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2001 Annual Report |
Page updated: June 18, 2003 |
SIGUCCS
About
Us
Awards
Competitions
Conferences
Information
of Interest
July 1, 2000 - June 30, 2001
Submitted by Jennifer Fajman
SIGUCCS (Special Interest Group for University and College Computing Services) hosted two successful conferences during 2000-2001 and ended the year with a significant fund balance, even though membership declined.
The Executive Committee members are: Jennifer Fajman, chair; Robert Paterson, vice chair; Linda Hutchison, secretary-treasurer; Linda L. Downing, Susan E. Hales, Alan Herbert, and Lawrence K. Pickett, Jr. are members-at-large. John Bucher serves as the immediate past-chair.
Planning:
The Executive Committee held a full day planning meeting in March in St. Louis, focusing on the mission, goals and directions for SIGUCCS.
The SIGUCCS newsletter has not been produced for a number of years, resulting in the SGB placing SIGUCCS in transition. There are two major reasons for the lack of publications: lack of volunteers to write articles, and the large amount of material available in print form and on the web.
The Executive Committee passed a motion to submit to the SGB a plan to become a conference only SIG. The proposal was submitted to the SGB and received a favorable response. Part of the proposal includes providing free membership to the current SIG members for one year to compensate for the lack of the newsletter. A CD of the fall User Services Conference will be sent to each SIGUCCS member. Also, SIGUCCS will investigate contracting for some services to help run the conferences and support for the web page. A proposal will be written, in collaboration with ACM, to determine the financial viability of contracting for some of the services.
The Executive Committee put on hold the Peer Review process in order to concentrate its efforts on the conferences. The Peer Review process has not had much activity during the past few years.
Awards Program:
The Awards Program that was approved by the SGB last year was implemented. Jane Caviness was the recipient of the 2000 Penny Crane Award.
The were 10 people installed in the Hall of Fame: Jean Bonney, Jane Caviness, William Heinbecker, Ralph Lee, Robert Lutz, Rita Saltz, Gordon Sherman, John Skelton, Frank Thomas and Alica Towster.
More information on the awards program can be found at http://www.acm.org/siguccs/awards.
Conferences:
The twenty-eighth Fall User Services Conference was held October 29 through November 1, 2000 in Richmond, Virginia. The theme was "Building the Future". 503 people attended the conference, with tutorial registration at around 174. 90 papers were published in the proceedings, which were made available in both hard copy and CD Rom format. There were also discussion, panel and poster sessions as part of the conference. The conference had a surplus of approximately $34,000.
The twenty-sixth spring Computer Services Management Symposium (CSMS) was held March 18 - 20, 2001 at its usual location in the St. Louis Marriott Pavilion Hotel. The conference was constructed as a series of plenary sessions and facilitated discussion groups. Approximately 80 people attended. Financially, the conference made a small profit. There was a Birds of the Feather session held to discuss the future of the CSMS conference; the results being that the attendees find the informality and discussion sessions very worth while, increased attendance would be desirable, but that keeping the conference size around 100 is ideal for communications purposes. Informal notes from some of the discussions were made available on the web.
Future conferences include the 2001 Fall User Services Conference to be held at the Portland Marriott Hotel, in Portland Oregon, October 17-20, 2001, and the CSMS at the St. Louis Marriott City Center, March 10-12, 2002.
Financial and Membership Issues:
(Note: see SIG Services section in the annual report for SIGUCCS financial and membership data.)
We continue to maintain a healthy fund balance, thanks in a large part to the success of our two annual conferences. As of the end of July 2000, our fund balance exceeded $298,000 and our membership was 316, a decline of 17% from last year.
2000-2001 User Services Awards:
As we have done for many years, we held our documentation competition and awards in conjunction with the Fall User Services Conference. Competitions Co-Chairs were Karri Gibbons and LopShun Wong from the College of William and Mary.
Information about the recognitions of institutions and individuals can be viewed at the SIGUCCS Web Site (http://www.acm.org/siguccs/competitions/comp2000.htm).
Comments and contributions may be sent to the Information Director at infodir_SIGUCCS@acm.org