January, 2005 Report of the a.o.i.r. executive committee Prepared by Nancy Baym AoIR Executive Committee President: Nancy Baym Vice-President: Matthew Allen Secretary: Ulla Bunz Treasurer: Benjamin Bates Open Seats: Radhika Gajjala and Annette Markham Appointed Seats: Monica Murero and Randolph Kluver Student Seat: Leslie Tkach-Kawasaki Publications Officers: Jeremy Hunsinger and Charlie Breindahl Past President (ex-officio): Steve Jones 2005 Conference Program Chair: Caroline Haythornthwaite 1. Introduction & General (Baym) This is the place to find out what's going on in the association. It's the best way for you to keep up so please read it! Our 24/7 discussions of the month on the executive committee mailing list are summarized in Ulla Bunz's section of the report. In addition to the enormous amount of organizing we have been doing (see Ulla's report below), we are pleased to announce the location for our 2006 conference: Brisbane Australia. Kylie Veale is serving as the local organizer, and we hope to announce a program chair shortly. We hope that this Pacific Rim location will enable people who have found it hard to attend our North American and European meetings to join us there. Also, election time will soon be upon us and I urge you to consider running for office. This association is only as good as the people who volunteer to make it work. As outlined in Ulla's report below, many positions are opening. Jeremy Hunsinger, who has overseen all of our technology since our inception, will be leaving this role. That is an appointed position, so if you have interest in that, please let someone on the current executive committee know. We will also be seeking a new treasurer, as Ben Bates will not be running again, so if you have experience with finance, please consider running for this important slot. 2. Executive Officers' Reports 2.1 President (Baym) 2.1.1 The conference in Sussex went off very well, with many thanks to Sheizaf Rafaeli and Kate O'Riordan for their hard work. We are now busy planning Chicago in October, 2005 and laying groundwork for Brisbane, 2006. I had the chance to visit the Chicago site this fall and think people will be pleased with the layout. All rooms are in a relatively compact area with a central meeting space that will work very well for socializing. The hotel itself is located very well, near the lake, lots of shopping, the Art Institute, and many other attractions. We also have two new babies to welcome as both Steve Jones and Charlie Breindahl became fathers this fall (Charlie for the second time)! Congratulations to them and their families. 2.2 Vice President (Allen) 2.2.1 I am facilitating the AoIR website discussions group of the Exec; am chairing the Conference Management Committee of the Exec; have organised local liaison and program chair for 2006 conference. In January I will start managing the election process for 2005. 2.3 Secretary (Bunz) 2.3.1 Since our last official report I have been dealing with record keeping including agendas and minutes, organizational statistics, and vote counting. The vote counting included keeping complex issues straight and providing clarifying summaries to the exec. I have put up the pilot survey and provided an in-depth analysis of the "what to keep about our conferences" question to the exec. I have participated actively in the discussions on the CMC and the 2006 and beyond conference locations, as well as contributed to other discussions, proof reading, website testing, Listserve transition issues, paper archives, etc. As the secretary is not a member of the CMC (for explanation see below), I cannot summarize their dealings and decisions, but below is the summary for the exec Listserve. What's been happening on the exec: August 12, 2003 January 2, 2005 - Perhaps the most significant change on the exec, which also accounts for the reduced email traffic on that listserve, has come about due to the institution of the Conference Management Committee (CMC). The CMC is AoIR-internal and deals with organizational conference issues. This allows us to standardize a lot of things and reduce the amount of detail work it takes every year when organizing the conference. This also reduced the micro-management of the exec in conference planning, though the exec still has to approve major decisions made by the CMC. Membership on the CMC rotates. Membership consists of: vice-president (who is in charge of the CMC), immediate past president, treasurer, student representative, local liaisons for the upcoming and the next conference (right now, 2005 and 2006), the program chairs for the upcoming and the next conference, an appointed AoIR member, and a representative of the conference agency at Virginia Tech. The conference agency is not to be confused with the CMC. The conference agency is an external organization that we are paying to take care of things like hotel reservations, program printing, etc. as explained in my last summary in September, 2004. We debated membership of the CMC at length and even rescinded an earlier vote as new issues had to be considered. The final consistency was approved by a vote of 10 in favor and 1 missing vote. - The exec helped proof and edit the Call for Papers for Internet Research 6.0, "Internet Generations," in Chicago, October 5-9, 2005. The call went to Air-l on December 15 and can be retrieved here: http://listserver.dreamhost.com/pipermail/air-l-aoir.org/2004-December/00689... - There was last minute conference coordination on issues like awards plaques, exec conference meetings, final program issues, birds of feather meetings, Cafepress, and instruction to panel chairs. - After the conference we discussed general conference issues, including blogs, computer access, and budget. A working group on virtualizing the conference has been set up, led by Tracy Kennedy. Contact her if you are interested in this issue. - We had animated discussion on the conference locations for 2006 and beyond. We took into consideration a number of issues, such as enhancing our international reach, financial/budget