Minutes of the SGB Meeting - Saturday, February 23, 2002

1.0 Welcome, Introductions and Review Agenda

The meeting began at 9:00 am. Chesnais and Haramundanis welcomed the attendees and each of the participants introduced themselves.

1.1 Approve minutes from August'01 SGB Meeting

Haramundanis indicated that the minutes for the August '01 meeting were distributed in September and requested a motion to approve.

Motion: Move to approve the minutes of the August'01 SGB meeting.
(Berenbaum, Ozsu)
Unanimous

2.0 Review of Voting Practices

Chesnais explained that the SGB decides matters by weighted voting. Each SIG is entitled to one vote, plus one vote for each one thousand voting SIG members or fraction thereof. Voting SIG membership is calculated each July 1st for SGB votes taken that fiscal year. SIGs in transition are not permitted to vote. In practice weighted voting takes place for issues that are not supported by a majority. The meeting back-up included a listing of SIGs and the number of votes each was entitled to.

3.0 ACM5

Maria Klawe, ACM's Vice President addressed the group. She indicated that ACM has had 2 major general computer science conferences to give the community outside of computer science a compelling vision of what the future is. Both conferences lost a lot of money. The other bad news about the events was that the involvement of the SIGs, the largest and most important part of ACM was a failing of the conference. Klawe had been an incredible skeptic and thought the event was a waste of money and energy and was unimpressed with the idea. She finally "got it" while sitting in the audience. She's willing to commit to leading the next event with two stipulations:

it doesn't lose money
the SIGs are involved

Her commitment is that there will be no ACM5 unless the SGB decides it's a good idea and wants to be part of it. If ACM decides to move ahead a couple of volunteers will be selected for involvement in the planning session. What SIGs think would make sense for a general CS conference and what message it is we want to convey is important. The plan is to decide on the program and then move ahead with the funding while constantly seeking your ideas and approval. Eventually ACM will need to decide venue, timing and exhibit. That's the proposal and if the SGB doesn't want to do it she's off the hook. Klawe was asked what convinced her that the meeting was worth holding again. She'd been thinking about computing changing our society and was inspired by seeing those ideas convincingly delivered in a format accessible to virtually anyone with a college degree.

Klawe was asked if the target audience got the message. Based on the conversations that she had with attendees, they did. Her informal survey was positive and of course there was also an incredible amount of positive media. Some SGB leaders voiced concern about the registration pricing which was much higher than SIG conferences. Some believed that people did not go because it was priced out of their range. Klawe acknowledged that the fees were too high.

If the conference is to happen again her plan is to have SIG leaders represented on the planning committee for advice and guidance on issues just like that. Around 1,000 people attended which was lower than the goal. If ACM decides to move ahead she plans to question everything. The planning committee could work on it for 6 months and then say we really shouldn't be doing this. If that happens we will stop. Some SGB leaders were concerned about the funding efforts for ACM5. Since fundraising is getting harder putting ACM5 and SIG conferences in competition for the same funds.

Some suggestions from the SGB, rather than a conference:

1 day of web-cast plenary speaker
1 day adjacent to an ACM conference
Presentations at COMDEX
Video conference only
Work with Computer Museum or Smithsonian to get to the masses
Traveling show for local science museums

Klawe was asked if there was any reason to believe that attendance would be broader based without an exhibit. You need an exhibit to bring in that type of person. Klawe did not know but indicated that ACM should be willing to consider this range of options. Some leaders were skeptical because they were not sure of the objective. Not sure if there's that much sense in this. What is unique and new about it? They'd prefer to see a planning committee put in place to determine why we would do this and what goals are we trying to achieve.

Klawe asked if any SGB leaders were willing to be part of the planning committee to go over the 1st principles, goals and other possibilities. Feldman and Corless both volunteered.

A straw poll was taken with positive results indicating that the SGB was willing to support ACM5 in principle and allow a planning exercise involving ACM HQ, SGB and ACM Council.

Klawe thanked the SGB for their time and ideas.

4.0 Small SIG Allocation Task Force

Bruce Klein, SGB Member-at-Large and Small SIG Advisor presented the findings of the small SIG allocation task force. The task force was formed following the August SGB meeting as a result of reaction to predicted effects of the new allocation formula.

Klein reminded the SGB that the allocation formula was passed at the October 2000 SGB meeting and took effect July 2001. The approved allocation formula is to be reviewed in three years (2003). When the allocation was approved, it was decided that no SIG would fail before July 2003 solely due to the financial effects of the allocation formula. The SGB EC to examine the effects of the allocation formula on small SIGs established the task force. The task force determined that the issue facing the small SIGs was that some SIGs would become financially unviable so how can small, but otherwise viable computing communities be included under the ACM/SIG umbrella? The task force came up with some possibilities for the future of these SIGs: merger, transformation to an E-forum, Sub-SIG structure, Non-SIG structure, SGB subsidy or dissolution. The SGB was asked for input and reaction on these possibilities. The reaction from SIG leaders varied, but the realization that "no shoe will fit all feet" became clear.

