ideas among computer scientists, behavioral and cognitive scientists, system designers, and end users, and it serves as a clearing house of information for the field of human factors and user psychology research and development."
Cathleen Wharton read back all SIGCHI EC voting records recorded since the last face-to-face meeting of the EC (at the beginning of August, 1997). The SIGCHI EC then acknowledged by a vote of 8-0-0 that all voting records were accurate. This affirmation of voting records occurs at each face-to-face meeting of the SIGCHI EC.
Clare-Marie Karat and Mike Atwood gave us an update regarding the planned CHI 98 Activities. Some of these key activities follow.
SIGCHI and ACM are looking into ways to best reduce fees for economically disadvantaged countries. Currently, ACM provides a discount where the fees for a full member are $50 for a group of five people with 5 votes, 5 discounts to conferences, and 1 set of publications. Additional people are $10/person, but the group can have at most 9 people in it at a maximum. It was noted that there is no financial impact to SIGCHI if we allow 5 people to pay this same fee with only 1 set of publications.
Following this discussion, a motion was made by John Karat, and seconded by Gerrit van der Veer, to have SIGCHI participate in ACM's designated group membership program at our standard SIGCHI membership rate. The vote passed 7-0-0. John Karat will contact Fred Aronson to have SIGCHI incorporated into this program.
It was also decided that SIGCHI will lobby ACM to broaden their list of countries that they consider to be economically disadvantaged. Currently, China, India, and countries in Eastern & Central Europe are considered under this program.
Other reasons for reducing the fees were also discussed (e.g., retired or unemployed people). David Riederman will use his expertise to investigate how other associations handle similar situations and at a future business meeting we will discuss this topic further.
The SIGCHI EC discussed whether it might be possible to reduce fees for Local SIGs. The EC discussed the benefits of joining Local SIGs beyond the benefits of belonging to SIGCHI generally. For example, BayCHI was cited for its excellent speaker series and networking opportunities. Also, Local SIGs located in other countries may benefit from sharing a common (non-English) language.
The EC also discussed the Local SIG policy for ACM and SIGCHI. To be in an ACM Local SIG one must be an ACM member, however, this same policy does not hold for SIGCHI: Local SIG members do not need to be a member of the larger SIGCHI or ACM organizations. The SIGCHI EC will continue to discuss whether reduced fees for Local SIGs might be appropriate for both SIGCHI and ACM.
Guy Boy reviewed his final report on the International Task Force. He noted that "language" was one of the key items discussed frequently throughout the year as were the costs of HCI materials and memberships. Other key items that came up were the creation of a CHI-intercultural listserve and the idea to broaden current HCI summer schools to other areas so as to facilitate the mobility of researchers to visit other locations.
The primary recommendation of the task force was to form an International SIGCHI Committee as he has proposed to the SIGCHI EC this weekend in his budget proposal. John Karat has agreed that he will share this report with IFIP as well. Guy will continue to edit this report (it is a penultimate draft now) and then send it to Steven for publication in the ACM SIGCHI Bulletin.
Guy also noted that David Novick contributed significantly to the Task Force effort.
Local SIGs are growing at a rapid pace. In fact, another chapter was just chartered "SwissCHI" -- the name for the Local Switzerland SIG. Richard reminded everyone to refer to the listing of all Local SIGs published in the SIGCHI Bulletin and on the SIGCHI Web Site. The Local SIGs Web Page is most up to date because of this rapid growth and currently there are about 30 Local SIGs. It was also noted that technically our Local SIGs are also ACM Local SIGs.
Interest in local activities is increasing rapidly, with a corresponding increase in the number of chartered and prospective SIGCHI Local SIGs. Local SIGs have already provided important programs and services and opportunities to thousands of people. Yet, the relationship between Local SIGs and SIGCHI is not a close one. Richard reported on some of his efforts to provide greater support to Local SIGs, and he will expand on this and on possible ways to bring Local SIGs and SIGCHI closer together -- to the benefit of both -- at the Summer 98 meeting in Rome. Plus, he and Maria Francesca Costabile (SIGCHI Italy Chair) will be planning the get-together of the SIGCHI EC and SIGCHI Italy -- the first of what will hopefully be a series of substantive get-togethers with Local SIGs.
