1. Update on the IEEE Conferences Committee Steven Weber November 15, 2008 New Brunswick, NJ

2. Current issues with IEEE conferences 1. Conference technical co-sponsorship 2. Conference business services technology upgrade 3. Conference presentations online 4. Policy on conference author no shows 5. Conference publications 6. Conference overhead

3. 1. Conference technical co-sponsorship l DESC: IEEE managed 350 TCS confs, 550 S/CS confs in 2007. Easy for a non-IEEE group to get TCS from an OU, but is this leaving money on the table? l PRO: TCS increases the visibility of IEEE, offers new market penetration. l CON: IEEE already has S/CS confs in all major areas. Are giving our competitors the incentives and means to take our business. l STATUS: John Vig wrote a paper on this, asking for data to be gathered to make assessment.

5. 2. Conference business services technology upgrade l DESC: Conf. organizers survey complaints: IEEE conf. mgmt. is opaque, compliance- oriented, and value-neutral. CBS has limited flexibility to improve customer service due to aging software and hardware. l PRO: technology upgrade will streamline and integrate operations, improving cust. sat. l CON: ~$4.5M over next 3 years. l STATUS: CBS proposed to conf. committee. Consensus that probably too late for this FY.

6. l DESC: Audio and slides for conf. presentations to be made available in Xplore. l PRO: Technology (Camtasia and Echo 360) are sufficient. Bad economy may limit travel, audio and slides may promote "virtual" attendance, mitigate economic impact on conf. revenue. l CON: open questions on business model (pricing) and hosting + staffing costs. Too much incentive to not attend conf? l STATUS: John Vig creating ad hoc committee from NIC to oversee progress. 3. Conference presentations online

7. 4. Policy on conference author no shows l DESC: Increase in authors submitting paper and paying reg. fee but not showing up to present. Value of confs are decreased. Proposed response: not put papers in Xplore. l PRO: Availability in Xplore a major incentive for many authors to submit to a conf. l CON: Print or electronic proceedings distributed at the conf legally mean the paper is published, hence no-show papers are published by IEEE. l STATUS: Conf. organizers are to send all papers to IEEE, indicate which are not to be in Xplore. Ensure author responsibilities are communicated. Continue monitoring.

8. 5. Conference publications 2006 01-Jan to 31-Dec 2006% 2007 01-Jan to 31-Dec 2007% 2008 YTD through 13- Aug-2008 2008% Total number conferences posted to Xplore 591 921 547 Posted within 30 days from conference end date 13823%24126%18935% Posted within 45 days from conference end date 549%10211%6011% Posted within 60 days from conference end date 529%799%519% Posted greater than 60 days from conference end date 34759%49954%24745% Average days from conf end date to Xplore posting 104.06115.12100.29 In 2008 45% of conference proceedings had not appeared in Xplore within 60 days of conf.

9. 6. Conference overhead l DESC: Preliminary analysis on average cost of overhead support for conferences. Overhead is i) meetings and conferences staff and ii) general and administrative costs. IEEE doesn't factor overhead into conference costs. Need to know what they are. l STATUS: Preliminary report by Mark Vasquez answered some questions but opened others. True cost also includes additional services such as indexing and PDF eXpress.