November 15, 2001 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 2002 Conference Coordinator: Monica Murero 2002 Conference Program Chair: Klaus Bruhn Jensen Ethics Working Group Chair: Charles Ess 1. Introduction & General (Jones) Below is the monthly report from AoIR executive committee members. 2. Executive Officers' Reports 2.1 President (Jones) 2.1.1 The transition to a newly elected executive committee has been proceeding smoothly, and the new team's ideas and energy are already helping us make progress on a number of administrative fronts. The timing seemed appropriate, so I have been preparing documentation of policies and procedures (at first primarily related to AoIR conferences) to ensure the organization's continuity and its efficiency. 2.2 Vice President (Baym) 2.2.1 I have been working on conference planning and planning on building an aoir research data database, which I will bring to air-l for input shortly. 2.3 Secretary (Bunz) 2.3.1 According to bylaws, I've created a folder that contains printouts of the bylaws, previous calls for paper, membership list, Aoir history, executive information, minutes (would love to obtain a copy of previous years' minutes; Matt?), and conference planning guidelines. A membership list will be added in the next few days when I receive the appropriate file. I'm planning to save IR 1 and 2 programs off the web for a continuous record. 2.3.2 Helped David and Matt to brainstorm our "plan of action" regarding the list of listserves. 2.3.3 Started assessment of the Aoir website with the ultimate goal of improving its usability. There are a couple of volunteers to help me, but I've been slowed down by heavy workload and NCA. 2.3.4 Went to the "Human Communication and Technology" division business meeting at the National Communication Association Convention in Atlanta last week and promoted Aoir. They requested a copy of the next call for papers. Other than that, I'm still breathing. 2.4 Treasurer (Bates) 2.4.1 Jeremy, and I have been working at getting the treasurer's job transferred. Since the convention, we've processed about a dozen new memberships and about a half dozen renewals. I've just sent out renewal reminders to slightly over 200 expiring members. All but a few "joined" at the first conference, and that includes a large percentage of UKansas people who may not be that interested in staying with AIR. I'm starting to be deluged with address error messages, but we'll see how effective this effort was over the next few weeks. I did include on the reminders sent to European members a mention about the next conference being in Maastricht. 2.5 Open Seats (Silver, Wellman) 2.5.1 Silver: I have been working with the AIR 3.0 conference committee, brainstorming the CFP and banging out a number of conference themes and subtopics. I am also working with Matt Allen and Ulla Bunz on developing an archive of mailing lists and listservs devoted to discussions on Internet / cyberculture research. 2.5.2 Wellman: Began work as liasion with Toronto based AoIR 2003 conference organizers. Proposed changes to AoIR election procedures. 2.6 Appointed Seats (Allen, Shade) 2.6.1 Allen: Returning from the fantastic conference and with the honour and enthusiasm of a newly appointed Exec Committee member, I found Australia to be full of end-of-year chores - marking and re-enrolling, marketing and meetings! I am currently working on a draft discussion paper for the exec on the way in which AoIR might organise its website activities (finding a way to divide those activities between core AoIR business, hosted on the AoIR server, and related activities to which AoIR links). I am also working with David Silver on collecting information for a 'list of lists' to assist members to select and subscribe to the many relevant Internet Studies email lists across the world. In December I will attend the fibreculture conference in Melbourne Australia and heavily promote membership of AoIR as a way for Australian scholars of Internet and related new media/technology to become part of the global community of scholarship. Plus, I am enjoying the delicious subshine of the Aussie summer (which will be, by March, far too much of a good thing, just in case you are feeling jealous in the north!) 2.6.2 Shade: Participants in AOIR 2.0 have been asked to send their papers so they can be posted online. 2.7 Student Seat (Klastrup) 2.7.1 Participated in conference in Tampere, Finland: "Interactive Man and His Future" (http://www.mindtrek.org/conference/), which proved that currently a lot of interesting research is going on in Finland on mobile culture and mobile devices use. Currently communicating with other AoIR graduate student on setting up a list of citation databases. 2.8 Publications Officers (Hunsinger, Breindahl) 2.8.1 Hunsinger: it has been busy helped on air-meet worked on aoir.org/members made changes to navbar added submitted content feel free to submit content to the system added submitted links feel free to submit links to the system approved calendar submissions Nalini Kotamraju submitted some conference dates for the aoir calendar you can add things to the calendar easily, but if you could also submit them to calendar@aoir.org, which Nalini volunteered to help out with. made changes to sections area(oceania) worked on conference webpage policy began work on aoir 2.0 paper archive working on revising conference review system to match new conference organizational structure irritated charlie by approving things in the listserve system before he could going to give charlie administration duties on air-meet in about 5 minutes(done). 2.8.2 Breindahl: Well, I have updated aoir.org a little bit as usual and been engaged in the ongoing discussion about how to bootstrap the members area into a collaborative effort. Not to mention that I inadvertently jumpstarted the discussion on air-meet about possible keynote speakers in Maastricht :o/ 2.9 2002 Conference (Monica Murero, Coordinator; Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Program Chair) 2.9.1 Murero: The organization of next year's conference is progressing very well. Local arrangements are proceeding as planned. The conference planning committee was very active in helping shape the conference (call for paper, invited speakers and so on). The call for papers will be issued soon. 2.9.2 Jensen: In addition to reviewing the planning process, I have collaborated with Monica Murero in developing the call for papers, as well as participating in the collective efforts of the air-meet list. With the active assistance of many AIRers, planning is progressing on schedule. 2.10 AoIR Ethics Working Group (Charles Ess, Chair) 2.10.1 The ethics committee is currently discussing competing sets of guidelines for Internet research.