Minutes of the February 10, 2006 SGB Meeting

Participants:

Florence Appel, SIGCAS Chair
Annie Archbold, DLP Chair
Donna Baglio, ACM Director, SIG Services
Alan Berenbaum, SGB EC
Ron Boisvert, Pubs Board Co-Chair
Steve Bourne, ACM Past President
Barrett Bryant, SIGAPP Chair
Michael Burke, SGB EC
Jamie Callan, SIGIR Chair
Alain Chesnais, SGB EC
Terry Coatta, MSB Chair
Jack Davidson, SIGPLAN Chair
Erin Dolan, ACM Prog. Coordinator, SIG Services
Lance Fortnow, SIGACT Vice Chair
Virgil Gligor, SIGSAC Chair
William Griswold, SIGSOFT Chair
Vicki Hanson, SIGACCESS Chair
Bill Hefley, SIGCAS Vice Chair
Mark Hill, HOC Chair
Ginger Ignatoff, ACM Prog. Director, SIG Services
Mary Jane Irwin, Pubs Board Co-Chair
Dave Johnson, SIGMOBILE Chair
Norman Jouppi, SIGARCH Chair
Joseph Konstan, SIGCHI President
Werner Krandick, SIGSAM Vice Chair
Richard Ladner, SIGACT Chair
Edith Lawson, SGB EC
Leila Lyons, SIGUCCS Chair
Diana Marculescu, SIGDA Chair
Erik Goodman, SIGEVO
Antonio Annibal, SIGAPL
Keith Marzullo, SIGOPS Chair
Renee McCauley, SIGCSE Board Member
Andrew McGettrick, Ed Board Co Chair
John McCormick, SIGAda Chair
Brad Mehlenbacher, SIGDOC Chair
Ethan Munson, SIGWEB Secretary Treasurer
Peter Nuernberg, SIGWEB Chair
Scott Owen, SIGGRAPH President
Barbara Owens, SIGCSE Vice Chair
Dave Patterson, ACM President
Vern Paxson, SIGCOMM Vice Chair
Gregory Piatetsky, SIGKDD Chair
Raghu Ramakrishnan, SIGMOD Chair
Darren Ramdin, ACM Associate Director, Finance
Han Reichgelt, SIGITE Chair
Martin Rinard, SIGBED Vice Chair
Eric Roberts, Ed. Board Co-Chair
Pat Ryan, ACM Chief Operating Officer
Janice Sipior, SIGMIS Chair
Robert St. Amant, SIGART Treasurer
Chris Stephenson, CSTA Executive Director
Simon Taylor, SIGSIM Chair
Emil Volcheck, SIGSAM Chair
Henry Walker, SIGCSE Chair
Robert Walker, SGB EC
Michael Wellman, SIGecom Chair
John White, ACM Chief Executive Officer
Alex Wolf, SGB EC

1.0 Welcome

1.1 	Welcome, Introductions and Voting Review (R. Walker, J. Konstan)

The meeting opened at 8:30 am with Konstan and Walker welcoming the participants. Konstan  reviewed the weighted voting practices followed at all SGB EC meetings. All participants then introduced themselves.

1.2 	Welcome and Comments from the ACM President (D. Patterson)

Patterson provided an update concerning his ‘classic’ books idea.  During the previous SGB meeting he described a campaign whereby ACM, after input from the membership, would place 20 “classic” computer science books online.  To be considered, the book could no longer be available through print or normal venues.  Since the previous meeting, both the SIG leaders and ACM conveyed the idea to their respective memberships.  As a result, 600 titles were nominated.  During this process, the theme was changed from ‘classic’ books to ‘favorite’ books.  With help from ACM’s IS department, a wiki was created which allowed members to vote for their favorite titles as well as provide feedback.  Assuming that authors allow the appropriate copyright transfer, ACM will be able to provide soft copy of the book within the digital library for as little as $10 or $15 each. 

Patterson requested additional feedback from the SIGs specifically pertaining to the wiki and its management of the voting, nominations, feedback options etc….  SIGs should consider utilizing similar tools within their own communities (i.e., voting for best papers, etc…)

2.0	Report from the CEO (J. White)

John White discussed the general state of ACM.  Overall ACM is fundamentally and financially sound and continuing to grow.  ACM’s Market Research initiative provided valuable information regarding ACM and its products and services.  Practitioners and Managers make up 60% of the membership while Researchers and Academics/Educators make up approximately 30%.  The overall satisfaction of ACM has increased.  ACM is proud of this statistic and continues to improve upon it.  Specific areas of concern include women and student membership retention. Conference satisfaction received the highest rating within the Member Satisfaction Survey.  

