[Air-l] April, 2003 AoIR Executive Committee Report

Steve Jones sjones at uic.edu
Sat Apr 19 19:47:19 PDT 2003


April 19, 2003
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
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 The proposed dues increase passed the AoIR membership with 108 
votes "yes" (86%) and 17 votes "no" (14%). I greatly appreciate the 
votes and have engaged in email dialogue with several members 
concerning the difficulty of keeping up memberships in multiple 
organizations, rising costs, benefits vs. costs, graduate student 
concerns over rising fees, etc. But as one member put it, "this is 
the only way to grow into a scholarly organization." AoIR is still in 
its infancy, and without financial support it will not get much 
farther, so the early support that its members are providing is one 
of the cornerstones of the foundation on which its future will indeed 
be built.

Another cornerstone is participation. Elections are upcoming for AoIR 
executive offices. A call for nominations will soon be distributed, 
and I urge you to consider running for office.

Yet another cornerstone for us has been our annual conference. As I 
write this I am told that any moment in the next 24 - 48 hours 
notices of acceptance of conference submissions will be going out. I 
can quite confidently say after looking at the planning that is going 
into this conference, at the quality of the submissions, and having 
stayed at the conference hotel (Toronto Hilton) that this year's 
conference will continue the AoIR tradition of indelibly memorable 
meetings.

2.2 Vice President (Baym)

2.2.1 I worked on our pieces for the aoir annual, planning upcoming 
elections, and future conferences.


2.3 Secretary (Bunz)

2.3.1 I have done my secretarial duties and counted votes in both exec voting
procedures and membership voting on the dues increase. I have kept track
of various versions of various documents, and participated actively in
their evolution. I shipped snow once again last week as we were hit by
what will hopefully remain the last storm of this never-ending winter.

Ulla Bunz
Secretary

March 13 - April 15, 2003
This month on the executive list:
-	The executive committee discussed the revised dues fee
structure as proposed by Steve Jones. The executive committee voted
unanimously to accept the proposed changes. The fees have since been put
to a vote by the membership, which voted (by a large majority) to accept
the proposed changes.
-	We continued a discussion on affiliation or a joint conference
with IEEE ISTAS.
-	The exec provided feedback to program chair Matt Allen on
conference program related issues, such as reviewing.
-	The exec discussed and revised a statement of principles
concerning discrimination and harassment. The final version of the
statement was unanimously approved by the executive committee and is
available on the AoIR website.
-	The exec began discussing the vote call for the next elections,
and election related issues, based on the recommendations of the
election workgroup. More information will be made available soon.


2.4 Treasurer (Bates)

2.4.1 Keeping up with memberships, making lists for people, reports 
for the tax men (thanks Steve for actually doing the filing).


2.5 Open Seats (Silver, Wellman)

2.5.1 Silver: I was involved in early discussions regarding the 
upcoming elections
process.

2.5.2 Wellman: Nothing to report.


2.6 Appointed Seats (Allen, Shade)

2.6.1 Allen: I have been 'programming' the conference, so to speak, 
coordinating the
activities of 60+ reviewers and 16 subchairs (who deserve a big thankyou for
their efforts too), and have now completed the first step of the Program
Chair's task: selecting the papers and panels to accept and reject. I have
also been liaising with the Conference Chair concerning the final shape of
the program.

2.6.2 Shade: Worked on introductory section piece for the AOIR Annual 
with Logie.


2.7 Student Seat (Klastrup)

2.7.1 Nothing to report. (handed in thesis) [Congratulations, Lisbeth!]


2.8 Publications Officers (Hunsinger, Breindahl)

2.8.1 Hunsinger: helped matt with reviewing
made sure all the techie stuff with reviewing went well, congrats to 
the program committee on that process
began working on election stuff
set up the vote list
reset the members list
etc. etc.
all seems well.

2.8.2 Breindahl:  Updated aoir.org - book list and Statement of 
Principles. Discarded massive amounts of spam.


2.9 2003 Conference (Liss Jeffrey, Chair; Matthew Allen, David 
Mitchell, Program Co-Chairs)

2.9.1 Dr Liss Jeffrey: The Toronto conference crew is hard at work. 
We are delighted to confirm the keynote speakers for AoiR 4.0 
"Broadening the Band." Lucy Suchman, Pierre Levy, Steve Jones and 
Jane Fountain have all been invited to deliver substantive and 
inspiring talks based on their own research, and they have graciously 
agreed to participate fully in our conference. The conference hotel 
is the Hilton on Richmond Street West. It is a great spot for 
networking, and we encourage everyone to stay there (that is how we 
will obtain the well appointed downstairs conference rooms for our 
use.)  Our official airline is Air Canada. Details on the pre 
conference workshops, the Saturday night banquet and a possible 
Sunday brunch will be forthcoming soon. www.ecommons.net/aoir

2.9.2 Mitchell: No report.


2.10  AoIR Ethics Working Group (Charles Ess, Chair)

2.10.1 Nothing to report.


2.11 AoIR Research Annual Working Group (Mia Consalvo, Chair)

2.11.1 This month the Research Annual working group finalized submissions from
contributors, wrote section introductions, and prepared the manuscript for
delivery to the publisher for copy-editing. The volume, titled "Internet
Research Annual Volume 1: Selected Papers from the Association of Internet
Researchers Conferences 2000-2002" contains 26 chapters, representing the
work of 29 Internet scholars.


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




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