Jim Miller discussed the benefits of being a cooperating society (ACM SIGCHI to other organizations and vice-versa) and how we might better make use of these opportunities and synergies. He also noted some of the various types of bi-directional (not asymmetric) relationships that we might pursue to make such cooperating society agreements to bring more value to both societies. That is, by becoming cooperating societies, we should have increased influence and not decreased influence. For example, we should be able to go beyond paying the members-only fees as conferences sponsored by societies, and instead be able to better share mailing lists and form other strategic partnerships. Jim, with significant contributions from Michael Tauber, has also put together a draft memo of a model for SIGCHI as a cooperating society. Jim will next present this draft report to the CMC for discussion and then bring it back to the EC for further consideration.
John Karat reviewed the status of his discussions with ACM regarding the creation of a membership directory. This directory is akin to the one put out by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, but is an online version of the same. There is still discussion about how this directory might be designed to best support the membership, especially as to what it might include about each member that is public information or be considered information to members only. John will continue to update the SIGCHI EC regarding current ACM plans and how SIGCHI might best tie into this effort. There was discussion about how SIGCHI might also tie into some of the Local SIGs' membership directories, e.g., BuckCHI. This may also be an issue for the Membership Task Force to pursue at some later point.
The SIGCHI EC discussed how we might merge the two separate publications of the SIGCHI Bulletin and interactions magazine into a single publication. This would be highly desirable if we become an ACM Society.
Assuming such a transition then we would need to identify who might be interested in working on the Bulletin, even if it is only for a limited time (during the transition period). We would also need to determine what transition path would be available for the Bulletin editor. We may also want to consider using paid editors for a temporary solution. Of course, this would mean that a budget would need to be used for the same. We will discuss this issue more as we better understand the possible merger and the "Society" issue.
Steven also updated the SIGCHI EC regarding the two year experiment with putting the SIGCHI Bulletin online. The last issue for the experiment went online with the October, 1997 edition. As a reminder, the most current issue is available to members only and not to non-SIGCHI members. As of this date, we don't have the necessary Web usage statistics to determine the final usage analysis. Steven will product a written report of this experiment for the ACM Publications Board and include any statistics that he has.
The SIGCHI EC also voted on a motion to make the online version of the SIGCHI Bulletin a permanent part of the SIGCHI Web Site in addition to continuing on with the paper-based version. This motion was made by Allison Druin and seconded by Gerrit van der Veer. The motion passed 7-0-0. The SIGCHI EC also agreed to continue to make the latest issue available only to current SIGCHI members.
On a related point, Steven noted that since many (non-US) readers receive their Bulletins up to a month after the publication date, he would like to propose naming the Bulletin editions by number (1, 2, 3, 4) instead of by Month (January, April, July, October). Steven will work with the Publication Board on this name change.
Also, a motion was made by Allison Druin and seconded by Jim Miller to thank Steven Pemberton for his excellent work and continued contributions to the SIGCHI Bulletin. The motion was accepted by the SIGCHI EC by acclamation.
The SIGCHI EC discussed how to best proceed with the new SIGCHI Task Forces. It was noted that although the funds being sought for these task forces officially fall into the 1999 budget cycle, if we should require funds prior to that time, we might be able to use some of the SIGCHI discretionary funds in the interim. Any task forces requiring such funds should contact Mike Atwood as necessary.
On a related point, the suggestion was made that over the course of the next year we should put our task force budgets and any new proposals online (on an internal SIGCHI EC Web Site) so that we can better track funding, combine similar proposal ideas and budget items, etc. This issue will be discussed further in later SIGCHI meetings and be added to a list of items for a SIGCHI Web Site wish list.
Steven Pemberton reported that ACM will not be establishing mirror sites, due to problems with licensing and replicating the live database. Instead they are investigating other techniques for improving connections, including dedicated links with other countries.
Steven also noted that we are proceeding with the server in Russia and that we will do multiple language versions of the SIGCHI site. As of this date, the necessary details have been worked out with the ACM organization, however, the next step of language translation must now be done. This translation will be accomplished by redirecting the user according to selected language choice, and through the use of volunteer translators. These volunteer translators will get e-mail re any updates so that they can accordingly update the relevant materials into their native language. Volunteers have yet to be identified and the first step will be to translate the top-level main page.
