ACM MemberNet - February 25, 2016

Welcome to the February 2016 edition of ACM MemberNet, bringing you the world of ACM and beyond. Explore the many facets of ACM with our newsletter of member activities and events. Read current and past issues of MemberNet online at http://membernet.acm.org.

More ACM member newsletters: ACM-W Connections, newsletter from ACM Women's Council; MemberNet Europe; MemberNet India.

Read coverage of ACM in the news media.

Is there a person, event, or issue you'd like to see covered? Please email mn-editor at acm.org.

February 25, 2016

TOP STORIES

ACM 2016 General Election Candidate Slate

ACM has assembled its slate of candidates for President, Vice President, and Secretary/Treasurer (for the 2016 to 2018 term), and Members at Large (2016 to 2020). Statements and biographical sketches of all candidates will appear in the May 2016 issue of Communications of the ACM. Visit the ACM Elections page for more information and to view the slate.

2016 SIG Elections Candidate Slate

In accordance with ACM Bylaw 6, the following SIGs will hold elections in 2016: SIGAI, SIGCSE, SIGDOC, ACM SIGGRAPH, SIGHPC, SIGIR, SIGLOG, and SIGSIM.

ACM Policy and Procedures require that those SIGs holding elections notify their membership of candidates for elected offices. To see the slate of candidates, please visit the 2016 ACM SIG Election site.

In accordance with the SIG Bylaws, additional candidates may be placed on the ballot by petition. All candidates must be Professional Members of ACM, as well as members of the SIG. Anyone interested in petitioning must inform ACM Headquarters (Pat Ryan, ACM, 2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701, NY, NY 10121; [email protected]) and the SIG Viability Advisor (Will Tracz, [email protected]) of their intent to petition by 15 March 2016. Petitions must be submitted to ACM Headquarters for verification by 31 March 2016.

Additional information will appear on the 2016 ACM SIG Elections site.

AWARDS

Award Nomination Deadlines: Eckert-Mauchly, Gordon Bell, and George Michael

The ACM/IEEE-CS Eckert-Mauchly Award honors recipients with a certificate and $5,000 given jointly by the ACM and the IEEE Computer Society for outstanding contributions to the field of computer and digital systems architecture, where the field of computer architecture is considered to encompass the combined hardware-software design and analysis of computing and digital systems. Nominations are due March 30.

The ACM Gordon Bell Prize is awarded each year to recognize outstanding achievement in high performance computing. Finalists present their work each November at the annual SC Conference, and the award is presented at the SC Awards Ceremony accompanied by a prize of $10,000. Nominations are due April 15.

The ACM-IEEE-CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship honors exceptional PhD students throughout the world whose research focus is on high-performance computing applications, networking, storage, or large-scale data analysis using the most powerful computers that are currently available. The awards are presented each November at the annual SC Conference. Each fellowship is accompanied by an honorarium of $5,000 plus travel expenses to attend SC. Nominations are due May 1.

MEMBER RECOGNITION

Call for ACM Senior Member Nominations

The Senior Member advanced grade of membership recognizes ACM members with at least 10 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership who have demonstrated performance and accomplishment that set them apart from their peers. Nominations are accepted on a quarterly basis. The deadline for nominations is March 3. Please read Advice to Those Seeking ACM Senior Members by former Senior Member Committee Chair Susan Rodger on how to submit a strong nomination package.

CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

SIGCSE 2016, March 2 to 5, Memphis, Tennessee

The SIGCSE Technical Symposium addresses problems common among educators working to develop, implement and/or evaluate computing programs, curricula, and courses. SIGCSE provides a forum for sharing new ideas for syllabi, laboratories, and other elements of teaching and pedagogy, at all levels of instruction. Scheduled keynote speakers are John Sweller, Professor Emeritus in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, and Karen Lee Ashcraft, University of Colorado Boulder. Sweller is an educational psychologist who is best known for formulating an influential theory of cognitive load. Ashcraft is a professor as well as the director of the Communication & Society Residential Program, a living-learning community for early college students broadly interested in communication, media, journalism and related themes. SIGCSE award recipients who will be giving talks are Barbara Boucher Owens, ACM Distinguished Educator and past SIGCSE Chair, and Jan Cuny, Program Director for Computing Education at NSF's Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).

