[Air-l] June 2002 executive committee report

[Steve Jones]

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