June 17, 2002 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 As you will see from the below reports several initiatives are now under way - more are to come, I am certain, in the next few months. Your voice and participation are as always welcomed. Feel free to contact me or any of the executive committee members or working group leaders with questions, input and interest. 2.2 Vice President (Baym) 2.2.1 This month I launched the elections working group, which is charged with evaluating aoir's election procedures and deciding what if anything ought to be changed about them. The members of the working group are, Red Bradley, Mia Consalvo, Radhika Gajjal, Wes Shumar, Sarah Stein, Johannes Strobel, Jenny Stromer-Galley and Barry Wellman. My gratitude to all of them for agreeing to work on this. I hope you will all be generous with your feedback when they begin their assessments. I am serving as the liaison between this group and the executive committee. I also solicited feedback from reviewers for the Internet Research 3.0 conference regarding suggestions for improving the conference review process. This information will get brainstormed amongst conference planners past and present in order to revise the process for the Toronto meeting in 2003. 2.3 Secretary (Bunz) 2.3.1 Not much to report. Participated marginally in the last stage of the listserve project which Jeremy and Matt are currently completing. Almost completed organization of the editors roundtable for Aoir 3.0. Enjoyed the wonderful weather and prepared my move to New Jersey. Summary May 13 - June 13, 2002 This month on the executive list: * Discussion of what to do with financial profit the organization does/may accumulate * Discussion of potential affiliation with the Network for Games Researchers * Discussion of potential involvement in ICANN's At-Large mechanism; decision not to get involved at this time * Discussion of feedback on conference refereeing Nancy summarized and shared with the exec 2.4 Treasurer (Bates) 2.4.1 Have travelled from Knoxville TN to Ireland to Finland to Singapore to New Zealand, where I've been doing reseach fellow stuff and trying to get proper email connections. Thus, haven't done much, but want to give profuse thanks to Jeremy Hunsinger (three cheers and massive orchestral salute) and Steve Jones (ditto) for handling the regular deposits and approvals for members. And for covering the next three weeks while I go touring and tramping, and try to wend my way back to Knoxville. Will be looking forward to getting back in the saddle. 2.5 Open Seats (Silver, Wellman) 2.5.1 Silver: Nothing to report. 2.5.2 Wellman: Started gearing up for AoIR Elections Committee. Discussed AoIR at MIT, Annenberg School of Communication (left coast branch), Univ of Maryland Webshop Summer Institute, and SSRC Summer Institute on Information Technology and International Security/Cooperation (Columbia U, NYC). 2.6 Appointed Seats (Allen, Shade) 2.6.1 Allen: No report. 2.6.2 Shade: Was in Chicago for conf early May, talked to Steve about AOIR stuff; got in touch with Sandra Braman re working with her on her idea of collaborative research/cross-comparative Internet studies; participated in Canadian Communication Conference in Toronto end of May where the AOIR 4.0 in Toronto was talked up; was at ISTAS conf in Raleigh early June, saw AOIR Minnesota Dream Team members Burk and Gurak, talked about stuff re AOIR... 2.7 Student Seat (Klastrup) 2.7.1 Returned from leave and participated at the Computer Games and Digital Cultures conference, happily meeting other A.i.R members there. Started initial discussions of possible future collaboration between A.i.R. and the newly founded Network of Games Researchers. 2.8 Publications Officers (Hunsinger, Breindahl) 2.8.1 Hunsinger: this month i worked on the members pages a bit set up the working group listserves did a whole bunch of minor things helped with the list-listing project answered many questions stood in for Ben when he was away. 2.8.2 Breindahl: I have started work as a liaison in the Internet Resources Working Group and have taken care of the mailing lists as usual. 2.9 2002 Conference (Monica Murero, Coordinator; Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Program Chair) 2.9.1 Murero: The organization of the AoIR conference in Maastricht is proceeding very well. I have worked with Klaus on several issues regarding for example the online program, the submission of the final papers, the student's award. Our collaboration is producing very good results, based on almost daily communication and consultation. I have answered to several e-mails regarding the conference. In Maastricht , local arrangements for our October conference are 95% completed. 2.9.2 Jensen: Nothing to report. 2.10 AoIR Ethics Working Group (Charles Ess, Chair) 2.10.1 My work for the ethics working committee profited immeasurably from comments and suggestions made in response to a series of lectures in late May in Copenhagen and Roskilde, organized by aoir members Gitte Stald, Stine Gotved, and Klaus Bruhn Jensen. Profound thanks are due to them and Anker Helms Jorgensen for their hard work and generous hospitality, as well as to the sponsoring departments - the Department of Film and Media Studies, University of Copenhagen; the Department of Digital Aesthetics and Communication, IT-University Copenhagen: and the Master of Computer-mediated Communication Programme, Roskilde University. In addition, aoir and the aoir ethics working committee were well represented in the subsequent "Making Common Ground: methodological and ethical challenges in internet research," the Nordic interdisciplinary workshop at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, 1. - 2. June 2002., and the follow-up interdisciplinary graduate course "Internet and ethics," also at NTNU, 3-6 June 2002. The conference was the brainchild of aoir's Janne Bromseth, and included keynote addresses by aoir ethics working committee members Dag Elgesem, Charles Ess, and Chris Mann. Dr. Annette Markham, both an aoir-ist (pun on the Greek tense intended) and active researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago, also served as a keynote speaker, providing extensive comments on ethical responsibilities of researchers. Aoir ethics working committee member Malin Sveningsson participated in the conference and provided important insights from her own experience with ethical dilemmas encountered in her doctoral research. The conference and graduate course were important opportunities for aoir ethics working committee members to publicly present and discuss our current thinking and research on Internet research ethics - including the recent draft on Internet research ethics and especially the cross-cultural issues involved. In particular, both Dag Elgesem and Chris Mann have developed "ethical protocols" which can be usefully compared with both the current version of the aoir questions and, for example, the University of Bristol checklist (drawn up under the considerably more restrictive rules of the European Union Data Privacy Protection Act). The aoir ethics working committee will discuss both Dag's and Chris' protocols over the next month or so. I would like to express profound gratitude to the persons and institutions that made these events possible, beginning with Janne Bromseth who gamely took on and splendidly succeeded in the herculean task of organizing an international, interdisciplinary conference that brought together both European and U.S.-based researchers and ethicists - and with no little help from Dag Elgesem and Malin Sveningsson. The conference was further sponsored by the Section for humanistic informatics, University of Bergen; the Department of interdisciplinary studies of culture, NTNU; and the National Committee for Research Ethics, Norway. Special thanks as well to Dr. May Thorseth, Acting Director, Programme for Applied Ethics at NTNU, who organized and directed the graduate course. In sum, these events have suggested that the efforts of the ethics working committee are very much on the right track, especially with regard to our interest in the cross-cultural aspects of Internet research ethics. And our final report - for distribution and discussion in Maastricht in October - will be considerably stronger and more complete as a result of these events and the hard work of all involved. ------------------------------------end of executive committee report------------------------------ The Association of Internet Researchers is a scholarly association dedicated to the advancement of the cross-disciplinary field of Internet studies. It is a resource and support network promoting critical and scholarly Internet research independent from traditional disciplines and existing across academic borders. The association is international in scope. The association's web site is at http://www.aoir.org. Membership information is available at http://aoir.org/airjoin.html