SXSW 2016 Interactive, March 11 to 15, Austin, Texas

ACM is hosting a happy hour at the SXSW Interactive Festival. This is a unique opportunity to mingle with your ACM peers and other conference attendees at a dynamic event that celebrates cutting-edge technologies and digital creativity. Join us on Friday, March 11, 6 to 7 p.m. at the J.W. Marriott, 110 E. 2nd St., Level 3. Stop by for giveaways, free subscriptions to ACM's interactions magazine and acmqueue app, discounts on ACM memberships, and more. Check out SXSW's online and mobile app schedules for happy hour info, and tell your friends: #ACMatSXSW16.

ACM will be a new presence at SXSW, with three sessions led by experts in HCI:

  • Paul Debevec, Chief Visual Officer, USC Institute for Creative Technologies, former ACM SIGGRAPH VP and Academy Award recipient—Lighting Hollywood's Real and Virtual Actors
  • Patrick Baudisch, Computer Science Professor, Hasso Plattner Institute—What if We Could 3D Print in One Second?
  • Panel: Joe Konstan, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, former ACM SIGCHI President (moderator) with Jeff Hancock, Professor, Department of Communication, Stanford University; Elizabeth Churchill, Director of UX, Google; and Duncan J. Watts, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research—Massive Online Experiments: Practical Advice

Register now.

DATE 2016, March 14 to 18, Dresden, Germany

Design, Automation and Test in Europe is the European event for electronic system design and test. This year's event is highlighting automotive and secure systems. Scheduled keynotes include Luc Van den Hove, President and CEO, imec; Antun Domic, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Design Group, Synopsys; Patrick Leteinturier, Fellow Automotive Systems, Infineon Technologies; and Walden (Wally) C. Rhines, Chief Executive Officer and Chair, Mentor Graphics Corp.

L@S 2016, April 25 to 26, Edinburgh, UK

The third ACM Conference on Learning at Scale is at the intersection of computer science and the learning sciences, seeking to improve practice and theories of learning at scale. Co-located with the 6th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK 2016), Learning at Scale refers to new approaches for students to learn and for teachers to teach. This year L@S introduces a new format of flipped sessions, where authors of accepted papers and posters have been invited to create online resources, or "mini courses," for their contributions, courtesy of edX. Scheduled keynote speakers are Sugata Mitra, professor of educational technology at Newcastle University; Mike Sharples, Chair in educational technology at The Open University; and Ken Koedinger, professor of human computer interaction and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University and Director of the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center.

Applicative 2016, June 1 to 2, New York, NY

The ACM Applicative conference brings together researchers and practitioners to share the latest technologies and trends in computing. The conference is split into two tracks: one for application developers and one for systems software developers.The application development track has speakers from leading technology companies talking about how they are applying new technologies to the products they deliver. Scheduled speakers include Adam Arsenault and Yasha Podeswa of Hootsuite; Chris Meiklejohn of Université Catholique De Louvain; Lucas Krause of Magenic; Stepan Parunashvili of Facebook; and Steve Klabnik of Mozilla. The systems track will explore topics that enable systems-level practitioners to build better software for the modern world. Scheduled speakers include Andi Kleen of Intel; Brendan Gregg and Scott Long of Netflix; Dave Watson of Facebook; Davidlohr Bueso of SuSE; Paul Khuong of AppNexus; and Paul McKenney of IBM. More speakers will be added. Topics will include microservices, managing large-scale mobile applications, the history of the Rust programming language, futex scaling for multi-core systems, and more. Registration opens soon.

