November 20, 2004

 

Minutes: TCCC Executive Committee Meeting of November 19, 2004

 

Attendees:

 

Douglas Comer, Purdue University (douglas.e.comer.1@purdue.edu)

Sanjay Jha, University of New South Wales (sjha@cse.unsw.edu.au)

Howard Salwen, Audeon Networks (salwen@rcn.com)

Gary Kessler, Champlain College (kumquat@sover.net)

Archan Misra, IBM Research (archan@us.ibm.com)

Sajal K. Das, University of Texas at Arlington (das@roop.uta.edu)

Ellis Nolley, Strategic Growth (e.nolley@ieee.org)

Joe Bumblis, UDLP (joseph.bumblis@udlp.com)

 

Unable to attend:

 

Charles Perkins, Nokia Research (charliep@iprg.nokia.com)

 

Overview:

 

The first Executive Committee (ExCom) meeting of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC) took place at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Tampa, Florida on November 19, 2004. This meeting was held in conjunction with the TCCC sponsored international conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN). Meeting item minutes are outlined below in the order listed on the agenda captured in the November 4, 2004 TAB Operations Committee (OpCom) meeting report.

 

Minutes (Action Items are in red text.)

 

Travel:

 

Opening remarks focused on travel reimbursement issues. ExCom members were reminded of the expense report process. One ExCom member is required to submit a W-8 form with the expense report. The W-8 form has been sent by Joe Bumblis.

 

Computer Society TAB OpCom Meeting Report:

 

We discussed the November 4, 2004 TAB OpCom meeting with specific emphasis on the meeting report written by Joe Bumblis and filed with the TCCC ExCom on November xx, 2004 (a copy can be viewed at: http://tab.computer.org/tccc/Minutes/110404%20TAB.htm). After a detailed discussion we agreed on the following activities:

·         Send a copy of the November 4, 2004 OpCom meeting report to other Technical Committee (TC) chairs. Attempt to determine if other TC Chairs view the OpCom meeting in a similar manner as described in Joe’s report. Report back to the TCCC ExCom with findings and a proposed course of action.

·         Sajal Das will contact the individual Chairs of the TCPP and TCDP and forward a copy of the OpCom report. Sajal will discuss Joe’s OpCom report with the two TC Chairs and determine their views and any recommended course of action.

·         Joe Bumblis will contact the TCEC Chair and send a copy of the OpCom report. As above, Joe will discuss the TCEC Chair’s view of the OpCom meeting and report on any suggested course of action.

Note: A list of TC’s can be viewed at: http://www.computer.org/tab/tclist/index.htm

 

Online Publishing:

 

Over the past year, the TCCC ExCom conference calls always included preliminary planning of TCCC Web page online publishing. During this meeting, Joe Bumblis reminded the ExCom of the online publishing goal; to add value to the TCCC membership. Doug Comer suggested starting the initiative by posting TCCC sponsored conference reports; a report representing a TCCC ExCom member’s view and a report from a student representing the student’s view of the conference. Gary Kessler suggested also inviting a reporting body representing industry, such as InfoWorld, to report on the conference. Although the TCCC would not be able to post the report on the web page, it is possible to add a link to the InfoWorld (and/or others) article.

 

Other suggestions included adding a TCCC web page link to conference paper submissions (for example: http://www.ieeelcn.org/lcn29papers.html ) as well as upcoming conference dates. This will form the basis of a bi-monthly newsletter to the TCCC membership. Joe and Gary will prepare the TCCC web page for the first conference reports and links. Joe and Archan will jointly work on the newsletter format and content. Future online publishing may include:

 

·         A report from selected universities/colleges regarding current projects

·         Formation of a review panel to ensure the quality of the paper/report

·         Investigate publishing a conference best paper from a TCCC sponsored conference

·         A method and means to advertise the conference

 

Note 1: The Computer Society currently offers online publishing via DS Online (ISSN: 1541-4922). See: http://dsonline.computer.org/ for details.

 

Note 2: Something to consider…according to http://scholar.google.com :

“Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.”