The SIGCHI EC discussed the remaining upcoming, face-to-face meetings that will occur between now and the end of the current officer's term of office. The purpose, location, and dates for these meetings were identified as below.
Spring 1998: Los Angeles, California, USA; immediately after the CHI 98 Conference. The meeting will only be a two day meeting (instead of the normal three days) and will occur on Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25. The Saturday meeting will end at approximately 3:00PM. Additionally, we will meet on Wednesday night, at the conference.
Summer 1998: Rome, Italy; Friday, July 31-Sunday, August 2. Approximate begin time is 9:00 AM Friday with an approximate 3:00 PM end time on Sunday.
Winter 1998: In the United States; Meeting will tentatively be held on one of the weekends of November 13-15, November 20-22, or December 11-13, with the preferred dates in the same order as noted. If we would like to meet with a Local SIG for this meeting, then this SIG needs to be identified. David will look into appropriate locations for this meeting and get back with the SIGCHI EC as appropriate.
Spring 1999: To be held in conjunction with CHI 99, May 15-20, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Summer 1999: Handoff meeting with the newly elected SIGCHI EC with the newly elected SIGCHI EC at ACM Headquarters.
The next meeting of the SIGCHI EC will be a teleconference call on January 26, 1998 1:30PM EST, 17:30 UTC.
Chair (non-voting), Mike Atwood
Past Chair, Jim Miller
Executive Vice-chair, Guy Boy
Vice-chair for Operations, Bob Mack
Vice-chair for Finance, Jean Scholtz
Vice-chair for Conferences, Gerrit van der Veer
Vice-chair for Publications, Dan Olsen, Jr.
Vice-chair for Communications, Cathleen Wharton (minutes)
Advisory Board (1 vote) John Karat
SIGCHI Bulletin Editor-in-Chief, Steven Pemberton
ACM SIGCHI Program Director, David Riederman
SIGCHI Adjunct-chair for Public Relations, Rosemary Wick Stevens
SIGCHI Information Director, Keith Instone
(These minutes were created on February 12, 1998, and approved by a vote of 7-0-1 on March 2, 1998.)
Steven Pemberton is now the official Editor and Chief of ACM's Interactions magazine. This appointment became effective January 1, 1998.
We are starting a new review process for the SIGCHI team's minutes. The minutes will be distributed to the SIGCHI team shortly after the meeting with a specified review period for comments by the SIGCHI team. After the review period has passed then these comments will be incorporated into the minutes and the official vote on the minutes will then take place on the final version of the minutes. No votes will be taken on earlier versions of the minutes.
We are starting a new reporting process for the budget. Each month, Jean will give a monthly report on the budget to the SIGCHI EC. This monthly budget will include the date of the official budget report from ACM, our actual and budgeted incomes, and our actual and budgeted expenses. If there are any concerns, these, too, will be pointed out and further discussed.
Today's budget report is for the month ending November, 1997.
| Actual | Full Year | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 1,867,000 | 2,262,000 |
| Expenses | 1,697,000 | 2,401,000 |
As of this date, no budget categories are in trouble. However, one item that we still need to better understand for our upcoming 1999 budget is the amount needed for our Standards efforts. Mike Atwood will work on finalizing this item.
Bob Mack is working on the job description for the position of Information Director. The SIGCHI EC discussed the description along with some slight rewordings and a few additions. These changes will be made to enhance the current job description. Additionally, there was discussion regarding how to best advertise for this position to secure the best candidate. Bob will work with David Riederman regarding position advertisement.
Our current Information Director, Keith Instone, only has a couple of more months left on his contract. (His contract runs out at the end of March.) However, it is clear that we will continue to need help with CHI 98 after his contract ends, and additionally, CHI 99 will soon need help with their conference work as well.
As our bridge plan, until we can hire a new replacement for Keith, we have asked Keith to continue his work with CHI 98 through the end of June. Keith has graciously agreed to continue with this effort for this extended time period.
The SIGCHI EC also discussed the best way to support CHI 99 in parallel. Several options were presented. For example, Keith could work on both conferences, we could bring in the new Information Director immediately, or we could bring in other resources to assist with CHI 99 needs. These options will be discussed and considered more offline to reach the best support resolution possible. Funding concerns were not discussed at this time.
