[Air-l] July 2001 report

[Steve Jones]

July 17, 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: Matt Stoner
Treasurer (on leave): Benjamin Bates
Interim Treasurer: Wes Shrum
Open Seats: Beth Kolko and Sean Cubitt
Appointed Seats: Diane Witmer and Fay Sudweeks
Student Seat: Matt Williams
Publications Officers: Jeremy Hunsinger and Charlie Breindahl
2001 Conference Coordinator: John Logie
2001 Conference Program Chair: Leslie Shade
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. Revision to the AoIR bylaws to make them better reflect the 
shape the organization has taken are still under way. I am hoping to 
have proposed revisions ready for general discussion within the next 
couple of weeks.

2.1.2. AoIR elections are also upcoming, and the call for nominations 
will go out in the next couple or so weeks, too. Remember that only 
members who have their dues paid up are eligible for nomination, to 
vote, etc.


2.2 Vice President (Baym)

2.2.1 I've been adding my two cents on the revised bylaws, conference 
panel organization, future conference planning, and the wonderful 
forthcoming site for members that Jeremy has put together.


2.3 Secretary (Stoner)

2.3.1 No report.


2.4 Treasurer (Bates)

2.4.1 No report.


2.5 Open Seats (Kolko, Cubitt)

2.5.1 Kolko: No report.

2.5.2 Cubitt: No report.


2.6 Appointed Seats (Witmer, Sudweeks)

2.6.1 Witmer: Nothing to report.

2.6.2 Sudweeks: No report.


2.7 Student Seat (Williams)

2.7.1 No report.


2.8 Publications Officers (Hunsinger, Breindahl)

2.8.1 Hunsinger: Helped with conference stuff. Made an area on 
aoir.org for conference stuff so that all aoir.org stuff will be in 
one place. Helped with bylaws revision. Revised and updated current 
members website. Began working on a significant upgrade to members 
section that will go gold in august for the elections.


2.8.2 Breindahl: I have been on holiday for the last three weeks. 
I'll be trying to catch up
over the next three weeks, I guess. :)


2.9 2001 Conference (John Logie, Coordinator and Leslie Shade, Program Chair)

2.9.1 Logie: This months' core accomplishments for the "local team" 
centered around the near-total revision and expansion of the 
conference website, now available at http://www.aoir.org/2001.  The 
site was reviewed and enhanced by the critiques of a number of 
members of the local team, especially Dan Burk and Gretchen Haas. The 
site now features full biographies for each of the keynoters, 
improvements to the local and registration pages (with a roommate 
finder supplied by Jeremy Hunsinger), a new page recognizing 
conference sponsors, and posting of a tentative program schedule.

I also worked with the organizers of a pre-conference workshop 
entitled "Critical Choices in Web Research Design," to add their 
effort to the overall arc of the conference. This Wednesday 
programming can be reviewed at http://aoir.org/2001/workshop.htm.

The remainder of the program is the core challenge of the coming 
hours and days. I, as conference chair, am working very closely with 
Leslie to match our various panels and presentations with the 
appropriate rooms at Gateway and Radisson. I contracted for 
additional space at the Radisson when it became clear that the number 
of submissions would be high. Room spaces vary dramatically in size, 
so we are working towards matching anticipated demand for particular 
sessions with available space. To that end, I am creating a database 
which, when completed, will greatly streamline the room assignment 
process. These assignments will be posted to the program page at the 
AoIR/2001 site as soon as possible.

Negotiations with food suppliers are ongoing, but it is clear, based 
on their estimates, that we should be able to maintain the strong 
precedents estasblished by Nancy Baym at the first conference. 
Graduate students and international travelers on tight budgets (as 
well as the simply hungry) will be able to rely on breakfast foods 
and snacks provided by AoIR. Core concerns for the coming weeks 
include stablilization of our arrangement with Apple Computers to 
maintain the high level of technical support established at AoIR 1.0 
and determining whether our assigned book exhibit manager (local 
bookstore Ruminator Books) will, in fact, be able to successfully 
handle exhibits for the conference. As of this writing, Ruminator has 
raised, rather than eliminated concern about its ability to do so. I 
will be working closely with Ruminator to improve the situation, or 
working closely with the Minnesota team to develop a viable 
alternative.


2.9.2 Shade: John and I are working on the panel times and venues. 
We've already configured the panels, and the schedule should be 
posted _______??????


2.10 AoIR Ethics Working Group (Charles Ess, Chair)

2.10.1 Elgesem has posted some important comments and questions in 
conjunction with our linking the recent Guidelines approved by the 
National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the 
Humanities (NESH) and (b) Malin Svenningson has provided us with a 
case study highlighting the arguments for _not_ requiring informed 
consent and insuring confidentiality in certain kinds of Internet 
research (primarily chatrooms).