Attending: Linda Almstead, Duane Bailey, Dick Close, Larry D'Antonio, Mary D'Amelia (arriving noonish), Chris Fernandes, Dale Fish, Frank Ford, David Hemmendinger,  Tim Huang,  Danny Kopec, David Levine, Scott McElfresh, Brad Richards,  Ingrid Russell, Jim Teresco, Richard Wyatt

Program

The chairs of Papers, Panels, Tutorials, and Workshops presented a proposed program.     Of the 53 papers that were submitted, 25 will be accepted.  Two of the four submitted tutorials will be accepted.   Of the 7 panels submitted, 5 will be accepted.  This year, we will again have four timeslots, each of which has four concurrent sessions.   On Friday afternoon, two of the concurrent sessions will only have two papers in them, allowing those people to head over to the social/posters session early.

There will be two workshops, chosen from the three that were submitted.  One is on BioInformatics, and the other is on HCI in the classroom.  It is not clear from the proposals if either will need to be in a lab.  There was discussion that workshops are typically viewed as being hands-on, but there was not general agreement that this was a problem to have two that were not.  

David Hemmendinger mentioned that he was told that another proposal for a workshop had been submitted, but the Workshop chairs (Duane and Jim) did not recieve it.

Acceptance notifications will have to wait until the web site is ready.


Schedule

FRIDAY:

Programming Contest  (Olin 102, 306,?)
        8-8:45 am    breakfast, practice
        8:45-9am  opening meeting and problem presentation
        9am-12noon  contest
        12noon - 12:45 lunch

Workshops (Olin or elsewhere)
        9am- noon

Vendor displays (Olin rotunda and room 110)
        10:30am - 6pm

Welcome (Reamer Center auditorium)
        1 - 1:15pm

Plenary Session I (RC auditorium)
        1:15-2:15

Break (Olin rotunda and room 110)
        2:15-2:45

Concurrent Session I (Olin rooms)
        2:45-4pm

Break
        4-4:45 pm (to allow for a vendor presentation if desired)

Concurrent Session II (Olin rooms)
        4:45-6pm

Student Posters and social hour (Nott Memorial)
        6-7pm

Banquet (Reamer Center dining room)
        7-9pm

SATURDAY:

Continental breakfast (Olin rotunda and room 110)
        7:30-8:30am

Vendor Displays
        8-10:30am

Concurrent Session III (Olin rooms)
        8:30-9:45am

Plenary Session I (RC auditorium or Olin?)
        10-11am

Break
        11-11:30 am

Concurrent Session IV (Olin rooms)
        11:30am-12:45pm

Lunch (RC dining room?)
        1-2pm

Membership meeting
        2-2:30pm

Board Meeting
        2:30-???

Best Paper Awards

There was discussion as to the Best Paper Award selection process.  This year will continue with last year's method:

- Papers chairs will narrow list to 5 or 6 candidates.
- Richard Wyatt will appoint a panel of three judges.
- The judges will attend the talks to "verify" that it they are worthy of an award. 
- As the talk should only be used to disqualify papers, the decision will likely be made before the conference by the panel.
- David Levine, Ingrid Russell, and Dick Close volunteered to be on the panel.

Speakers

Fred Martin will be one of our plenary speakers.  The topic will be on Engaged Computing.  He has stated a preference for Saturday morning.

Several invitations were declined or ignored.  An invitation has been extended to David Gries.  We will give him a week to respond.  (NOTE after the fact: He accepted.)

Oter suggestions were given:  Eric Lander (Whitehead Institute), Jim Hendler, George Marhouski (U of Maine), Dick Morley (retired from MIT), Ari Ruben (Johns Hopkins).

Programming Contest

There are several automatic scoring systems being considered.   Frank plans to have a programming contest in early March at Providence College where he can test a system.    It was felt that the March timeframe was too late for us to decide.     Frank and Chris will test a system by mid-February to see if it will work.

• It was felt that 18 teams could fit in Olin 306 and 12 teams could fit in Olin 102.
  
• Lunch for contest people would either be pizza or tickets to the cafeteria.
  
• The platform will be Linux/Windows, and the languages available will be C++ and Java.
  
• There was a desire expressed that there be mutliple questions that most teams should be able to get.
  
• If the contest starts late, we should let it run late to make up for the lost time.
  
• Frank and Chris will create the contest problems.
• Prizes will be in cash and awarded at the banquet.

• The Holiday Inn has rate of $89 if you ask for CCSC code.   The deadline is two weeks before the conference.
• We will try to get 20 rooms at the Days Inn, in order to have a cheaper alternative.
• We will put a list of other area hotels on the web site.
  

Registration forms

Student fee will be $30.  This is the amount listed on one CFP.  Other CFPs listed $40 (which was budgeted).

Regular attendee fee will remain $120.

Frank, as registrar, will receive all registration forms this year.  Thus, presenters will have to send some things (eg. copyright form) to the editor and others to the registrar.

We will not use PayPal this year due to many questions raised.   Frank will check if credit cards can be taken.  (NOTE after the fact: credit cards are not an option though National at this time.)

Camera Ready copy and registration are due for presenters on Feburary 10.

Frank will need to get the meal choices for the form.  He will get the forms to Karl to post, and inform the posters, panels, and papers chairs when it is ready.    Acceptance letters should wait till then.

Session Chairs

The Papers Chairs will recruit session chairs.

Food

The budget for dinner was increased to $30 per person.  Choices left to the conference chairs' discretion.   It was felt that entertainment would not be a good idea.

Lunch will be available on Friday at registration.  Pre-made sandwhiches and drinks will be available.

Breaks will have normal food.

The social hour budget was increased to $1500.

Saturday lunch will be a buffet, with possibility for people to make a box lunch.

Freebies

We should not be purchasing freebies this year.   We may wish to look into USBcards embossed with our name for next year's 10th year gifts.

A/V

All rooms will have a laptop connector for projection, a 35mm slide projector, a transparency projector, and either a Mac or PC (perhaps both).

We need to have a sound system at the banquet and Saturday lunch.

Student Posters

David Hemmendinger and Brad Richards will work on a plan to be able to have the posters available for judging somewhere at 1pm.  Judges can the look at them in the early afternoon to narrow the set down to a small number to look at during the actual poster session.

Students are encouraged to bring their own posterboards, but we can provide boards for those who request them. We will need to know 4 weeks ahead of the conference how many easels will be needed.  (Tri-fold poster boards can be put on a table, but others will likely need easels.)  

Respectfully submitted,

Scott McElfresh
Note-taker for the Meeting