Based on input from the SIG leaders the task force with the endorsement of the SGB EC recommends that a project specific fund process be created and that a structure/membership task force be chartered. The project specific fund would be available for financially challenged SIGs with ongoing, successful projects, e.g. a small conference. The SGB would support the continuation of these projects. The fund would be administered by the SGB EC with a light-weight application process.

White indicated that ACM as an organization was planning on reviewing the structure/membership issues. And suggested that the SGB support this by supplying SIG volunteers to participate in the process.

Klein explained that many of these options are already open to the SIGs (merger, conversion). The SGB can immediately start funding programs once the SGB EC puts a procedure in place. The SGB needs to understand that the one suggestion that the task force completely rejected was the idea of paying a SIG's allocation. Klein sought the support of the SGB to move ahead as outlined.

Motion: Move that the SGB EC appoint two people to draft the rules governing the "light weight application procedure" for financial support of small-but-viable SIG Activity. The draft rules should be reported quickly to the EC, which will review them as necessary and bring them as a concrete proposal before the SGB.
Corless, Sandhu
(21,0,1)

Corless and Johnson agreed to draft the rules. The SGB thanked the taskforce for their efforts.

4.1 FCRC Update

Barbara Ryder was invited to provide the SGB with an update on FCRC activities. The event will be held from June 7th - 14th in San Diego at the Town and Country Hotel. SGB leaders were advised to send e-mail to [email protected] for a copy of her slides. At this point the meetings are across the discipline. All meeting stop in the late morning to allow registrants to attend the plenary sessions. There is lots of networking with an expected attendance of 2,400. Based on previous conferences, Ryder anticipates 1/4 of them will be students. The ACM award ceremony and banquet will be held and the Turing speaker will be one of the plenary speakers. The organizing committee is currently working on budgets. The web-site should be up by the end of February.

There is a site visit for all conference chairs planned for the end of May. The organizers are soliciting keynote speakers and are seeking a student advisory chair. Ryder is working on a community service, social action project. She is also working on funding for faculty travel support.

5.0 ACM Activities

John White, ACM's CEO provided an update of ACM activities:

Results of portal pricing changes
Price sensitivity issues
Emerging/changing membership models

White reported that the committee put together to review the portal pricing model met on February 13, 2002. The committee members included:

Bob Allen, Publications Board
Jim Cohoon, Publications Board
Alain Chesnais, SIG Governing Board
Alan Berenbaum, SIG governing Board
Bernie Rous, ACM Headquarters
John White, ACM Headquarters

In summary, two distinct business models were proposed for the ACM Portal: one developed by ACM Headquarters prior to the launch of the Portal and adopted as part of the FY '02 budget; and one developed and endorsed by the SGB during their August '01 meeting after the budget had been adopted. The two models differ primarily in the level of free access they provide to Guide.

The ACM Executive Committee established the Portal Pricing Model Committee to resolve the disconnect between these two models and to make recommendations that would achieve a correct balance between providing a community service and the implications on ACM finances.

The Committee reviewed the goals of the Portal, costs, and the financial implications of the proposed changes and unanimously reached consensus on the following points and recommendations:

Providing a bibliographic database for computing (Guide) is important, but a high-quality Guide has real and significant costs,
ACM cannot afford to ignore potential revenue streams,
The Guide revenue stream is real,
The SGB proposal is not financially viable in the long run.
However, a better balance between community service and revenue streams for ACM can be achieved.

The Committee, therefore, unanimously recommended that:

The pricing strategy for individual, member subscriptions to the Digital Library should be developed independently of the pricing/access model for Guide and reflect current market research.
Full free access to Guide should be opened to all 80,000 ACM members and SIG members. The public should continue to have free, but limited access to Guide.
The Committee feels the above change would meet, to a significant extent, the goal of providing a community service, sustain the Guide revenue stream with institutions, and provide a new benefit for both ACM members and SIG-only members. Both the Publications Board and the SGB Executive Committee have endorsed this recommendation.

The ACM Publications Board and the SGB EC endorsed the proposed changed. Although there was general support for what was approved some members of the SGB voiced concern that they were new to the board and did not feel comfortable voting on an issue of this magnitude without additional background information. It was explained that the SGB did not have to vote on the issue but it would be helpful if they would show their support with a motion to endorse.