issues, organizational growth, and membership opinions. Brisbane was chosen as the 2006 location. The local liaison will be Kylie Veale from Curtin University. We have also begun considerations for conference locations beyond 2006 as we are beginning to be able to plan long-term. - Jeremy transitioned us onto a new Listserve program but most didn't experience too many difficulties. Some people had password problems but with combined efforts, Jeremy and I figured them out. - We have continued to evaluate our stats on paper submission and conference attendance. To make a long story short: We continue to get more international. However, South American and African scholars are still very under-represented. Our Asian contingent remains comparatively small as well. - We had to deal with an allegation of academic fraud. The issue was resolved to the satisfaction of both parties involved. - Jeremy prepared a new electronic conference submission and management system that we tested and will be using from now on. So, watch for submission guidelines! - We conducted a pilot survey Monica Murero designed related to conference issues and discussed the results and how they (should) influence our planning of future conferences. So far they have been guiding us mostly in the 2006 decision, but we have also noted that most people like the smaller size of AoIR, that you want Internet access at the conferences, and that you really like open spaces to mingle and talk. - Based on a suggestion by Michele White, we now have a Listserve for "feminists, postcolonial theorists, and queers doing Internet research." - As many of you may have noticed, the members-only part of the AoIR website has been down for a while, which is also why we do not have the conference paper archive for 2004 up yet. This is due to a website transition that we are undergoing. As all of the code-writing is done by Jeremy "pro bono" it's simply taking a little while longer. Please be patient, or volunteer your help if you have experience with programming. Matthew Allen is coordinating the web development, so contact him if you are able to help. - We are starting to gear up for AoIR elections which will be held in the spring. More information will be made available, but essentially there will be 10 positions open. The presidency is by default as Matt Allen will move up to become our president. Of the 10 positions, 6 are voted on by the membership (Vice-president/President-elect, treasurer, 2 open seats, graduate rep, and secretary). The remaining 4 are appointments (two technology people, two seats). If you are interested in running for any of the positions, please keep an eye out for more information. If there are people you would like to see run, please encourage them to do so. 2.4 Treasurer (Bates) 2.4.1. Busy managing membership as always. 2.5 Open Seats (Gajjala, Markham) 2.5.1 Gajjala: has been participating in discussion. 2.5.2 Markham: Been participating in Executive committee discussions of future conferences and direction of the association. Actively participated in dealing with various issues arising at the most recent conference. Also been helping with analysis of AOIR's web presence and testing possible interfaces. The qualitative research methods listserv has been up and running but there seems to be more discussion activity on Theresa Senft's blog, so this special interest group seems to have shifted. I have joined the Ethics working committee. 2.6 Appointed Seats (Murero, Kluver) 2.6.1 Murero: I have participated to all discussions and decisions in air-exec, and have organized the AoIR conference pilot survey , and analyzed results (to be discussed in air-exec). 2.6.2 Kluver: has been participating in discussion. 2.7 Student Seat (Tkach-Kawaski) 2.7.1 During this winter, I * participated in web-site discussions through the new site design draft, and am looking forward to further discussions; * participated in the conference management committee by offering opinions when warranted; * suggested/participated in 2005 keynote speaker discussion. 2.8 Publications Officers (Hunsinger, Breindahl) 2.8.1 Hunsinger: I've been very busy and my current main project is to get the new version of the website up and running with the members area all set. other than that, I've been involved with everything ulla noted. 2.8.2 Breindahl: I'm still weeding out the Rolex offers and the viruses (Subject: "Hi!") from the real messages to AIR-L. I am also active in the discussions regarding the future web presence of AoIR. 2.9 Past-President (Jones): In the main I've been working on the planning for the 2005 conference in Chicago, which is coming along quite well. The conference will take place in the heart of Chicago's downtown and I'm working on setting up several 'local' events of a non-scholarly nature for everyone's enjoyment. I've also been preparing for the onslaught of paperwork associated with attaining permanent non-profit tax-exempt educational status from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Our temporary status expires at the end of this calendar year, and we must file forms to demonstrate that our activities over the past five years have been consistent with those of a non-profit tax-exempt educational organization. While I am confident that our activities have met the IRS's criteria, one never knows how they may be viewed by others, and there is rather a lot of information to sort through and paperwork to be written up. A final determination should be forthcoming by the middle of 2005. 3.0 2005 Conference Program Chair (Caroline Haythornthwaite) The conference website is nearly ready for release and should be available soon. Deadlines will be reconsidered given the timing of the site released. New reviewers are still being sought as well as calling on those who have reviewed in the past. -- Nancy Baym http://www.ku.edu/home/nbaym Communication Studies, University of Kansas Bailey Hall, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 102, Lawrence, KS 66045-7574, USA Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org