MEMBER PROGRAMS

Become an Ambassador for ACM—You Could Be a Grand Prize Winner!

The Ambassadors for ACM program rewards ACM members like you for encouraging new members to join. Your first-hand experience with ACM's valuable career development and continuous learning programs makes you a perfect envoy to share your ACM experiences with prospective members. The 2015–2016 Ambassadors for ACM program offers opportunities for you to earn new prizes, rewards and bonus gifts with each referral.

Submit the ACM Referral Form, and your referrals can join ACM at a special discount rate. Our members are our greatest asset. Your support of ACM is critical to our continuing efforts to advance computing as a science and a profession. Please consider becoming an Ambassador for ACM.

Credible makes it quick and easy for ACM members to save on their student loans. Credible's founding principle is to provide borrowers with the level of transparency they deserve. As a multi-lender marketplace that allows borrowers to receive competitive loan offers from its vetted lenders, Credible empowers consumers to take control of their financial futures. Borrowers can fill out one form, then receive and compare personalized offers from numerous lenders and choose which best serves their individual needs. Credible is fiercely independent, committed to delivering fair and unbiased solutions in student lending. You can also visit the Credible website to learn more about student loan topics, including refinancing, consolidation, reduction, and forgiveness.

LEARNING CENTER

Register to Watch February 26 Talk with acmqueue Columnist Tom Limoncelli on Cloud Computing

Register to watch the next free ACM webinar, Fail Better: Radical Ideas from the Practice of Cloud Computing, to be presented on Friday, February 26 at 2 pm ET by acmqueue columnist Tom Limoncelli. Limoncelli is an internationally recognized author, speaker, and system administrator.

ACM Learning Webinars are free with registration, available for streaming on all major mobile devices, and are recorded for on-demand viewing.

New Skillsoft Books and Videos

New books covering the latest IT skills and technologies are always being added to the ACM Skillsoft Learning Collections. Check out new titles added this month, covering AutoCAD, Gradle, Oracle Hyperion, Raspberry Pi with Java, SQL Server AlwaysOn, and more.

Did you know that ACM members have access to thousands of IT and productivity videos from Skillsoft? Covering a variety of today's hottest topics, these videos offer "on-the-job" support and solutions for busy practitioners. Recently, Skillsoft added significant video content in knowledge areas including Android app development, Microsoft Azure, Java EE 7, Python, Visual Studio, and more.

See the Skillsoft Learning Collections page for more information on books and videos. A more comprehensive list of recently added book titles is available here (see sidebar).

Member Discount on EMC Courseware

ACM has partnered with EMC to bring members a 15% discount on practical training in some of today's most vital IT knowledge areas, such as Big Data, Cloud Computing, Information Storage and Management, Virtualization, and more. These EMC courses focus on technology, not products, to teach technology topics applicable to any vendor environment. Training is available in various modalities, including eLearning, instructor-led (ILT), online ILT, video ILT, and video ILT-stream. For the list of eligible courses and the discount code, visit the EMC courses page.

See the Learning Center's full collection of eBooks.

CAREER & JOB CENTER

Import Your LinkedIn Profile in ACM's Career & Job Center

Be sure to visit ACM's Career & Job Center to update your résumé or create a new one in the Résumé Bank. ACM members' résumés include an ACM logo on their entry, highlighting their ACM membership to employers.

Now available when posting a résumé in the Résumé Bank: import your LinkedIn profile. You will be required to sign in to your LinkedIn account. Please note that LinkedIn does not have exactly the same fields as ACM, so you will have to review the imported information and update where necessary. Once you have a résumé created and saved in our system, you can publish it to the Résumé Bank so that employers find you! Or keep it private and use it when applying online for jobs. Log in to ACM's Job Board and post your résumé today. You can also upgrade to a Preferred Résumé to keep it at the top of the Résumé Bank, highlighted with a star next to it for increased visibility ($25 for 90 days).