Ongoing priorities for ACM continue to be its membership as well as financial performance.  
One of ACM's overall strategic initiatives includes advancing computing as a science and profession.    The recently created Professions Board has begun to research new products and services for professionals.  ACM has enhanced membership offerings such as Queue Magazine, PD courses and the books program.  ACM is in the process of launching new member grades.  In addition to the Professional level, there will also be the Senior Member level and the Distinguished Member (which would be just below the “ACM Fellow” status).  Members can self-nominate  (with endorsements from another member) for the Senior and Distinguished member levels.  Pat Ryan indicated that ACM will distribute calls for nominations for the two new member levels.  SIGs will then have the opportunity to publicize accordingly.  Additionally, ACM is also in the process of developing a lifetime membership offering which would allow interested members to pay a pro-rated membership fee, depending on their age at the time of renewal.

ACM has been involved in a year-long job migration study.  This effort has allowed ACM to assess the globalization of IT.  Off-shoring is on the rise.  While it’s difficult to determine how quickly it is increasing, it’s important that ACM take an active role in shaping public policy and improving the issue of the public’s declining interest in IT.  Standardized jobs are more easily moved from developed to developing countries.  Some may consider such progression a threat to national security and privacy, yet it is important to stay competitive in a global IT environment.  Countries must adopt policies that foster innovation and improve their ability to attract and retain IT talent.  Such information learned from the job migration study will be distributed accordingly to allow for additional public policy initiatives in Washington, DC. 

3.0  	CSTA Update (C. Stephenson)

Due to a lack of administrative, professional development and leadership in the secondary schools, the Computer Science Teachers Association was initiated about a year and a half ago.  Since that time, the organizers/staff of CSTA have been concentrating on getting the program up and running, including the implementation of international outreach activities.  A panel was created as a first step in an NSF-funded project to create and disseminate a white paper on issues  pertaining to K-12 computer science curriculum.

CSTA would like to allow for increased communication with the SIGs.  They are currently working with ACM-W to create a poster for high school and middle school distribution.  One of the most shocking developments noted was that soon-to-be teachers have no idea what their state requirements are for certification in computer science.   CSTA is working on a series of documents included in the ACM Model Curriculum for K-12 Computer Science to help correct this problem. 

While there are currently about 2,000 members the potential membership could reach at least 15,000 in the US alone.  

Motion: 	The SGB reaffirms its earlier motion to fund CSTA for 3 years, with this (FY’07) being the 2nd year of funding.
Motion proposed by the SGB EC and unanimously passed by the SGB.

4.0  	SIG Program Reviews

4.1	SIGAPL

Since the last viability, SIGAPL has seen a decrease in professional and student membership which brings the SIG to a total of 294 members.  In turn, their fund balance has decreased.  They would like to work on improving these numbers by 2007.  APL has a goal of re-launching the yearly APL conference in late 2006.  The APL newsletter, Quote Quad, has been issued on an irregular basis although their objective is to publish both Quote Quad and the SIGAPL newsletter on a regular basis.

Motion: 	The SGB recommends placing SIGAPL in transition due to a lack of activity and concerns regarding volunteer development and communication.  The SGB EC Small SIG Advisor will work with the leadership of SIGAPL to explore opportunities for continuing to provide an outlet for the specialty.
Motion proposed by the SGB EC and unanimously passed by the SGB.

Action:  Sipior to work with the leadership of SIGAPL to explore opportunities for continuing to provide an outlet for SIGAPL.  That will include discussions with the leadership of SIGPLAN.  Sipior will make a recommendation to the SGB EC by April 1, 2006

Action:  Frawley to update program review schedule to include an update of SIGAPL at the summer/fall’06 meeting.

