Association of Internet Researchers
3rd Annual Conference, Maastricht, The Netherlands, October 13-16, 2002
Minutes of the General Meeting (October 15, 2002):
Attendance: All members of the executive committee, ca. 60 members
The meeting convened at 5:30 pm.
1. Welcome by Steve Jones (President)
2. Executive Officers’ Reports
2. a) President, Steve Jones
- Steve clarified that the papers of the conference will be available online almost immediately after the conference. This has been delayed due to permission issues. AoIR will institute a “permission to put online” (or not) clause for future submissions.
- President Jones pronounced that “the state of the association is strong!” Within 2 years, we have held 3 conferences, with ever increasing quality, appeal, and support from many sources. Steve expressed his joy and delight.
- Steve called for continued interest and involvement from the membership. We have grown because of our incredibly engaged members, but we need more people to volunteer for working committees, listserve participation, etc. etc. to continue our work at an ever increasing level of commitment and quality.
2. b) Vice-President, Nancy Baym
- Nancy expressed how impressed she is with our growing interdisciplinarity. She sees many challenges ahead, for example, how to manage the association’s growth. Comparing AoIR to her son (born a few short days before the first AoIR conference) she made it clear that we have accomplished amazing deeds. Nancy urged all of us to “tell’em!!!” Spread the word about AoIR, and take an active role in the organization.
2. c) Secretary, Ulla Bunz
- Ulla expressed her delight at actively having been part of the organization since the first conference. She said she was stunned by the intellectual stimulation AoIR, once again, provided. She urged members to continue their current conversations and exchanges of ideas on the air-l listserve.
2. d) Treasurer, Benjamin Bates
- Ben reported that financially, the association is in good shape. In 2001, we had a balance of slightly above $8000. As the conference in Minneapolis ran a slight profit, we are currently (before final calculations of Maastricht) at a plus of approximately $17000.
- With currently about 400 members and 1200 subscribers to the mailing list, our goal is to recruit more list subscribers to become members, and overall keeping our budget low, so that we can strengthen our financial base.
2. e) 1. Open Seat, David Silver
- David reminded the members that among his work in the past year was the completion of the “list of listserve” project (with Ulla Bunz, Matt Allen, and Jeremy Hunsinger), a website listing and annotating close to 80 listserves related to the field of Internet Research. David plans to continue his outreach to strengthen the representation of fields of study related to gender, race, sexuality, and social class in AoIR.
2.e) 2. Open Seats, Barry Wellman
- Barry agrees with David that we need to broaden the base of AoIR. He sees the need to have inclusive membership, and focus on pertinent issues of research.
- In the last weeks, Barry has been an active liaison between the executive committee and the conference planning chairs in Toronto. Please see his report below under 4. AoIR Conference Items.
2.f) 1. Appointed Seats, Matt Allen
- Matt has been trying to actively broadcast the message of AoIR to Australian researchers. He believes that AoIR creates a space which welcomes and encourages contributions. AoIR provides the infrastructure for all our activities (i.e., collaborative research), but we need active members to make use of this infrastructure.
- As the program chair for the Toronto conference (AoIR 4.0), Matt asked for help and participation in the planning, especially with reviewing. He asked that those interested in helping join air-meet (a “how to” message will be posted to air-l shortly).
2.f) 2. Appointed Seats, Leslie Shade
- Leslie, who was program chair in Minneapolis at AoIR 2.0, has been playing an advisory role with the Toronto planning team. She reported on a project by Sandra Braman which tries to initiate comparative Internet research. The project is moving slowly but continuously. People interested should write to Leslie, Sandra, or at least air-l.
2.g) Student Seat, Lisbeth Klastrup
- Lisbeth reported that to her personally, the conference was a true turning point, because for the first time she got to meet the other Executive Committee members face-to-face, despite having worked with the committee for an entire year now.
- Lisbeth also reported that she initiated a graduate student meeting at AoIR 3.0 in Maastricht that was attended by a number of highly motivated graduate students. The graduate students are planning a number of initiatives. They will share their ideas with air-l at various points.
2.h) 1. Publication Officers, Charlie Breindahl
- Charlie has been working on the public part of the AoIR website (http://aoir.org). Specifically, he has added a number of resources and book listings. He plans to continue this work, though the breadth and depth of the available material might require a database oriented approach soon. Charlie is also heading the Internet Resources work group, which has not been very active due to sparse participation. He reminded us that our website ought to represent what we, as an organization, are all about, but that it requires the input of many of us to make that happen. He asked for volunteers to join the work group. If you do not wish to join the work group, please email him ideas and suggestions for the website at the very least.
- Charlie has also been moderating air-l, not by monitoring messages, but mostly in order to prevent spam.
- Charlie reminded us that the website is capable of providing online forums for those of us who wish to work collaboratively and need an online space to do so.
2.h) 2. Publication Officers, Jeremy Hunsinger
- Jeremy is mostly responsible for the systems that run AoIR (and the entire exec is immensely grateful for the tremendous job he is doing!). He has been and will have to revise the members website, mostly due to security reasons.
- Jeremy is also planning on revising the elections system, based on recommendations made by the Election Working Group.
3. Association Items
3.a) Elections Work Group
- Mia Consalvo represented the elections work group and reported that this is an ongoing project. The group has been active and at this point has decided to create a list of questions that candidates will be provided with a list of questions in addition to or instead of the personal blurb they were able to write so far. She asked for help and input with regard to this list of questions (questions may vary depending on office). She also said the group was considering establishing an online forum (asynchronous) where members could ask candidates questions.