Motion: Move that the SGB approve the portal pricing strategy proposed by the Portal Pricing Task Force.
Berenbaum, Corless
Motion tabled

Action: White to provide detailed report to the SGB on the portal pricing strategy proposed by the Portal Pricing Task Force.

See attachment 1 for full report.

Motion: Move that the $1M approved by the SGB for the Guide be applied to extending the historical material in the Guide.
Berenbaum, Corless
(0, 16, 5)

White reported that ACM is examining the current membership structure and will be working to develop recommendations for future planning with respect to membership models and that of building communities. He indicated that a report would be presented at the next set of SGB meetings, which will work nicely with the Small SIG Task Force recommendation to examine structure.

6.0 Program Reviews

6.1 SIGACT

Hal Gabow, SIGACT Chair presented the program review. The following information was taken from the written report he presented to the SIGs. The primary mission of ACM SIGACT is to foster and promote the discovery and dissemination of high quality research in the domain of theoretical computer science. SIGACT actively sponsors numerous symposia, workshops and awards (often in cooperation with other SIGs and Societies) as well as a quarterly newsletter.

Gabow reported on the groups initiatives indicating that for the 1st time in 33 years, SIGACT's flagship conference; The Annual Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC) was held outside of North America, in Crete, Greece, where it was co-located with ICALP and SPAA. The attendance beat all recent STOC conferences including FCRC'99. Technical submissions numbered the 2nd highest ever.

In 1999 SIGACT contributed $10K towards the endowment of the Eugene Lawler Humanitarian Award and adopted a policy for making a financial contribution to awards made at all SIGACT-sponsored conferences. During the review period SIGACT adopted a policy of Student Travel Awards to STOC. SIGACT now contributes $10K towards expenses of students attending each STOC. The awards are described on the SIGACT web-site.

One of SIGACT's primary roles and successes is its sponsorship of symposia. During 2001, SIGACT sponsored 3 conferences, co-sponsored 6 and cooperated with 11.

SIGACT continues to publish proceedings and a timely newsletter is issued quarterly. SIGACT News regularly prints research news columns in several areas of theoretical computer science. It also publishes book reviews and curricula as outlines of CS courses as they are taught at various universities. SIGACT sponsors deeply discounted registration fees for students at most of its conferences. The SIGACT student lunch program allows students to eat for fee alongside full-paying registrants at most meetings.

SIGACT collaborates extensively with IEEE CS, EATCS, SIAM and other SIGs and organizations. SIGACT is fulfilling its commitments well: It supports many conferences that are forums for current research of the highest quality. The newsletter is frequent, informative, and timely; it is supplemented by the SIGACT website that contains many items of interest to the theory community. SIGACT continues to do well financially. After several years of declining membership, like other SIGs, their membership numbers have stabilized and started to increase.

Motion: Move that SIGACT continue in its current status as a multi-service SIG for the next 4 years.
Haramundanis, Ebcioglu
Unanimous

6.2 SIGADA

Currie Colket, SIGAda Chair presented the program review.

The ACM SIG on Ada deals with the Ada language and a broad span of issues related to its usage, teaching, standardization, and implementation. SIGAda members include practitioners, educators, researchers, and managers from a wide range of organizations in industry, academia, and government. Among the topics that SIGAda addresses are software engineering practice (with a particular focus on object tech.), real-time applications, high-integrity & safety-critical systems, high-integrity and safety-critical systems, software education, and large-scale system development. SIGAda explores these issues through an annual multi-track international conference, special-purpose working groups, active local chapters, and its quarterly Ada Letters publication.

Colket explained that the current officers were elected for the July 2001-June 2003 period. The scope of the SIG is to address technical, educational, and policy issues related to the Ada programming language. Colket provided the SGB with a listing of activities and products associated with Ada.

Ada Letters is a quarterly publication, including conference proceedings. There are approximately 100 pages per issue, more for conference proceedings. They have never had to skip an issue.

Working groups have played a major role in preparing "product" (documents), reviewing proposed standards, and supporting SIGAda's mission. The organization and activities are specific to the working group and they generally meet as "BOFs" at conferences.

Historically, the more than 20 SIGAda local chapters have played an important role by sponsoring conferences such as WAdas, conducting tutorials, assisting with local arrangements at SIGAda conferences in their area and conducting lecture series.

SIGADA has a missionary role to educate the software community about the benefits of Ada. Their exhibit booth offers literature, videos and a knowledgeable volunteer staff. In 2001 the booth was exhibited at SIGCSE, Software Technology Conference, AFCEA TechNet, TOOLS-USA, COMDEX and OOPSLA.