4.2  	SIGACT (R. Ladner)

SIGACT has seen a 17% growth in membership in the past 4 years but none in the last 2.  They are also in financially sound shape with a 15% increase in fund balance over the last year.  The SIGACT sponsored Symposium on Theory of Computation (STOC) has had consistent and similar attendance counts over the last 4 years.  In 2005 they sponsored and cooperated with 6 other conferences and plan on being involved in more in 2006.  SIGACT News is issued quarterly and has been sent out consistently during the past 4 years.  The SIG provides SIGACT News, the SIGACT website and a moderated listserve to their members for information services.

Motion: 	The SGB congratulates SIGACT on their program performance and finds them viable to continue their status for the next 4 years.
Motion proposed by the SGB EC and unanimously passed by the SGB.

Action:  Frawley to update program review schedule to include an update of SIGACT at the winter/spring’10 meeting.

4.3	SIGAda (J. McCormick)

Since the last viability, SIGAda has had a slight decrease in its membership, however it is still stable.  Their members are active, with many attending the annual conference and 2/3 of the candidates in the last election were new to the election process with SIGAda.  The 2005 conference was small yet financially and technically successful.  It was able to attract 25% international attendees and many new vendors for the exhibit hall.  The Ada newsletter has been consistently issued quarterly for the last 4 years.  They have recently changed managing editors and anticipate sending the newsletter out 3 times a year instead of quarterly in 2006 and thereafter.  In 2005 Ada letters provided technical articles, proceedings from the conference, proceedings from the International Real-Time Ada Workshop and had the highest number of pages published in 4 years. Slides.

Motion: 	The SGB congratulates SIGAda on their program performance and finds them viable to continue their status for the next 4 years.
Motion proposed by the SGB EC and unanimously passed by the SGB

Action:  Frawley to update program review schedule to include an update of SIGAda at the winter/spring’10 meeting.

5.0  Health of Conferences Committee Update (M. Hill)
The Health of Conferences committee was formed in December 2005 by ACM and IEEE CS under the direction of Dave Patterson with the goals of unearthing actionable ideas and revealing failed ideas for conference planning.  Mark D. Hill was appointed Chair. They intend to collect the best practices onto a web page so that conference organizers can see innovative ways to cope with the demands of paper submissions, refereeing, and presentations as the number of papers increase.  SIGS were asked to respond to 5 questions pertaining to conference paper acceptance, increasing of program committee size and innovative workshop ideas.  30 SIGS responded, giving the committee some results to work with, but they continue to need feedback.

6.0  	Best Practices Session

6.1  	SIGPLAN (J. Davidson)

Davidson was invited to provide some background on putting together the April 2004 issue of SIGPLAN Notices. This was a special issue that contained "20 Years of the ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (1979 - 1999): A Selection." The thirteen member program committee, chaired by Kathryn McKinley, compiled a selection of what they deemed to be the fifty most influential papers published in PLDI from 1979 to 1999. 

In 2001 the EC of SIGPLAN selected a committee to select 50 most influential papers of PLDI for the last 20 years. The committee solicited nominations and received 351 of which 179 were unique. The selection was done through several rounds of teleconferences and e-mail with impact and technical excellence being the primary criteria. Part of the publication included retrospectives from authors to put paper in context. They outlined the influences that led to the work from all 50. The project was well received by the membership. This was a great way for the SIG to honor some of its most influential members, making this kind of activity very important to the community. 

6.2  	SIGSOFT (W. Griswold)
Griswold was invited to provide some background on the SIGSOFT project to document the PhD dissertations in software engineering by inviting people (members and non-members alike) to submit titles, abstracts, and URLs for capture on the SIGSOFT web site. The list is provided as a resource for PhD candidates, researchers, scientists, and engineers who are actively pursuing advanced research in Software Engineering.
SIGSOFT invites PhD graduates to submit information about their dissertations by using a form on the SIGSOFT website. The information provided is evaluated by the SIGSOFT committee before being added to the list.
They now have 57 entries in the repository and believe it is worthwhile to redouble their efforts. They’ve included a letter in the SIGSOFT newsletter pointing this out to leadership and they intend to e-mail members asking them to contribute to the depository which is a single web page of citations, organized by year. The rules of submission indicate that the information must be submitted by author or advisor, abstract in English, cursorily checked by SIGSOFT for accuracy and SE content (err on side of acceptance). 