Bob is working on replacing the current SIGCHI volunteer page with a new one. This new page will be designed to incorporate the additional volunteer opportunities that have been identified over the past few months and that are associated with our new subcommittees. Bob will work on adding these opportunities and then ask for another review of this Web page by the EC. Once approved, this Web page will then be made live on the SIGCHI Web site.
Bob has posed the following questions to the SIGCHI EC: Should we have both a Contract Information Director as well as a Volunteer Information Director position? And, if so, what role should volunteers play? What role should contractors play? Further, how should the reporting structure be set up?
The SIGCHI EC discussed what qualifications are required for such a volunteer, e.g., understanding the SIGCHI membership and related opportunities. Bob Mack will continue to work on this item and in particular will draft a job description to better empower the Information Directors and the EC to best do their jobs.
The SIGCHI community supports many separate e-mail listserves. Occasionally Gary Perlman, our E-mail Listserve Manager, receives notes from volunteers offering to manage our various mailing lists. To better understand if we need these mailing lists managers it is important that we determine what it means to manage a mailing list. Bob Mack will put together a list of criteria and guidelines that specify the responsibilities and qualifications of a listserve manager. We will then discuss this at a future SIGCHI EC meeting.
Tom Hewitt would like the EC to discuss policy issues regarding his proposal. There are still many details that need to be discussed and worked out regarding the Tutorials to Go program, particularly regarding how tutorials are identified, selected, and funded. This will be a longer discussion topic at the face-to-face CHI 98 meeting.
Jim Miller and Mike Atwood recently attended a special ACM SIG Chairs meeting. At this meeting the proposed changes to the ACM Constitution and Bylaws were discussed in great detail. Of particular interest were the proposed changes as they relate to the technical groups. ACM is now moving forward with the proposed changes. The next step is to have the proposed changes be ratified by the ACM Council. Once this step happens, then we should see a vote on the ACM Constitution go out to the larger membership in the late Spring, early Summer timeframe. As more details are known, Jim and Mike will share them.
The Conference Management Committee in conjunction with the CHI 98 Committee would like to sponsor an additional Conference Attendee Survey to gather salary and other information not normally gathered at CHI. There has been a proposal to do this as on online survey, instead of a paper-based survey, but to do it in conjunction with the traditional survey. Someone is already working on this survey. To support this effort would require the rental of computers at a total cost of $1000-$2000 for the duration of the conference.
The SIGCHI EC discussed the pros and cons of this proposal. The discussion revolved around how to best maintain the integrity of the data, the actual number of machines needed, how to ensure that the line for accessing the machines would be minimal, how to guarantee a response, and how to ensure that attendees will continue to fill out the current survey. The EC felt that valuable data could be obtained, like the data for the Taulbee survey, but wanted to ensure that enough responses would be generated.
After much discussion, the EC decided that the survey would not be conducted using computers, but instead be part of the paper-based survey that is handed out in the registration bags and returned in the "Q" boxes during the conference along with the other surveys. The standard survey would allow for people to put their name atop it and the extra survey would allow for people to submit their surveys anonymously. To help attendees realize that there are two separate surveys, each will be on a different piece of paper and in different colors. These processes will also help the surveys to be easily separable.
Mike noted that Richard Anderson and Barbee Teasley will be the champions for the Information Kits project for the Fiscal Year 1999. More about their plans for the same will be reported during the next meeting.
Steven Pemberton presented a proposal for a videoconferencing trial for the SIGCHI EC. He is interested in looking at how videoconferencing would enhance our regular SIGCHI EC meetings since past CHI conference committees have found videoconferencing to be of added benefit to them. For his experiment, Steven would like to trial videoconferencing with three people from three different countries on three different platforms. He estimates the cost to be a little over $300 for each person, for a total trial cost of $1000. If the trial were to be successful, then the SIGCHI EC could discuss how they could use these technologies on an ongoing basis.
Some pros and cons of these technologies were discussed, e.g., latency associated with the audio channel, visual face-to-face feedback, constraints of the technology, how to best tie in those who are mobile workers and would only have access to a standard telephone for a given call. Steven will now write up a more detailed experimental design and detail the needed technologies and costs for further consideration by the committee.