SIGAda sponsors an annual conference, which several of ACM's SIGs cooperate with. The 2001 event was held in cooperation with SIGAPP, SIGCAS, SIGCSE, SIGPLAN, SIGSOFT, DC SIGAda, Baltimore SIGAda and Ada Europe. The proceedings contained 140 pages. The conference accepted 30 papers from 53 submissions. The technical quality of the conferences has remained consistently high over the years and has improved recently since the conference has evolved from the "marketing glitz" of a trade show. With careful planning and conservative budgeting the most recent events have ended with a surplus.

The SIGAda leaders are concerned about their finances. A possible approach in the future could be to re-join SIGPLAN or SIGSOFT but the executive committee believes strongly that SIGAda has sufficiently specialized interests to warrant existence as a separate SIG. The conference attendance still shows a consistent core constituency, Ada is the focal point of some interesting new activities, especially in the safety critical area and they can find external sponsorship for some activities. The EC believes that any conference loses were due to preventable factors rather than intrinsic problems and an annual conference is essential to serving the Ada community.

SIGAda issues 2 annual awards for distinguished service: Outstanding Ada Community Service Award and the ACM SIGAda Distinguished Service Award. The SIG is often quoted in trade press articles about Ada. They provide a program at each conference to attract students and solicit support for Ada-WOW - highlights of each conference day.

The immediate goals of the SIG are to realize a surplus from the conference, encourage local chapter activities and workshops on specific technical issues, to support the evolution of the Ada language and the needs of the Ada international community.

On the negative side the membership has been declining, some conferences have lost money and insularity has some disadvantages. Keep in mind their retention numbers are about ACM's average and some of the causes were beyond their control (DOD policy change). On the positive side SIGAda's role is acknowledged in the Ada community, they are at "steady state" in membership and conference attendance, the core constituency is active and energetic. The SIG leaders are trying to increase cooperation with other SIGs and are active in academia and the most recent conferences have had a surplus.

Motion: Move that SIGAda continue in its current status as a multi-service SIG for the next 4 years.
Walker, Corless
Unanimous

6.3 SIGCAS

Tom Jewett, SIGCAS Chair presented the program review.

Jewett presented a reorganization plan which the leaders and key volunteers started working on in August '01. They developed an online membership survey and a response to the allocation task force.

Cooperation with ISTAS'01 and '02 sponsored by IEEE-SSIT are the most recent conference activities SIGCAS has been involved in. SIGCAS' participation included issuing the SIGCAS "Difference" award during the '02 opening plenary.

Jewett reported that SIGCAS had 3 viability reviews since 1990 and was found viable following each. This year is no longer "business as usual". Survival as a multi-service SIG would require an increase in revenue which would be difficult, a decrease in expenses which is practical or declaring "chapter 11" which is unattractive. Jewett suggested that the SGB begin to think about other SIG formats, customized products and services as well as alternate ways to cover the allocation formula.

The SIGCAS awards program was started by Dianne Martin. They issue two awards: "Making a Difference and the SIGCAS Service Award.

SIGCAS is involved in several ACM level activities including the ACM Code of Ethics, ACM/IEEE S/W Engineering Code of Ethics, ACM representative to IFIP TC9, ACM Committee on professional ethics and Project Impact CS.

Jewett reported that SIGCAS members are also members of many of ACM's other SIGs. The SIG issues a quarterly publication that has been on time for 8 years. It has been the only tangible product or service since the 1998 ACM Policy conference. The SIG newsletter is respected and cited in the field but limited in distribution. It's officially a "newsletter" but really much more and by far the major SIGCAS budget item.

Jewett proposed that the newsletter be changed to an on-line publication. Moving in this direction makes it affordable and timely and allows it to reach a broader readership. In addition he suggests it be made a magazine comparing it to Interactions and eLearn. Online features would include articles, reviews, columns, peer review, article archive, monthly vs. quarterly update. Jewett reported it would be a resource for teaching presented in an integrated electronic forum with some content limited to SIGCAS members only. Members surveyed indicated that they would support the concept. The ACM infrastructure is in place to allow this, the SIGCAS infrastructure is in place as well. The only challenges are the schedule requiring implementation in FY'03 and the management tools.

Jewett would also like to explore the possibility of a customized SIG/products/services and allocation. He suggested that the SGB establish a new SIG category called a "community SIG" which is less than a newsletter but more than a forum. He asked the SGB to find SIGCAS viable in this category and fund the C&S online startup from the SSPF. He suggested a review in two years, which was long enough to evaluate the online publication yet soon enough to ensure control.

The SGB discussed and recommended that SIGCAS be changed from multi-service to newsletter only. This will allow SIGCAS to concentrate on starting their on-line publication. The SGB EC was asked to work with the leadership on any issues that might arise. They suggested SIGCAS apply to the SSPF as soon as the rules are established.