6.3  	SIGCHI (J. Konstan)

Konstan was invited to provide the SIG leaders with information on the restructuring of the flagship CHI conference as outlined in the SIGCHI annual report. SIGCHI has started a change in CHI conference tutorial model. The modifications to the program have not been evaluated yet because the first time this will happen will be in April. The conference was beginning to cancel tutorials because of a lack of enrollment, complaints about quality and variety.

The new model will provide tutorials, now titled courses, as just another technical part of the conference. They’ve created new tracks about areas of practices and will have these courses as part of conference Monday – Thursday instead of just Sunday and Monday. There is a wider variety of topics for these 40 minute courses. This program makes presentation cheaper. They’re marketed as free but the materials fee is $25/unit. Completely untested so previous instructors that were paid well are now in a model of providing a service and reaching out to the community. More people are expected so there is a need to set limits for registration.  So far this seems promising. The model has been presented at other venues where people discussed it and said this was the sort of thing they found useful so informal response has been positive. They intend to go out to recruit specific research tutorials.

All three leaders indicated their willingness to discuss these SIG activities in more depth with any Chairs interested in providing similar services/activities to their members.

6.4  	Others

The “Best Practices Session” gave each leader an opportunity to provide a quick best practice from their SIG:

SIGSIM is trying to get more vendors and getting academics to partner with those vendors. The match-up is up to them. This is a challenge. 

SIGSAM is providing ISSAC proceedings CD and distributing along with open source software. 

SIGGRAPH papers program is so successful it is approaching the breaking point with up to 440 submissions. Sketches initially was for research in progress but gets 500 submissions with 30% acceptance rate and a great place for practitioners to present.  Exhibitors/vendors have tech talks. We rent room and they can have ½ day so that they can give in-depth tutorials on their systems

SIGIR doctoral dissertation program allows grad students to spend a day with senior members of community with 1 on 1 contact. Popular with community and hope for better dissertations down the road. 2 page abstract fairly far along goes through selection process with support from IR for travel. Comments from group and then ½ hour session with 2 senior members of the group for feedback. Acceptance rate is 50-60%.

SIGCSE produced a special issue on Women in Computing in June 2002 and then put together 1st CD venture on Women in Computing with special issue of SIGCSE, IEEE Annals, CACM distributed with June 2005 bulletin. Henry has copy for anyone wishing to review it.

SIGACCESS has provided Doctoral Consortium funding for last 2 years. One of the recipients won best paper award.

SIGACT exciting the public about theoretical computing. Invited science writers from people that do science writing.

SIGPLAN conference submission support much more reliable service. Number of advantages. People that write conference papers are picky so they commissioned a professional designer to prepare a new latex template. Committee came up with template out on web page, SIGs encouraged to use it. 

SIGCHI and others use submission database and if you share between conferences you share keywords of expertise. 

SIGKDD reception on 2nd day combined with food, wine and beer with poster session. Provide 2 minute summaries.

SIGITE, rather than committee structure reorganizing around projects, time limit for initiatives.

SIGARCH setting up wiki for continuity for officers from 1 year to next. Used to fund travel grants but a lot of industry folks fund themselves, so get industry first and use their funds as backup

SIGSAC expanded flagship conference into Asia. Tremendous response to call for papers and tremendous amount of people showing up in March. 

SIGDA has a new column in newsletter called “What Is Column” which includes descriptions in plain English related to DA. Received good feedback which goes in newsletter and wikipedia. All newsletters in DL. Started lots of programs including University booth, PhD forum, summer school for students, Cadathlon, which is programming contest for EDA. Surveyed membership and some of the programs that were more relevant were least costly. Suggest setting up a plan to assess new programs. 

7.0  	Governance Update

7.1  	Council Update (R. Walker)

Activities going on at the ACM Council level include the development of the new member grades.  These new levels could be used as a stepping stone to the “ACM Fellow” nominations.  It is important for the SIGs to advertise these new levels and consider nominations within their own areas.  

7.2  	SGB EC Update (J. Konstan)

Three years ago, the SGB adopted a policy that allowed a delta to be added to the ACM allocation formula.  Due to the increased revenue stream in recent years, the delta can now be removed thus allowing the original formula to preside which begins at 16%.