Steven Pemberton and Richard Anderson are working on how to best translate the SICCHI Web Site into various languages. There have been many e-mail messages discussing how to support this effort and the excitement around the world from SIGCHI s international contingent to do the same. At this point in time this effort is moving forward and now they are looking more into tools that will assist with automating the process and registering the changes. As they continue their work with numerous Local SIGs they will report back their progress.
The next SIGCHI EC telephone conference call will be on Monday, February 23, 1998 at 13:30 PM EST, 17:30 UTC.
The next SIGCHI EC face-to-face meeting will be at the CHI 98 Conference. We will meet Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25. The Saturday meeting will end at approximately 3:00PM. Additionally, we will meet on Wednesday night, at the conference.
The dates have been finalized for the Summer 1998 face-to-face SIGCHI meeting in Rome, Italy. This meeting will be held from Friday, July 31-Sunday, August 2, 1998. EC members should plan on arriving the evening of Thursday, July 30 and departing after 3:00 PM after Sunday, August 2.
Past Chair, Jim Miller
Executive Vice-chair, Guy Boy
Vice-chair for Operations, Bob Mack
Vice-chair for Finance, Jean Scholtz
Vice-chair for Conferences, Gerrit van der Veer
Vice-chair for Publications, Dan Olsen, Jr.
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
SIGCHI Adjunct-chair for Public Relations, Rosemary Wick Stevens
SIGCHI Information Director, Keith Instone
(These minutes were created on March 14, 1997, and approved by a vote of 8-0-0 on 13 April 1998.)
The meeting was called to order and led by Guy Boy, SIGCHI Executive Vice-chair.
Cathleen noted that the January minutes have been sent out to the team for a final vote. Also, the revisions to the December minutes will be sent out for a second review and final vote.
In terms of voting on the monthly minutes, the SIGCHI EC discussed how we should count Advisory Board votes and abstain votes. For those who are not at a given meeting it was noted that they should submit a vote of abstain for their approval of the minutes. For the Advisory Board, each of the three members will receive a 1/3 vote and if multiple abstain votes are received from the Advisory Board, then the entire vote of the Advisory Board will be counted as Abstain.
Jean gave her monthly SIGCHI budget report. The budget as of January 1, 1998 is as follows.
| Actual | Full Year | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 1,889,000 | 2,262,000 |
| Expenses | 1,730,000 | 2,401,310 |
| Categories | Actual | Allocated |
|---|---|---|
| EC | 33,000 | |
| CMC | 70,000 | 133,000 |
| Bulletin | 19,000 | |
| CHI+ | 9,000 | |
| International | 1,125 | |
| Discretionary | 1,300 | 30,000 |
| Development Fund | 2,990 |
| No activity | Actual | Allocated |
|---|---|---|
| Education | 20,000 | |
| Standards | 7,500 | |
| Membership | 36,000 |
The SIGCHI EC discussed those budgetary items that have had no activity. It was noted that the CHI Standards budget is being reserved for CHI 98 and will be used during that venue. The CHI Membership budget is being used for assorted items. Part of the budget has already been designated for the special letters for new SIGCHI members that David Riederman is working on. At this time it is unclear what the CHI Education budget item is for. Jean will check into this and report back to the SIGCHI EC.
The amount needed for standards for FY1999 is still unknown. Jean will follow-up with Mike Atwood and Harry Blanchard and report back to the SIGCHI EC.
Gerrit reviewed the e-mail that he sent to the SIGCHI EC containing the CMC's nominations for the CHI 2000 Co-chairs. The e-mail included an introduction of the two candidates as well as the candidate's initial thoughts on the CHI 2000 conference. The two candidates are Thea Turner and Gerd Szwillus, both of who have extensive experience with CHI and are well known by their colleagues. A motion was made by John Karat and seconded by Dan Olsen to accept the CMC Nominees as the CHI 2000 Chairs. The motion passed on a vote of 7-0-1. The next stage of this process will be for the Committee to further review and provide feedback to the Co-chairs ideas about the CHI 2000 conference.