Motion: Move that SIGCAS be converted to a publication-only SIG with details to be worked out by the SGB-EC
Walker, Berenbaum
Unanimous

6.4 SIGCSE

Henry Walker, SIGCSE Chair presented the program review. He reported that SIGCSE was an extremely healthy and energetic SIG, with a strong membership base, an active interest in providing support for the advancement of computer science education, and a commitment to fostering a sense of community among educators.

SIGCSE seeks to work with computer science educators at all levels and throughout the world. The SIG is an energetic organization working to provide support to and encourage collaboration among its membership. A membership that wants to be involved with SIGCSE and the computer education community. There has been an active program of membership recruitment over the past several years. The SIG sponsors an annual winter symposium in the US, an annual summer conference in Europe and a periodic December conference in Australia. They are increasing their connections with regional conferences through cooperating status. SIGCSE issues a newsletter that is published regularly. The upcoming June issue will be a special issue on Women and Computing.

SIGCSE has developed a new committee initiative, to involve interested members in activities to address vital issues in the computer-science education community. SIGCSE has a long track record of having a membership that wants to be involved. Their most recent election asked the membership to approve the expansion of the SIGCSE Board; so more members could serve. When a call for volunteers was issued to serve on the SIGCSE 2001 Committee, over 80 SIGCSE members responded.

Over the past several years, SIGCSE has engaged in several activities to recruit new members and to retain current members. The new Board, elected in June, is developing a coordinated plan to expand this activity further. SIGCSE contacts current members to identify new faculty in their departments and sends new faculty an invitation to join along with a copy of the SIGCSE Bulletin.

At conferences the registration fee scale encourages new membership for conference attendees. Although the SIG realizes this may yield lower initial renewal rates, it is an important opportunity to expand membership over the long-term. The SIGCSE Board is drafting a survey to assess members' interests and priorities. While new SIGCSE members who also join ACM receive letters from ACM, SIGCSE mails a 1-time letter to all members, highlighting various SIGCSE activities. The SIGCSE Board is in the process of drafting a letter to be sent to lapsed members. 97 new members joined when they registered for SIGCSE 2001 with the ACM statistics showing an increase of 282 suggesting other factors are bringing in new members as well.

All SIGCSE sponsored conferences draw well, with participation expanding in all areas (paper submissions, reviewing activities, attendance). SIGCSE 2001 drew record 1040 registrants from a previous high of 925. SIGCSE 2002 is expected to be even larger. The SIGCSE summer conference held in Europe remains solid, with 150-200 attendees and with finances at least breaking event.

The new ACM allocation formula has had a huge impact on SIGCSE with the allocation going from a budgeted $20K in FY'00 to an estimated $50K in FY'02. On the positive side, about half of this increase comes from a significant expansion of SIGCSE Symposia- particularly in exhibits. On the negative side, the change in accounting has required SIGCSE to rethink its budget and the programs that the budget supports. As a result of the new allocation, SIGCSE made significant increases in its registration rates for both the winter and summer conferences. SIGCSE has had to give up or curtail some past initiatives but are seeking new and creative ways to address the needs and interest of their membership. They are implementing new ideas for increased membership involvement at very low cost and are seeking ways to collaborate with other SIGs to pool resources. The group will likely explore joint ventures with other SIGs using the SPF.

SIGCSE collaborative efforts under discussion include the development of a Speakers' Program to help support (non-ACM) regional conferences, the circulation of materials related to women and computing as well as the exploration of an outreach conference in Russia - perhaps near St. Petersburg.

Walker concluded that SIGCSE was an active and expanding SIG with a strong track record regarding its publications, conferences and membership involvement. While the new ACM allocation poses new challenges, SIGCSE is moving its programs and activities forward in innovative and effective ways.

Motion: Move that SIGCSE continue in its current status as a multi-service SIG for the next 4 years.
Brown, Jewett
Unanimous

6.5 SIGDA

Bob Walker, SIGDA Chair presented the program review. Walker presented the officer roster and advisory board. He explained that SIGDA sponsored 4 major conferences including one of ACM's largest, the Design Automation Conference (DAC) as well as many symposia and workshops.

The SIG supports a University Booth at DAC. This provides an opportunity for faculty and students to demonstrate university EDA tools, design projects, and instructional materials. It provides space for EDA vendors to hand out literature on their university programs and is a great place to visit with university researchers. The booth is sponsored by SIGDA, DAC and organized by SIGDA volunteers. The PhD Forum at DAC gives PhD students an opportunity to present and discuss their dissertation research with people in the EDA community. It's a great change for the PhD students to get feedback on their work and for industrial participants to preview academic work-in-progress. The SIGDA monthly conference planner is a new resource for SIGDA. It will be distributed by mail to SIGDA members and handed out at conferences. A new version is developed in time for DAC and ICCAD each year. Walker provided each SGB member with a copy of the planner.