8.0  	DLP Report (A. Archbold)

Archbold reviewed the progress being made on the reengineered Distinguished Lectureship Program which is available to ACM chapters. The committee is expecting to make available the lectures of several dozen eminent computing professionals. Archbold requested input from the SGB leadership. She asked them to think about the topics in their field and determine which should be included and which individuals could be drawn upon to provide the broadest reach. 

There are 4 areas the committee is concentrating on:
	Content and Speakers–reconfiguration of topics with a fair representation of speakers
	Web – reconfigure and make more user friendly
	Channels and venues – outreach into student groups, topical speakers
	Marketing and Branding

The committee is expecting to kick-off the new program in the fall. SGB leaders were asked to contact Archbold and provide input.

Program Reviews (Continued)
	
4.4	   SIGCAS (F. Appel)

SIGCAS fund balance has increased dramatically over the last 4 years which they see as a reflection of savings due to online-only publications.  They are currently at a stable 550 members and they plan to do a member survey to improve their services.  The latest call for nominations resulted in over thirty responses and now all current EC members are new to SIGCAS leadership.  They would like to continue to increase the involvement of volunteers and have recently created the position of Conference Coordinator as part of this initiative.  There are no SIGCAS sponsored conferences at this time, although they do cooperate with various conferences.  They also have proposals out to SIGDOC and SIGCSE to have SIGCAS tracks at their conferences.  They also plan on assisting with CCSC-MW in October 2006.  Since their newsletter, Computers and Society went online in June 2002 they have seen drawbacks and benefits.  The publication costs have dropped but they are experiencing problems with timely publications and uploading the issues, which will be addressed with website revisions.  SIGCAS future goals are to expand their connection with other SIGS and continue to meet the needs of their members. Slides.

Motion: 	The SGB congratulates SIGCAS on their program performance and finds them viable to continue their status for the next 4 years.
Motion proposed by the SGB EC and unanimously passed by the SGB.

Action:  Frawley to update program review schedule to include an update of SIGCAS at the winter/spring’10 meeting.

4.5	       SIGGRAPH (S. Owen)

Since the last viability, SIGGRAPH membership has had a steady retention and new membership rate.  The fund balance as well as the SIGGRAPH Conference have exhibited similar results.  SIGGRAPH sponsors/co-sponsors 10-12 conferences and cooperates with 10-20 conferences per year.  They would like to increase this number, especially those co-located with the SIGGRAPH conference.  They have implemented a new website and they foresee adding a membership service section to it.  Their information services and publications include an electronic newsletter titled Computer Graphics Quarterly, SIGGRAPH Village (an international resource center) and SOMA DVD/Streaming Video of the SIGGRAPH Conference.  They have found that the video streaming is too expensive and hope to find an alternative for 2006. Slides.

Motion: 	The SGB congratulates SIGGRAPH on their program performance and finds them viable to continue their status for the next 4 years.
Motion proposed by the SGB EC and unanimously passed by the SGB

Action:  Frawley to update program review schedule to include an update of SIGGRAPH at the winter/spring’10 meeting.

9.0  	Board Reports

9.1  	Publications Board Report (M.J. Irwin and R. Boisvert)

The Publications Board is seeking new members and active participants.  Several of the board members 3 year terms will be up soon.  In October 2005 the Publications Board adopted a plagiarism policy to raise visibility of the issue, clarify procedures and consequences.  The policy is based on input from ACM leadership including the SIGs. The SGB was asked to pass on the information to their committees to make everyone aware of the seriousness of the issues. 

The Publications Board is now indexing all but the six most recent ACM journals with an 18 month lag time (on new journals).  CACM has been revamped.  They are republishing “best of the best” conference papers and they have revised the magazine to reach a broader audience.  33 out of 40 reader comments have been favorable.  

9.2  	Professions Board Report (S. Bourne)

The Professions Board was established to help provide more service to those members who are developers, IT specialists and managers (ie not educators).  The board recently met in January to review ACM’s products and services survey results.  There appears to be a strong demand for information on software development whereas there is less of a demand for career information (ie skills, jobs etc…). Current priorities of the board include:  Networking and communities, Best Practices and the possible creation of a software development magazine.   

9.3  	Membership Board Report (T. Coatta)

At a meeting in November 2005, 20 chapter leaders discussed best practices for running chapters, as well as how to create more chapters. They also worked on policies and procedures for communication with ACM members.  In the last year, there have been 2 student meetings which helped identify needs of student members.  Student members are looking for ways to be more involved with SIG conferences and chapters.  Membership Services has created a new lifetime membership grade and has updated the website to include MyACM personalization features.