- Mia reported on several suggestions that the work group is still evaluating. These suggestions include possibly creating a nominating committee, which would help identify individuals who wouldn’t self-nominate; possibly limiting people to running for one office; possibly using a preferential voting system (essentially rank ordering and weighing multiple votes per voter).
- The election work group has decided not to recommend expanding the executive committee, as functionality might be impeded. Instead, the group is considering recommending an advisory board, but this is still tentative. The elections work group will post a report to air-l closer to the times of elections (elections are in the late spring).
3.b) Ethics Committee
- Charles Ess represented the ethics committee and presented the current version of the ethics report to the membership (available at http://www.aoir.org/reports/ethicsfinal.pdf). The report provides questions that researchers can ask themselves to bring forward and resolve ethical concerns of their research. The report does not replace other, existing disciplinary codes or laws. Charles pointed out that in an interdisciplinary and international organization, we have ethical pluralism (there are many different issues, traditions, and theories). Ethics in part depend on context, culture, etc. The ethics committee’s report provides no more than a framework, in addition to existing codes.
- The ethics report will soon be emailed to air-l for final approval by the membership.
4. Conference Items
- Barry Wellman, who has been a liaison with Liss Jeffrey (Toronto conference planning chair) and her group, reported on planning for the conference in 2003.
- The conference will take place in Toronto, Canada, October 16-19, 2003. Pre-conference workshops will take place on October 14 and 15. For any information or suggestions for pre-events (of social nature) get in touch with Barry, Liss, or David Mitchell. The conference website for 2003 is http://aoir.org/2003.
- Toronto is a multicultural city, and a center for digital arts. We are hoping to involve some digital artists in the conference. The conference itself will take place in a conference hotel, located at the edge of a funky area with lots of cafes, restaurants, and bars.
5. New Business
5.a) Growth, finances and dues of the association
- Steve Jones reported that we are currently taking in approximately $12000 per year through dues. However, as our association and conference attendance are growing, we can no longer count on very many university campuses to be able to host our conference. Instead, we must rely on hotels with meeting spaces, and hold conferences in urban areas/large cities with direct access to large (if not international) airports.
- Due to these concerns, Steve projects that we will have to increase both the conference registration fees, and the membership dues at some point in the next few years.
- Steve asked for feedback on how the membership feels about these increases. He also called for help with suggestions to keep up with costs, yet keep running the organization smoothly and accommodate its growth.
- Steve also pointed out that the executive committee needs members’ help in order to keep running and expanding the organization. He called for participation in working groups that will be formed increasingly.
- Finally, Steve clarified that the next 1-2 years are crucial for the development of the association. We have to figure out our finances to ensure a long term future. We also have to establish means of participation, as AoIR depends heavily on volunteerism.
6. Conference and general member feedback
6.a) Audio taping sessions
- A suggestion was made to audio tape all sessions for those who cannot attend them (or the conference). A follow up suggestion recommended web streaming.
- A resource committee may be formed soon to investigate our members’ resources on this and similar issues.
6.b) Multi-lingual conference
- To increase francophone representation at AoIR conferences (and with a special eye on Toronto), the suggestion was made to allow people to present in French.
- Nancy Baym pointed out that the conference has no official language, though de facto it is English. Nancy also pointed out that this year, we did review (and accept) submissions of French abstracts.
- Clearly, multi-lingual presentations have to be considered in an international conference. At this point, the association cannot afford simultaneous translation, as for example, was done at the International Communication Association in Acapulco (Spanish and English). For Toronto, interpretation/translation might be funded by the Canadian government. The association has applied for a grant and will have to wait for results.
- Nancy urged to bring up such questions on air-meet, the forum for conference ideas.
6.c) Association demographics
- A question was posed to the executive committee to reveal the statistics and demographics of the association. Specifically, the questioner was interested in an inventory of disciplines.
- Though the association keeps records of country association (by current address, not by birth or citizenship), we are not currently keeping an official inventory of disciplines. When signing up for membership, one can state one’s affiliation with certain fields or disciplines, and provide keywords, but few people make use of this option.
- A call was also made to provide statistics on submission and acceptance rates.
6.d) Conference time management
- Critique was voiced about the short time for paper presentations (generally about 12-15 minutes).
- The executive committee acknowledged a conflict between allowing as many people as possible to share their ideas in depth, and limiting the conference to three days and an acceptable number of parallel sessions. This problem has been discussed at length and repeatedly by the executive committee. Last year, members asked for more interaction time, so time between panels was increased from 10 to 15 minutes, and an official lunch break was instituted. It is up to the Toronto planning team to decide on the schedule for the next conference. Please join air-meet to participate in the planning.
- Also, please consider alternative modes of presentation forms (i.e., pre-conference workshops) or creative presentations. An additional audience comment called for more workshops and pre-conference social events. It is up to the conference attendees to initiate such work shops. To plan social events, contact Liss Jeffrey (ljeffrey@mcluhan.org) or David Mitchell.
6.e) Intellectual value of the association to its members
- A call was voiced to increase the value of the association to its members. The executive committee supports the call that ongoing projects or projects in planning should be announced on air-l, so there is room for collaboration, or, at the very least, awareness of current work.
- Jeremy Hunsinger pointed out that the website offers the technical options of online forums etc. for online collaboration, but that these are basically never used.
- Matt Allen volunteered to initiate more communication about the technical possibilities and opportunities AoIR provides.
With no further business to attend to, the meeting was adjourned around 7 pm.
Compiled and submitted on October 17, 2002,
Ulla Bunz (Secretary)
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Ulla Bunz
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
Rutgers University
4 Huntington Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Email: bunz@scils.rutgers.edu
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