SIGDA pioneered electronic publishing in EDA by producing CDROM publications, multi-media monographs, and support for ACM TODAES. SIGDA CDROM publications include the DA Library - 25 years of EDA literature captured on CDROM, in 1994 the first EDA conference proceedings published on CDROM and also in 1994 the first annual CDROM Compendium of the proceedings of most major EDA conferences distributed annually by mail to SIGDA members. The SIGDA Multimedia Monographs are video panels and sessions from recent ICCAD and DAC conferences on a particular theme such as the 34th DAC: Low Power Design, System Level Design, 35 years of DA, 36th DAC: Semiconductor Technology, Embedded System Design and ICCAD 2000: System DA for Network Processors & Wireless Chipsets, Deep Submicron ICS.

SIGDA also helped start, and provides significant financial support for, ACM's Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems - ACM's first EDA journal and one of ACM's first hardcopy + electronic CD-ROM journals.

Walker explained that SIGDA supports students and young professors through the P.O. Pistilli scholarship for advancement in CS and EE for undergraduates in under-represented groups, The DAC Young Student Support Program which matches new EDA students with mentors, the DAC Graduate Scholarships. SIGDA Travel grants allow SIGDA members (students and new faculty in particular) to apply for travel grants to SIGDA sponsored conferences. DAC travel grant requests are handled by DAC and sponsored by DAC. All other travel grant requests are handled by SIGDA and sponsored by SIGDA. The SIGDA Summer School allows graduate students to participate in a one-week intensive course on recent DA research. Several research topics are each presented by a well-established researcher in the field. SIGDA Awards include the Student Design Contest at DA, the ACM Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award in EDA (endowed by SIGDA), the SIGDA Outstanding New Faculty Award and the SIGDA Meritorious Service Award.

Motion: Move that SIGDA continue is its current status as a multi-service SIG for the next 4 years.
Brown, Feldman
Unanimous

6.6 SIGGRAPH

Judy Brown, SIGGRAPH President presented the program review. The ACM SIGGRAPH mission is to promote the generation and dissemination of information on computer graphics and interactive techniques. ACM SIGGRAPH values excellence, passion, integrity, cross-disciplinary interaction and volunteerism. The leadership has developed 5 strategic goals:

Be the premier catalyst for the advancement of computer graphics and interactive technologies.
foster the innovative and creative application of computer graphics and interactive techniques.
Promote computer graphics and interactive techniques through education and professionaldevelopment
Develop and maintain an effective organization to accomplish these goals.
Pursue involvement from the entire worldwide community in computer graphics and interactive techniques.

To accomplish these goals the leadership has made some changes in the way the SIG is governed. Each leader has a non-renewable three-year term. The election is staggered so that the governing board is never completely new and they chose to change some of the elected titles. For instance, SIGGRAPH does not have a Chair it has a President. This reduces confusion with the chair of the SIGGRAPH conference.

The strategic planning is built on values and goals supported by one specific meeting each year, a session during each EC meeting and ongoing strategic thinking.

The SIGGRAPH membership is stable and increasing while membership in other SIGs is decreasing. There is a low first year retention of 38% but this improves greatly to 68% for members of more than two years. Nearly half of their members are also ACM members.

The SIG has many programs including the annual conference. The leaders proactively encourage volunteer recruitment with "get involved meetings", volunteer information pieces and a volunteer information manual.

SIGGRAPH sponsors a variety of conferences, workshops and campfires, which are cross-disciplinary workshops. The SIG has over 40 chapters in 18 countries and 7 student chapters. Affiliations with other societies include Eurographics, CG-Arts (Japan), DCAj (Japan), Nordic Interactive, CSIG (China), Imagina (Monaco).

Globalization efforts require cooperation with other societies along with outreach throughout the chapters. The leaders encourage this by having an EC meeting outside the US, an international slate of candidates, representative exchange with EC, Int'l committee language review and educator's grants focus (Southern Africa in 2001). SIGGRAPH has sent delegations to Southern Africa and Oceania. Future Delegations will travel to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and India.

SIGGRAPH's strategic priorities include globalization through collaboration with other societies and global thinking. ACM SIGGRAPH is developing into a "Hub" of online services and personalization. It will be known as the place to go for information on the specialty.