9.4  	Education Board Report (E. Roberts)

The changes in the Education Board structure were reviewed. The Board acts as an executive-like committee overseeing the Education Council and will initiate, direct, and manage key ACM educational projects. These include activities such as the promotion of curriculum recommendations, the coordination of educational activities, and efforts to provide educational and information services to the ACM membership.

The Board will oversee the work of the Education Council. This body will include representatives of all ACM committees concerned with accreditation, curricula, aid to educational institutions, and other educational activities.  The voting members of the Education Board include a Chair, VC and at least 5, but not more than 10 additional members. Liaisons with other boards and committees within ACM will be invited to attend meetings in a non-voting capacity. 

9.5	USACM Report (E. Volcheck)

A report on USACM was added to the agenda. Volcheck provided some brief background on 4 areas of action/discussion within USACM. Details can be found in the above link. 
1)	Economic competitiveness - Doubling of NSF and New Science and Math Education Programs
2)	Good legislation and fair information practices
3)	Export regulations
4)	Digital rights management issues (Broadcast Flag)

Volcheck reminded the SGB that SIGs can lead on all these issues and are encouraged to bring issues before USACM. The group works with other organizations like CRA and EPIC and looks to collaborate but there are a few areas where ACM looks to take the lead.

Program Reviews (Continued)
	
4.6	SIGDA (D. Marculescu)

Since the last viability, SIGDA has had a stable membership with a high retention rate and their fund balance is above the required value.  They plan on re-introducing membership dues in 2007 which they believe may have an affect on their retention rate.  Their finances are declining due to increased number of SIGDA programs and a declining DAC surplus.  They intend to strengthen their finances by changing their events planning strategies and seeking low cost ways to attract new members.  SIGDA’s main sponsored conferences are DAC, ICCAD, DATE, ASP-DAC with a total attendance of over 8,000 and are all considered premier conferences in the general area of EDA.  For all conferences, they have had steady or increased attendance (30% for DAC) and submission rates (60% for DAC).  They also sponsor and cooperate with over 10 other conferences and workshops.  SIGDA publishes 4 resources for EDA professionals including ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems which is one of the premier journals in that area of their field.  Their electronic newsletter is distributed twice a month and the SIGDA DVD Super Compendium is issued every spring. Slides.

Motion: 	The SGB congratulates SIGDA on their program performance and finds them viable to continue their status for the next 4 years.
Motion proposed by the SGB EC and unanimously passed by the SGB

Action:  Frawley to update program review schedule to include an update of SIGDA at the winter/spring’10 meeting.

4.6.1	SIGCSE (H. Walker)

SIGCSE’s membership and financial status are secure with a slight increase in their fund balance and a 5-10% decrease in retention rate in 2005.  Their approach in attracting and maintaining membership is through strong incentives for conference attendees to join and finding meaningful ways to engage their existing members.  In the SIGCSE 2005 election all previous board members were competing for officer positions and new people were running for at-large positions.  The 2006 SIGCSE Technical Symposium had over 1200 participants with various associated workshops and consortiums.  The Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science (ITiCSE) had about 200 attendees and they expect to break even with their budget.  The International Computing Education Research Workshop (ICER) is a new venture which had about 60 attendees in 2006.  They cooperate with many conferences and give the cooperating conferences the opportunity to apply for funds to bring speakers from recent SIGCSE conferences to repeat their presentations at the cooperating conference.  The SIGCSE Bulletin inroads is published quarterly and is consistently sent on time.  SIGCSE is funding new CDs to be distributed with bulletin issues entitled “Pathways: Women and Computing” and “ICER 2005: International Computing Education Research Workshop”.

Motion: 	The SGB congratulates SIGCSE on their program performance and finds them viable to continue their status for the next 4 years.
Motion proposed by the SGB EC and unanimously passed by the SGB

Action:  Frawley to update program review schedule to include an update of SIGCSE at the winter/spring’10 meeting.

10.0	SGB EC Election Update (A. Berenbaum)

Berenbaum reported that the SGB EC candidate slate was complete and encouraged all SIG leaders to vote in the election.