In addition, ACM offers CareerNews, which provides summaries of articles on career-related topics of interest to students and professionals in the computing field, in a bi-weekly email alert to ACM members. ACM members can subscribe to the CareerNews email alert service.

For more information about the Career & Job Center please contact Jennifer Ruzicka.

CSTA JOB BOARD

Computer Science Teachers Association Job Board Matches Job Seekers, Employers

The Computer Science Teachers Association's CSTA Job Board is the career hub for K-12 Computer Science teachers. The career center provides access to 100% computer science K-12 teaching-related job postings.

The CSTA Job Board will allow you to manage your career:

  • Search and apply to K-12 computer science related jobs
  • Upload your anonymous résumé and allow employers to contact you
  • Set up job alerts specifying your skills, interests, and location to receive email notifications when a job is posted that matches your criteria

or recruit for open positions:

  • put job openings in front of the most qualified group of K-12 computer science-focused professionals
  • Simply create an employer account on the CSTA Job Board and choose from three levels of online job postings options: Basic 30-Day Online Job Posting ($190); Enhanced 30-Day Online Posting ($250); or Premium 30-Day Online Posting ($310).

CSTA Members: be sure to visit the CSTA Job Board directly (or click the Job Board link from the CSTA homepage) to create and upload your résumé to the Résumé Bank so that employers find you, or keep it private and use it when applying online for jobs. Log in and post your résumé today!

EDUCATION

2015-2016 ACM NDC Study Call for Participation

The 2015-16 ACM NDC Study of non-Ph.D. granting four-year institutions is now open. Now in its fourth year, NDC reaches more than 1,000 US academic units and produces timely data on enrollment, degree production, student body composition, and faculty salaries/demographics that can impact your institution/program(s) and its administration. If your unit has a program in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology, and/or Software Engineering but has not received an invitation to participate, please email Yan Timanovsky.

STUDENT NEWS

Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions: Submission Deadlines

ACM Student Research Competitions (SRCs), sponsored by Microsoft Research, offer a unique forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their original research at well-known ACM sponsored and co-sponsored conferences before a panel of judges and attendees. The most recent SRC winners presented at POPL 2016.
The next conferences accepting submissions are:

Learn about more competitions on the SRC submissions page.

ACM-W Student Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences

The ACM Women's Council (ACM-W) provides support for women undergraduate or graduate students in computer science and related programs who wish to attend research conferences. This exposure to the computer science research world can encourage a student to continue on to the next level (Undergraduate to Graduate, Masters to Ph.D., Ph.D. to an industry or academic position). The student does not have to present a paper at the conference she attends. Students can apply an unlimited number of times; however, once a student receives an award, she is no longer eligible for future ACM-W scholarships.

The ACM-W scholarships are divided between scholarships of up to $600 for intra-continental conference travel, and scholarships of up to $1200 for intercontinental conference travel. Scholarship applications are evaluated in six groups each year, in order to distribute awards across a range of conferences.

ACM-W encourages the student's home department to match the scholarship award and recognize the student's achievement locally within their department. In addition, if the award is for attendance at one of several ACM Special Interest Group conferences (SIGACCESS, SIGACT, SIGARCH, SIGCOMM, SIGCHI, SIGCSE, SIGDA, SIGECOM, SIGEVO, SIGGRAPH, SIGHPC, SIGIR, SIGITE, SIGMM, SIGMOBILE, SIGOPS, SIGPLAN, and SIGSOFT), the SIG will provide complimentary conference registration and a mentor during the conference. The number of free registrations available varies from SIG to SIG. The 2015-2016 scholarships are made possible by generous support from Google, Microsoft Research, and Oracle.

For application form, notification dates and more information, please visit the scholarships page.

