July 23, 2003 Report of the a(o).i.r. executive committee Prepared by Steve Jones AoIR Executive Committee President: Steve Jones Vice-President: Nancy Baym Secretary: Ulla Bunz Treasurer: Benjamin Bates Open Seats: David Silver and Barry Wellman Appointed Seats: Matthew Allen and Leslie Shade Student Seat: Lisbeth Klastrup Publications Officers: Jeremy Hunsinger and Charlie Breindahl 2003 Conference Chair: Liss Jeffrey 2003 Conference Program Co-Chairs: Matthew Allen and David Mitchell Ethics Working Group Chair: Charles Ess Elections Working Group Chair: Mia Consalvo Net Resources Working Group Chair: Charlie Breindahl 1. Introduction & General (Jones) Below is the monthly report from AoIR executive committee members. If you aren't reading this...well, you ought to be. I know it can get lengthy, and it can get detailed, but it's the single best way to know what AoIR is up to, and to find ways to get involved with it (in any number of ways from contacting the people who report to volunteering to work on something you see mentioned to making suggestions to...). 2. Executive Officers' Reports 2.1 President (Jones) 2.1.1 2.2 Vice President (Baym) 2.2.1 I have temporarily assumed presidential duties as Steve has taken a hiatus for personal reasons. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family at this time. In the meantime, if you were going to email Steve about AoIR, please email me instead. Our elections are moving along. We have a terrific slate of candidates. I look forward to working with those you elect, and hope also to work with those who are not elected to follow through on the many wonderful ideas they have posed in the election forum. Thanks again to the elections working group, particularly Mia Consalvo and Jenny Stromer-Galley, for their recommendation that we institute the forum. Conference planning is also proceeding well, and we look forward to seeing you in (officially SARS-free) Toronto this October. For those of you making hotel recommendations, I want to remind you that staying at the Hilton helps subsidize the meeting rooms, and it is important to the success of the conference that our attendees stay there. If it is too pricey, the roomate finder board is up and running (see Rhiannon Bury's recent email for appropriate links). 2.3 Secretary (Bunz) 2.3.1 Have participated as usual, and been working especially on the t-shirt/merchandise project. June 15 - July 16, 2003 This month on the executive list: . The exec has been working on AoIR merchandise that will be sold through an online vendor, starting later this summer. Currently, a t-shirt design contest is under way that will be judged by Charlie Breindahl and Ulla Bunz. . The exec finalized the AoIR election forum (<http://aoir.org/forum>http://aoir.org/forum) which has since been put to use in the current elections, and the election email. The election period ends on July 28. Only members are eligible to vote. Current members received the election email, if you have not received the election email, please verify that you are a member, then contact Jeremy Hunsinger at jhuns@vt.edu. If you would like to vote, you can still become a member by going to the AoIR website at <http://aoir.org/airjoin.html>http://aoir.org/airjoin.html. Votes will be counted by AoIR member Jennifer Stromer-Galley. . The exec reconfirmed that the graduate student representative on the exec committee has to be a grad student at the time of election, but not necessarily for the entire term. . The exec has continued to advise the program chair Matt Allen on conference matters and grad student prize matters, and has continued to communicate with the conference team in Toronto about local issues including databases, and student volunteers. 2.4 Treasurer (Bates) 2.4.1 Keeping up with everything. Been quite busy last couple of days. Working on conference registrations, processing a batch of new memberships and renewals as well. 2.5 Open Seats (Silver, Wellman) 2.5.1 Silver: No report. 2.5.2 Wellman: Brought news of AoIR to the Arctic Circle. Worked to secure volunteers for the Toronto conference. Gave advice as needed to Exec Committee. 2.6 Appointed Seats (Allen, Shade) 2.6.1 Allen: Conference duties as Program Chair 2.6.2 Shade: Nothing to report. (Waiting with bated breath to index the AOIR annual ;) ) 2.7 Student Seat (Klastrup) 2.7.1 No report. 