Motion: Move that SIGGRAPH continue in its current status as a multi-service SIG for the next 4 years.
Berenbaum, Feldman Unanimous

6.7 SIGMETRICS

Derek Eager, SIGMETRICS Chair presented the program review. SIGMETRICS is the SIG for the computer/communication system performance community. SIGMETRICS promotes research in performance analysis techniques as well as the advanced and innovative use of known methods and tools. It sponsors conferences, such as its own annual conference (SIGMETRICS), publishes a newsletter (Performance Evaluation Review), and operates a network bulletin board and web site.

PER (Performance Evaluation Review) is the quarterly publication of ACM SIGMETRICS. PER is sent to all SIGMETRICS members. The focus of PER is a special issue guest edited by a leading researcher in the field. Special issue topics are determined by the guest editors and editor in chief. In addition, as space permits, papers unrelated to the special issue are published. Unsolicited papers are reviewed by at least two referees.

The ACM SIGMETRICS Achievement Award is given every 2 years to an individual who has made long-lasting influential contributions to the theory or practice of computer/communication system performance evaluation. The award includes a plaque, a $2000 award, as well as expenses for travel to the ACM SIGMETRICS annual conference, where the award is presented. The recipient is also invited to give a technical talk at the conference.

SIGMETRICS provides the pe-grads system, a searchable database of students that have a background in performance evaluation and analysis and will be graduating soon. It is intended to be used by prospective employers from academia or industry around the world in order to locate candidates for their job openings. The pe-grads system is a free service to the performance evaluation community supported by the SIG.

SIGMETRICS sponsors the Performance bulletin board. It is a moderated distribution list intended for the exchange of technical information among members of the performance evaluation community. Typical submissions include performance-related questions and announcements of research papers, software, job opportunities, conferences, and calls for papers. Membership in the distribution list is open to all that wish to subscribe.

The annual SIGMETRICS conference is held in June of each year. The conference draws 150-200 registrants and the proceedings are distributed to all members of the SIG. SIGMETRICS co-sponsors and cooperates with other events as well.

Motion: Move that SIGMETRICS continue in its current status as a multi-service SIG for the next 4 years.
Berenbaum, Feldman
Unanimous

7.0 Best Practices Session

A best practice session was held so that SIG leaders could gain from the experiences of the others. Leaders were encouraged to discuss both successful and unsuccessful programs.

SIGGRAPH realized that there was a perception of favoring US authors. In an attempt to improve this they set up an English language review committee. Prior to submitting to the conference, authors may submit their papers for review of grammar, style and language. Authors have found this worthwhile. SIGGRAPH has set up an easy, lightweight process. For more information, contact [email protected].

The SIGAPL conference has also been doing this on a paper by paper basis for the last 14 years. They assign a shepherd after acceptance.

SIGSOFT tried to provide this sort of support but found it was difficult to separate language issues from content. There was an expectation that style editing meant acceptance.

SIGCHI pointed leaders to: http://www.acm.org/sigchi/bulletin/1996.1/isaacs.html. Where they will find a paper titled: Why Don't More Non-North-American Papers Get Accepted to CHI? By Ellen A. Isaacs and John C. Tang.

SIGCHI has a mentoring program that allows anyone to request a mentor. The PC chair matches requestor to appropriate volunteers.

SIGIR adopted a similar program bringing in senior members of the community to mentor students.

SIGMOD is going out of North America for the 1st time in 2004. The Chair and PC Chair will be from Europe, diminishing the perception that their conference is regional.

SIGAda has an e-mail list called SIGAda announce. All participants must be active dues paying members, which has encouraged people to join.

A student advocate was appointed to encourage student events during the ICS'02 conference.

8.0 SGB Election Update

Ellis reported that the nominating committee was continuing to work on the slate and that she anticipated minimal delays in the election schedule.

9.0 SGB EC Recommendations

Klein reported that the SB EC had been closely monitoring the activities of the 4 SIGs currently in transition. Based on that the SGB EC came up with recommendations for each.

9.1 SIGAPP

Klein reported that SIGAPP remained in transition and that the SGB EC had several discussions regarding their future. There continues to be great concern about volunteer development. The SIG holds an annual conference and the SGB EC felt it most appropriate to convert the group to a conference-only SIG. The volunteer development issue has been a cause of concern for several years. Conversion to a conference only SIG provides them with the opportunity to concentrate all of their efforts on that endeavor and hopefully get more volunteers involved in the process.