Graduating Students Eligible for Special Transition Rate

ACM offers a special ACM Professional Membership for $49 USD (regularly $99) to help graduating students make the transition to professional careers, and take advantage of continuous learning opportunities, including free online books and courses and access to ACM's Career & Job Center. This one-year-only transition rate includes all the benefits of Professional Membership plus the option of purchasing a Digital Library subscription for $50. Recent graduates can access this special transition offer through ACM's convenient online renewal form, or by following the instructions on the paper renewal form. For more information, visit the Reasons to Transition to Professional Membership page.

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

The Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP) is one of ACM's most valued outreach programs, providing universities, corporations, event and conference planners, and local ACM chapters with direct access to top technology leaders and innovators from nearly every sector of the computing industry.

This month's featured speaker is Richard Stallman. Stallman launched the Free Software Movement in 1983 and began development of the GNU operating system in 1984. GNU is free as in freedom (libre): everyone has the freedom to copy it and redistribute it, as well as to make changes either large or small. The GNU/Linux system, basically the GNU system with Linux added, is used on tens of millions of computers today.

Stallman has received the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer award, the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Betterment, and the Premio Extremadura al Conocimiento Libre, as well as several doctorates honoris causa. He has been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame.

Available lectures include A Free Digital Society: What Makes Digital Inclusion Good or Bad?; Computing, Freedom and Privacy; Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks; Free Software and Your Freedom; Should We Have More Surveillance than the USSR?; The Danger of Software Patents; and The GNU General Public License.

For more information on Richard Stallman, please visit his DSP speaker information page.
Richard Stallman's Digital Library author page.

ACM, IEEE Computer Society Join to Share Distinguished Speakers Programs

IEEE-CS and ACM have joined to share their invited speaker programs, to further the dissemination of technical knowledge of computing fields that greatly benefit both memberships. IEEE-CS chapter volunteers can host a speaker from ACM's Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP), with access to top technology leaders and innovators from nearly every sector of the computing industry, by following the instructions on the DSP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an IEEE Computer Society Chapter.

IEEE-CS provides a popular offering of first-quality speakers serving its professional and student chapters. The Distinguished Visitors Program (DVP) owes its success to the many volunteers and staff members of the Computer Society who generously contribute their time and talent. Organizers of an ACM chapter, conference, or event can host a speaker from IEEE-CS's DVP by following the instructions on the DVP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an ACM chapter or event.

CHAPTERS NEWS

Welcome New ACM Chapters

Chapters are the "local neighborhoods" of ACM. The regional ACM Professional, Student, ACM-W, and Special Interest Group (SIG) chapters around the globe involve members locally in competitions, seminars, lectures, workshops, and networking opportunities. ACM welcomes these new chapters that were chartered January 12 to February 2, 2016:

ACM Student Chapters::

  • Alyamamah University ACM Student Chapter, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
  • Bharati Vidyapeeth's College of Engineering ACM-W Student Chapter, New Delhi, India
  • Concordia University Wisconsin ACM-W Student Chapter, Mequon
  • De Anza College ACM Student Chapter, Cupertino, California
  • Muscat College ACM Student Chapter, Baushar, Muscat, Oman
  • MVGR College of Engineering ACM Student Chapter, Maharaj Vijayaram Gajapathi Raj College, Vizianagaram, India
  • RHU ACM Student Chapter, Rafik Hariri University, Mechref, Lebanon
  • Sree Buddha College of Engineering ACM-W Student Chapter, Alappuzha, India
  • University of Nebraska-Omaha ACM Student Chapter

ACM-W NEWS

Canadian Celebration of Women in Computing Features Technical, Mentoring and Career Sessions

By Wendy Powley, Celebrations Committee Chair

The Canadian Celebration of Women in Computing (CAN-CWiC) took place on January 22 and 23 in Ottawa, Ontario. The event attracted more than 500 attendees from across Canada with attendees from nine provinces. The conference was co-organized by Catherine Mavriplis, the Pratt & Whitney Canada Chair for Women in Science and Engineering and professor at the University of Ottawa, and ACM-W Celebrations Chair Wendy Powley. ACM-W India Chair Sheila Anand brought greetings from India.