2.8 Publications Officers (Hunsinger, Breindahl) 2.8.1 Hunsinger: primarily i've been doing election stuff but i've been doing other things as necessary. 2.8.2 Breindahl: The web site has had another minor overhaul and with help from Jeremy I finally nailed the problem with snippets of Dreamweaver mark-up at the bottom of the pages. Our mail lists and aoir.org mail accounts still receive massive amounts of spam. I hope I haven't accidentally deleted a legitimate query. 2.9 2003 Conference (Liss Jeffrey, Chair; Matthew Allen, David Mitchell, Program Co-Chairs) 2.9.1 Dr Liss Jeffrey: No report. 2.9.2 Mitchell: No report. 2.10 AoIR Ethics Working Group (Charles Ess, Chair) 2.10.1 As chair I distributed my report on the June RESPECT conference in Budapest to the ethics working committee for discussion. The RESPECT project seeks to build a set of ethical guidelines for "socio-economic" research within the European Research Area (as established and funded by the European Union - specifically, under the European Commission's information Society Technologies (IST) Programme). In particular, the project seeks to establish codes for: Professional Conduct in Socio-Economic Research Data Protection Conducting Ethical Socio-Economic Research Professional (Behavior), and Intellectual Property Rights (See <<http://www.respectproject.org/main/index.php>http://www.respectproject.org/main/index.php> for a description of the project, links to the guidelines in their current form, and other important resources.) The report includes description of important resources on the web affiliated with both the RESPECT project and related E.U. projects: in addition, all of the conference presentations are available on the conference web site (<<http://www.respectproject.org/events/budprog.php>http://www.respectproject.org/events/budprog.php>). Four are especially worth the notice of AoIR members: * DG INFOSOC socio-economic activities, Tina Mede, DG INFOSOC * Conducting European socio-economic research: which competencies are needed? Ellen Schryvers and Tom Vandenbrande, HIVA * International and Intercultural Competencies in Vocational Contexts: What is it and how to teach and learn it? (Educational requirements for interdisciplinary, cross-cultural socio-economic research.) Holger Reinisch, University of Jena *Ethics and Public Policy: the Science and Society Programme, Maurizio Salvi, Directorate General Research, European Commission The AoIR ethical guidelines need to be updated in light of this work, at least with respect to the resources list. It also seems clear to me that this work reiterates the more deontological cast of research ethics in the EU, as compared with the US, and so the discussion of this topic in the AoIR document also needs updating in this light. An important conceptual starting point for this project, as articulated by the project director, Ursula Huws, is one that I will raise on the AoIR list, in hopes to get AoIR-ists insight and wisdom on this point. It may also be worth mentioning: 1. The NESH guidelines (from Norway, which figured prominently in the development of the AoIR ethiccs guidelines) are being revised - with specific attention to Internet research. I'm hoping to get an English copy of these for our use this fall in the pre-conference workshop on Internet research ethics (Wednesday, October 15) in Toronto. 2. Specific legal requirements continue to emerge, insofar as they're not already established in diverse E.U. countries under EU Data Privacy Protection Direction 95. I'm hoping to be able to offer more detailed information and resources on this in the near future, thanks to several conference colleagues with expertise on Internet law. If any AoIR members are interested in seeing the longer report, please write me - <cmess@drury.edu> - and I will happily forward it to you. 2.11 AoIR Research Annual Working Group (Mia Consalvo, Chair) 2.11.1 All contributors corrected and returned their copy-edited chapters, after which I organized the files needed by the publisher, and sent them in for the compositor to create page proofs. That process should take about 8 weeks, after which we'll get the page proofs back to double-check, and then the volume goes to press. Additionally, initial planning has begun for the second volume. 2.12 AoIR Net Resources Working Group (Charlie Breindahl, Chair) 2.12.1 There has been no activity in the 'Net WG.