December 18, 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 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 I hope you are reading this. Whether you are a dues-paying AoIR member or simply a subscriber to air-l reading the monthly report is probably the best way to catch up on what AoIR is up to. If you _are_ reading this you'll probably note a couple of things. One is that there are quite a few "nothing to reports." Those may be evidence of the approach of the holiday season, but in fact they're usually evidence of executive committee members being too busy with AoIR business on top of other work. Another thing you'll notice is that there has been much activity related to the conference in Toronto in 2003, which itself is evidence to support the previous claim. In fact I'm behind myself, needing to do a couple of little things to the CFP for IR 4.0 and get it out the door - keep your eyes on air-l for the CFP, and feel free to forward it far and wide (within the bounds of reasonable rules of netiquette, of course)! Finally, I do indeed hope you've read at least this far so that a) you keep reading and b) I can wish you a very happy holiday season and all the best for the new year! 2.2 Vice President (Baym) 2.2.1 Nothing to report. 2.3 Secretary (Bunz) 2.3.1 As you can see the exec committee has been busy this past month. Several decisions have been made. I've contributed to the discussions below. Summary November 13 - December 16, 2002 This month on the executive list: . AoIR is going to start publishing a "Research Annual" based on conference papers (Publisher: Peter Lang). The new chair of the research annual working group is Mia Consalvo. All questions should be addressed to her. The working group is comprised of all previous conference and program chairs. In the future this might be limited to the immediate past two or three years. . The exec committee has been debating various options for future conference planning, such as outsourcing conference planning completely, pulling it internally completely, and various mixed models. As our association grows, we are confronted with these and similar issues. At this point, no final decisions have been made. We might be forced one way or another depending on host proposals which are due anytime, but preferably before January 31 for the 2004 conference. Along with this discussion, there was discussion on a clear definition of roles for exec and conference committee with regard to decision making on conference issues. The "internal/external host" discussion is ongoing. . Discussion on the decision power and role of air-meet. . Ben Davidson volunteered to contribute to the "resource committee" that was suggested at the general meeting in Maastricht (entails potentially taping/streaming sessions). Ben is now in touch with the conference committee in Toronto to discuss this issue further. The exec committee debated various options such as a pre-payment plan partially supported by AoIR as an organization to create such tapes/CDs. The issue is still in discussion. People interested in contributing to this (financially or through expertise) please contact Ben Davidson or Liss Jeffrey. . Debate on cost for pre-conference workshops. General agreement is that costs should be kept as low as possible for participants, so whether the organizer can get a honorarium depends on other costs involved, such as room rent, etc. Awaiting feedback from the conference committee to make decisions. . The air-grad student Listserve is up and running. Contact Lisbeth Klastrup for more information. . Agreement to continue with the Carl Couch Center award for at least another year. . Matt Allen (program chair) bounced a few ideas concerning reviewing and panel construction off and received exec committee feedback. . Exec committee granted permission to Naomi Baron to use screen shots from the Aoir Listserve archive as long as involved participants are contacted. . AoIR was approached by IEEE's SSIT group. The exec agrees that we should discuss potential affiliation with this group. Steve Jones and Clint Andrews (the two presidents) will discuss this in more detail. . The ethics report has been passed by member voting. It is linked to the AoIR website under "resources." . The Elections Working Group has submitted their report and recommendations to the exec committee. The committee is and will continue to discuss the recommendations made by the committee. Changes to previous elections will be explained in the spring at the next elections. . The executive committee has been working with the conference committee in Toronto on a variety of conference issues, including and keynoters and call for papers. With regard to the CfP some of the issues discussed included topics list, issues of French language, grad student issues, length of abstracts, etc. One committee member had some major reservations about the CfP on a number of issues that included a lack of focus on the current state of affairs - terror, terrorism, war, etc., little advancement of AoIR's research agenda compared to much recapitulation of past CfPs, and a call to educate ourselves with respect to the most current work going on in other fields in order to truly "broaden the band." 2.4 Treasurer (Bates) 2.4.1 Keeping up. Accounts still in good shape. Big dues revenue last month. 2.5 Open Seats (Silver, Wellman) 2.5.1 Silver: I participated actively in discussions regarding the call for papers for IR 4.0. 2.5.2 Wellman: Liasing with 2003 conference working committee. Contribution to online Executive Committee discussions. 2.6 Appointed Seats (Allen, Shade) 2.6.1 Allen: Nothing to report. (Probably because he's swamped with conference matters. -Sj) 2.6.2 Shade: Nothing to report. 2.7 Student Seat (Klastrup) 2.7.1 Nothing to report. 2.8 Publications Officers (Hunsinger, Breindahl) 2.8.1 Hunsinger: Nothing to report. 2.8.2 Breindahl: I have mainly moderated our listserv and done minor updates to the public aoir site. Major updates have been postponed - with seven months left, I am just too busy with my dissertation. 2.9 2003 Conference (Liss Jeffrey, Chair; Matthew Allen, David Mitchell, Program Co-Chairs) 2.9.1 Jeffrey (with her team: Katherine Parrish, Jason Nolan, Alex Kuskis, and steering committee chair Barry Wellman): Nothing to report. 2.10 AoIR Ethics Working Group (Charles Ess, Chair) 2.10.1 The ethics committee discussed some final points of polish on their working document, which was then submitted for vote by aoir members. As has been announced, the ethics document was approved at the close of the vote on November 27, 2002. [The document can be found at <www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf>, and is linked from the home page of AoIR. (Those having trouble downloading the PDF file may write to Charles Ess - <cmess@drury.edu> - and request a version of the document in Word and/or .rtf format.)] The ethics committee is very grateful to the aoir membership for its contributions to and endorsement of the ethics statement - and especially to Steve Jones and Jeremy Hunsinger for their multiple layers of advice and assistance. Much virtual champagne was drunk among the committee members, amidst many virtual toasts...and we are now about two items of business. One, a few members of the committee have expressed the desire to resign in order to move on to other projects, occasioning a re-organization of the committee over the next few weeks. Two, once our (re)new(ed) committee is in place, we will then take up any additional points and issues regarding Internet research ethics that may be raised by aoir members - especially if these are not adequately addressed by the approved ethics statement. We look forward to y/our ongoing discussion and debate. 2.11 AoIR Research Annual Working Group (Mia Consalvo, Chair) 2.11.1 A working group has been formed to create a published research annual stemming from AoIR's conferences. The idea is to produce one annual based on the first three conferences, and then a yearly annual for each conference thereafter. Currently the group is determining appropriate themes for the previous conferences as well as possible contributions, and will also soon determine a publisher. We are just getting started, so expect to hear more in the near future. 2.12 AoIR Net Resources Working Group (Charlie Breindahl, Chair) 2.12.1 There has been no activity in the 'Net WG. ------------------------------------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