 

TCCC Presence at Sponsored Conferences:

 

During the “Online Publishing” discussion above, we identified the need for a TCCC presence at the conferences sponsored by the TCCC. For example, ICNP has no mention of the neither Computer Society nor TCCC sponsorship on their web page. The following activities were agreed to:

 

·         Sanjay Jha will write a report on the LCN conference. He agreed to have a report ready by December 15, 2004 for posting on the TCCC web page.

·         Sanjay will contact Ken Christensen regarding a student report from a student that attended LCN through the NSF grant. Sanjay has already sent an E-mail to Ken.

·         Sajal Das will represent the TCCC at the PerCom (http://www.percom.org/) conference.

·         Archan Misra will represent TCCC at the WoWMoM (http://www.perlab.it/wowmom2005/) conference.

·         TCCC ExCom members visiting TCCC sponsored conference will be responsible to represent the TCCC at the conference by coordination with the conference Organizing Committee to secure a position for a TCCC informational poster, membership forms and/or helping with online membership, giving a short introductory talk during the conference regarding TCCC activities, and writing a conference report for posting on the TCCC web page.

 

Membership Database:

 

After completing the “Online Publishing” and “TCCC Presence…” items, the discussions turned to the TCCC membership database. Ellis Nolley completed sorting the last-known-good TCCC database into membership areas. Ellis reported that 52% of TCCC members were in the United States. Canada comprised 4% of membership with India in third place with 3% of membership. The remaining 41% was fairly evenly spread across the globe.  Ellis reported that 61% of TCCC members were not Computer Society members and 45% did not have email addresses.  Of the ones who had email addresses, 10% had .edu (academic) email extensions, and the rest were from industry. 

 

Ellis also discussed the request he made to the Computer Society for TIP information (see http://tab.computer.org/tccc/Minutes/TCCC%20ExCom%206-16-04%20Conference%20Call%20Minutes.doc ) from the membership database. The request was forwarded to the Computer Society IS folks for processing (according to John Daniel during the November 4, 2004 OpCom meeting). Ellis has not received a reply as yet. Ellis agreed to contact John Daniel regarding progress. Ellis will also search the current TCCC membership database to determine demographics.

 

Joe reported on the Computer Society effort to create TC membership databases. This project is known as the Unified Database Project TEchnical Committees Achieves (TECA). Detailed information and user manuals can be located at: https://eckert.computer.org/tchelp/spcl145.htm

The only TCs currently in the TECA are the TCVG, TTTC, and TCCX. To add the TCCC to the TECA, an E-mail must be sent to teca@computer.org (or: alfredo.benso@polito.it). Joe will send this E-mail and copy Ellis as the primary user of TECA.

 

Recruitment:

 

We discussed the growth of not only the TCCC ExCom, but also growing the TCCC. Joe mentioned there are several open Chair positions remaining on the TCCC ExCom. These include:

 

·         Permanent Finance Chair

·         Tethered Network Technology Chair

·         Protocol Technology Chair

·         Application Domain Technology Chair

 

It was suggested that we ask Charlie Perkins to either take-on the role of Protocol Technology Chair, or to offer some suggestions for possible candidates. Joe will contact Charlie regarding the Protocol Technology Chair opportunity.

 

Webcasting and Online Conferences/Workshops:

 

Our final discussion focused on possible alternatives to TCCC members attending conferences and workshops. We discussed things like Webcasting, Chat Rooms, and video streaming of pre-recorded presentations. We believe the IEEE has a Webcasting service; Ellis will investigate and report back to the TCCC ExCom. It is unknown if Chat Room services are offered by the IEEE. It may be possible to add this functionality to the TCCC web page assuming we can address the SPAM, SPIM, and security issues associated with chat rooms and IM technology. Doug mentioned the possibility of allowing users to download presentations during online viewing of conference keynote addresses, university reports, and/or other talks like colloquiums. We need to not only investigate the technology, but also the cost of services and the logistics of use. Gary suggested looking at the University of Vermont for examples. They are currently doing Webcasting in the area of security. Gary agreed to look into their offerings and report back to the TCCC ExCom.

 

Adjournment:

 

The meeting was adjourned at 11:30 AM ET.

 

 

Joe Bumblis

Chair, TCCC