The CMC has proposed that Seattle be the location for CHI 2001. A motion was made by Dan Olsen and seconded by Bob Mack to accept Seattle as the site for CHI 2001. The vote passed 8-0-0. David Riederman will follow-up with necessary people (e.g., Paul Henning of Conference Logistics) regarding this decision.
The CMC is currently revising its charter. The next steps for this process have been identified and include the establishment of a uniform CMC policy for all SIGCHI-sponsored conferences. Gerrit will continue to keep the SIGCHI EC apprised of the CMC's progress on this item.
Gerrit noted that there has been a desire by the members of the CMC to continue with the CHI Mentoring Program for CHI 99. The CHI Mentoring program began as a trial with CHI 96 and then continued with CHI 97 and CHI 98. The CMC would like to make the CHI Mentoring Program a recommended part of the CHI conference program for CHI 99, and then a permanent part of the CHI conference beginning with CHI 2000. As such, the CMC would like to ask for the SIGCHI EC to adopt the following proposal: "- mentoring is a service for submitters who feel new to the CHI standards, and is available for those who request so, coordinated by the Conference co-chairs, who may delegate this task to one or two members of their committee. Mentoring is available for all categories of submissions to the technical program of the conference -- this policy is implemented as from CHI 2000. CHI 99 conference chairs are strongly encouraged to include mentoring in their program."
The SIGCHI EC discussed the pros and cons of making the Mentoring Program an official, required part of the CHI conference. That is, they discussed whether they should transition the Mentoring Program into a Mentoring Policy. Although the discussion of the Mentoring Program was positive, the SIGCHI EC concluded that at this time it was not necessary to mandate this item for future CHI conferences. Additionally, the SIGCHI EC wanted to gather more information about the success and value of this program over time and then discuss it more at a later time.
Allison, the founder of CHIkids, is interested in seeing CHIkids as a permanent part of the CHI conferences. Like the mentoring program we have agreed to continue to have CHIkids as a CHI conference program, but more discussion about how we do this still needs to happen. Gerrit, on behalf of the CMC, is continuing his work on a proposal about how CHIkids should best be funded going forward. In the past, CHIkids has primarily been funded through the generous donations of sponsoring companies.
Rosemary is interested in having an award for Doug Engelbart at CHI 98. The SIGCHI EC also supports this idea and in discussing the possibility of this award noted three key items that need to be voted on and discussed more.
The first is whether the SIGCHI EC would like to give the ACM SIGCHI Award for Innovation to Doug Engelbart at CHI 98? To do this requires ACM SIG Board approval only. A motion was made by Gerrit van der Veer and seconded by Dan Olsen to do just this. The SIGCHI EC passed this motion 8-0-0.
The second concern brought up during this discussion was whether we should create on ongoing SIGCHI Award for Innovation? The SIGCHI EC decided to wait on this issue and discuss it further at the summer EC meeting.
The third item that came out of this discussion was whether we should name the award after Doug Engelbart? Making this a formal, "named" award requires the ACM SIG Board Awards Council, and ACM Council approval. Again, the SIGCHI EC decided to wait on this issue and discuss it further at the summer EC meeting.
Bob has prepared a draft of the job description for a Volunteer Information Director for SIGCHI EC's review. There still is a question about the notion of who this person should report to. Bob will circulate the proposal for the contractor that has been sent out and we will discuss this during the next call.
Keith gave a summary of the Web work that he and Bob have been doing beyond the CHI 98 work. It was noted that the SIGCHI Volunteer page has already been updated. Keith also noted that he is assisting with CHI 99 at this time until another person is brought in.
Bob noted that he and Gary are currently defining guidelines for managing SIGCHI's volunteer mailing lists. This item was discussed more thoroughly in the January, 1998 minutes.
At the January SIGCHI EC meeting, Steven proposed having the SIGCHI EC define and participate in a videoconferencing trial. At this point in time, Steven is still evaluating and looking into relevant technologies and associated costs.
Steven has received about a half dozen volunteers who will be responsible for translating the SIGCHI EC Web site into non- English languages. As a result this work continues to move forward. Steven will report the latest happenings on this project at the next EC meeting.
The next SIGCHI EC teleconference call will be March 30, 1998 at 1530-1700 UTC.
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