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This report highlights the excellent current state of the society, with a healthy financial outlook and support for new initiatives. Long-term planning is required to address looming risks. The society consistently ranks highly and our members are frequently honored for their work. However, there are areas of improvement, including the need for a committee-based governance structure and reducing sub-to-pub time. New initiatives focus on membership, chapters, awards, a new website, and other areas. Your input and ideas are welcome.
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President’s Report Andrea Goldsmith IT Society BOG MeetingMarch 18, 2009CISS Johns Hopkins University
State of the Society • Current state of the society is excellent • Healthy financial outlook and reserves • Support for new initiatives this year • Some risks looming, long-term planning required • Transactions viewed as highly prestigious • Consistently ranks as one of the most cited IEEE journals • Our field is becoming more interdisciplinary • Members frequently honored for their work • Symposium and workshops well-attended and of high quality. • Membership decline reversed this year • Student committee events widely-attended and compelling • Identified as role model for other societies • Chapters are extremely vibrant and growing
So why not maintain the status quo? • Society governance has largely changed to a committee-based structure; less BoG influence • Our Transactions sub-to-pub time exceeds that of all other IEEE journals • Our membership/chapters committee lacked a charter • Our website was outdated and hard to maintain • We had a closed-door process for nominations to our most prestigious award • We are sometimes viewed as an “old-boys” network, and have lacked representation of women and minorities These issues are the focus of new initiatives this year
Society Governance • Our society governance has changed over the last few years. • In the past, most decisions and oversight was conducted by the BoG, • Society hierarchy was relatively flat. • Recently some of decisions and oversight have shifted to committees. • e.g., conference committee • Given importance of conference committee: chair should become a voting BoG member: Vote for BoG approval • Officer oversight of committee operations important • Make officers ex-officio members of committees if not already • Currently in place: • Pubs committee: the president, 1st VP, and 2nd • Shannon Award and Wyner Award Committees: All officers • Paper Awards Committees (chaired by 1st VP) with 2nd VP as an ex-officio member • Membership and chapters committee: 2nd VP chairs • Proposed ex-officio membership for the other committees. • Conference Committee: President and 1st VP (in bylaws: vote for BOG approval) • Online Committee: President and 1st VP • Student Committee: 2nd VP • Outreach Committee: 2nd VP
Reducing Sub-to-Pub Time • Our Transactions have unacceptably long delays • Provides poor member service, hurts timeliness of publication, impacts tenure decisions for authors • There are many reasons for these delays • But we can do much better • My biggest initiative this year is to reduce sub-to-pub time based on metrics we create (not IEEE) • Publications Committee report will have more details • Decision to upgrade Pareja, move to Manuscript Central, or create a new system must be made soon.
Membership/Chapters Committee • This committee has lacked a charter in the past • Our membership had experienced constant decline for many years (until this year) • We lacked a real Distinguised Lecture program • Chapters were not well integrated into the society • Outreach to countries without a significant IT presence was lacking New charter and initiatives for this committee
Awards • Open call for Shannon award nominees • Want to make sure not to exclude deserving nominess • Open nominations closed March 1 • Received 6 nominations • Committee will still generate internal nominations • Paper Awards • Changes to joint Comsoc/IT award • Would still like to see more paper award nominations • Not following bylaws on IT paper award nominations
New Website • Launched at ITA • Very successful – many clicks! • Many features that will improve its value to our members • Maintenance requires ongoing activity: • Proposal to make the online committee a standing committee • More details and vote from Nick
Other Initiatives • Outreach committee • Mentoring network • Newsletter initiatives • Closer ties between website and newsletter • More tutorial material • Possible creation of a magazine