The opening events on Friday evening were a banquet and keynote presented by Krista Shibata, the new leader of the IBM Canada Women in Technology initiative. Then the winners of the CAN-CWiC Programming Challenge were announced. Five finalists were chosen from a Canada-wide competition which provided students an opportunity to use IBM's Bluemix platform to develop an idea surrounding "Lifestyle Banking." Senior-level technical women from contest sponsors IBM and TD Bank provided mentoring to the teams to prepare their pitch for the final round of competition. The first place winners were Natalie Perna and Heather Brown from McMaster University. Following the banquet, games and social activities were enjoyed by all.

Saturday began with a keynote by Jennifer Stott from Royal Bank of Canada followed by three parallel tracks in skills development, outreach and technical topics. Sessions covered data analytics, medical computing, mobile design, 3D printing, public speaking, entrepreneurship, creating a positive web presence, computer science policy, outreach and much more. The day concluded with a "Day in the Life" panel featuring four outstanding women with varied career paths. The graduate forum and poster session allowed students to share their work and to obtain valuable feedback from the many in attendance. The career fair was a huge success with 25 exhibitors seeking new talent and showcasing their companies.

A pre-conference meeting brought together more than 30 female Computer Science faculty from across Canada to identify issues relating to women in academia. This group plans to continue their discussions and work on an action plan over the coming year to tackle some of the more pressing issues.

Check out Thoughts on My First Canadian Celebration of Women in Computing, a blog written by Caleigh Minshall, a student planning to pursue a degree in Computing Science; and the blog by PhD student Ify Adaji for insights from a student perspective. Many photos can be found on Flikr.

ACM-W Celebrations are local events that showcase female role models, encourage mentoring and networking, supply accurate information about computing careers, and create opportunities for women to present their research, often for the first time in their careers. Many of these events include poster competitions for undergraduate and graduate students to present their research and project work. You can find information on starting new Celebrations and conference planning resources on the ACM-W Celebrations site. Please contact Wendy Powley for any additional assistance.

Join ACM-W's Membership Email List

Did you know that ACM-W offers a general email distribution list for its members? This ACMW-public list is a communication channel for disseminating general information about ACM-W, bulletins and upcoming events. To join the list: http://signup.acm.org/listserv_index.cfm?ln=ACM-W-PUBLIC.

Also read the ACM-W Connections newsletter for updates on ACM-W programs: local celebrations, scholarships and awards, chapters, and more.

PUBLICATIONS NEWS

ACM Transactions on Economics and Computation, ACM Journal of Experimental Algorithmics, and ACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing Seeking New Editors-in-Chiefs

ACM Transactions on Economics and Computation (TEAC) is seeking new Co-Editors-in-Chief. Nominations are due March 1.

ACM Journal of Experimental Algorithmics (JEA) is seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. Nominations are due March 31.

ACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing (TALLIP) is seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. Nominations are due April 15.

Computer Systems Organization Category Editor Needed for ACM Computing Reviews

Computing Reviews, the post-publication review and comment journal of ACM, is seeking a volunteer editor interested in serving as category editor for the computer systems organization area. For more information and to apply, please visit the Computing Reviews site.

ACM Transactions on Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems and ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems Accepting Submissions

The new ACM journal ACM Transactions on Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems (TOMPECS) is now accepting submissions. Visit the submissions site for more information.

The new ACM journal ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems (TCPS) is now accepting submissions. Visit the submissions site for more information.

acmqueue Presents: "Accountability in Algorithmic Decision-making"

Nicholas Diakopoulos at the University of Maryland describes the current state of "computational journalism," i.e., software-generated content. Writing algorithms is creating not just earnings reports and weather forecasts, but articles on many subjects that are indistinguishable from those written by humans. He writes, "Society must grapple with the ways in which algorithms are being used in government and industry so that adequate mechanisms for accountability are built into these systems."

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