Motion: Move that SIGAPP be converted to a conference-only SIG and remain in transition subject to review of the conference organizing structure.
Unanimous

9.2 SIGAPL

Klein reported that SIGAPL was still in transitional status. The issue continued to revolve around the lateness of the SIG Newsletter. The SGB EC recommended that the SIG be named a conference-only which would relieve them from producing a newsletter. Bob Brown, SIGAPL Chair spoke in opposition to this. He believed that the recommendation would be harmful. He has terminated the editors of the newsletter and is seeking others. He has the material and the volunteers to produce two years worth of back issues and can catch up in 6 months. The SGB EC members reminded the SGB that this has been an on-going pattern for the group. Brown understood the concern of the EC but felt that he and the new leadership of SIGAPL could get things back on track. The SGB chose to give SIGAPL an additional 6 months to get back on track.

Motion: Move that SIGAPL be continued in transition for 6 months. If, after 6 months, all back issues as of August '02 have come out, then SIGAPL will continue in transition with a report and plan in August. If not, SIGAPL automatically becomes a transitional conference-only SIG, with no need for further SGB action.
Walker H., Goldthwaite
(20,1,0)

9.3 SIGGROUP

The SGB EC did not make a recommendation on SIGGROUP during the meeting. The intent was to have additional discussion with the Chair on their proposed program plan.

9.4 SIGWEB

Klein reported that SIGWEB was automatically placed in transition as a result of late newsletters. The SIG does sponsor the Hypertext conference and it was recommended that they be converted to a conference-only SIG to relieve them of the burden to produce a newsletter. Klein reminded the SGB that this has been a continuing issue for the SIG.

Motion: Move to convert SIGWEB to a conference-only SIG and remain in transition until a plan to fulfill their membership obligations is presented to the SGB EC.
Feldman, Berenbaum
Unanimous

10.0 Other Business

10.1 Next Meeting

It was suggested that the next meeting be held in September at an airport property in Chicago.

10.2 Other

Henry Walker, Chair of SIGCSE indicated that he was in the process of putting together a proposal for funding a wide distribution of a special issue of the SIGCSE Bulletin, focusing on women and computing. He had a few more pieces to put together before he'd be ready to submit as a formal proposal. He would be delighted if other SIGs would like to become involved.

10.3 Digital Library Distribution

The SGB suggested that the SGB EC make a recommendation on how to equitably distribute the DL profit back to the SIGs.

Motion: Move that the SGB EC appoint a team to recommend a fair way (during the fall) to distribute the Digital Library profits.
Ebcioglu, Ozsu
Unanimous

10.4 Results of AM motion on SSP Fund

Mark Scott Johnson and Rob Corless made a recommendation that the newly established Small SIG Project Fund (SSP) be seeded with $100K from the SGB fund balance and that SIGs in need be able to easily tap into the fund by submitting short proposals to the SGB EC for quick decisions. The SGB was pleased with the recommendation and the committee's responsiveness in putting it together.

Motion: Move that the SGB delegate to the SGB EC responsibility to determine the appropriate source of money to initiate the Small SIG Project (SSP) Fund. The initial maximum for the fund is $100K. The initial funds must come from existing sources other than individual SIG fund balances (i.e., no new taxes).
Corless, Berenbaum
Unanimous

Participants:

Dave Arnold, MAB Chair and SIGGRAPH Rep.
Donna Baglio, ACM Director of SIG Services
Alan Berenbaum, SGB EC and SIGARCH Chair
Hans Boehm, SIGPLAN Chair
Robert Brown, SIGAPL Chair
Currie Colket, SIGAda Chair
Alain Chesnais, SGB Chair
Jim Cohoon, SGB EC Publications Liaison
Rob Corless, SGB EC and SIGSAM Chair
Susan Dumais, SIGIR Chair
Derek Eager, SIGMETRICS Chair
Kemal Ebcioglu, SIGMICRO Chair
Carla Ellis, SGB Past Chair
Jennifer Fajman, SIGUCCS Chair
Stuart Feldman, SGB EC and SIGecom Chair
Derek Eager, SIGMETRICS Chair
Harold Gabow, SIGACT Chair
John Goldthwaite, SIGCAPH Chair
Kathy Haramundanis, SIGDOC Chair
Mary Jane Harold, SIGSOFT Vice Chair
Stephen C. Hayne, SIGGROUP Chair
Tom Jewett, SIGCAS Chair
Mark Scott Johnson, SGB EC
Bruce Klein, SGB EC Member-at-Large
Joseph Marks, SIGART Chair
Maritza Nichols, ACM SIG Services
Fred Niederman, SIGCPR Chair
Tamer Ozsu, SIGMOD Chair
Pat Ryan, ACM COO
Ravi Sandhu, SIGSAC Chair
Kevin Schofield, SIGCHI Chair
Janice Sipior, SIGMIS
Mary Lou Soffa, SGB EC
Henry Walker, SIGCSE Chair
Robert Walker, SIGDA Chair
John White, ACM CEO
Alex Wolf, SIGSOFT Chair