Amstat Online Editorial Board @ JSM 2000

Agenda 1:30-3:30 wed 15 aug 2000

Introductions
Electronic Publications update (Yandell/Conlon)
Sections (Devlin)
Chapters (Quinn)
Careers (Olsen/Yandell)
Reports from other AEs
ASA site hosting, privacy policy
Zope server & communication among AO board members
ASA Staff (Fleming/Gill)
Other items?

Minutes of Meeting

Attendees: Brian Yandell, Tony Olsen, William Duckworth, Randy Tobias, Eric Ziegel, Mary Fleming, Tom Devlin, Linda Quinn, Mike Conlon, Al Tupek

Action Items

What	Who	When
Check out other society websites to see how they handle information related to your area of responsibility	All Associate Editors	Fall 2000
Email suggestions for improving our processes to Mary Fleming and Brian Yandell	All Associate Editors	all the time
Meeting on linking career and education information	Brian, Bill, Tony, Mary	Fall 2000
Determine if ASA can use Lilly video/slide show on Statistical careers	Linda	soon
Maintain new Section pages	Tom D	periodic review
Review link policy; develop guidelines	Mike	soon
Delegate responsibilities and tasks	All Associate Editors	all the time
Install new Government pages	Al	soon
Provide timely feedback to Brian for Board meetings, etc.	All Associate Editors	when requested

Introductions

Brian provided copies of:

New policies and procedures for Sections developed by Tom Devlin
A list of Section Assistant Editors
AmStat Online Report to BOD, spring 2000
Goals as AmStat Online Editor
Privacy Statement
Guidelines for hosting pages at ASA

Electronic publication update

The ASA intends to put all journals online by mid 2001, but hopes to start the process in January. This includes the images, the distribution, and the subscription system. This project will be outsourced.

The ASA is considering a proposal to produce electronic proceedings for the 2001 JSM on CD-ROM. Proceedings from all sections will be available on one CD-ROM for a cost of $20 (may be revised to $25). No printed proceedings will be produced.

Mike asked if there was a convergence plan for these two electronic publication proposals. Brian said that the two initiatives are going down parallel paths that will converge down the road – Let’s not worry about the mathematics of this statement.

Sections

Tom reported that he met with the Council of Sections Governing Board, the Council of Sections Business Meeting, and Section Assistant Editors. Each section appoints one person, AmStat Online Section Assistant Editor, to be in charge of content for its section. Sections can use AmStat Online to host their webpages or can use their own host. Sections are given a fair amount of flexibility for the design and content of their site, although the section homepages have a common format and set minimal content criteria. Section Assistant Editors are enthusiastic about this approach.

Tom’s next goal is to provide an open source server to hold information from those sections that desire such capability. This server should have search capability across all of the sections before the end of the year. This will be outsourced to an ISP and should be inexpensive.

Chapters

Linda will work to prioritize what chapters want and to redesign chapter homepages similar to committees.

Careers

Tony is working with ASA staff to redesign the information on careers. High school guidance counselors are sending students to the ASA site for career information and there is little there. Articles written for the September AmStat News on careers will be added to the site.

A suggestion was made for putting resumes online. Several issues need to be addressed before this can be done. Mary Fleming is looking at how other societies are dealing with jobs. Mike pointed out that the University of Florida has a website for jobs in statistics that is free.

Philosophy on Links

Mike also brought to our attention the difference in philosophy between the University of Florida site and AmStat Online. New material posted to the University of Florida site is subject to almost no review. Material is taken down only if there’s a complaint and a subsequent review determines it is inappropriate. The AmStat Online policy is just the opposite. As a consequence, the University of Florida site is growing more rapidly. Brian pointed out that our privacy policy and our policy on links to commercial sites to some degree drive our review procedures. Mary felt that having an adequate growth rate is due more to understaffing than policy. There’s also a large backlog of broken links.

Mike agreed to explore guidelines on links. Recommendations for improving our processes should be sent to Mary and Brian.

Reports from other Associate Editors

Al Tupek provided a handout on governments that provided sample pages to be added to AmStat Online. Brian suggested that these pages be added to /government on the AmStat Online developmental site.

Bill said that K-12 needs more attention and that will be his first priority. He will be working with teachers to determine what resources are needed. These might include questions of the week or what statisticians do. He will also work with Dick Scheaffer. Mary suggested keeping a strong link between education and careers. Brian asked that he, Tony, Bill, and Mary meet soon to discuss the relationship of these two topics.

The Council of Chapters is working on redoing the 1980s slide show on careers that we may be able to add to AmStat Online. Linda said that someone at Lilly is creating a similar video or slide show on statistical careers.

Eric, who just joined the editorial board, will be looking at other society websites to see how they handle books. Possible additions to AmStat Online could include a list of new books and/or book reviews. Mike said that ASA could receive a fee for providing a link from the book pages to Amazon.com or to some publishers so that members could order the book online.

Brian proposed and we agreed that the Associate Editor for K-12 would be combined with the Associate Editor for Education (Eric). Brian also proposed dropping plans for an Associate Editor for Society. Some argued that we needed this position to reach out to the public at large. While we will not fill this position at this time, we may revisit the need for this position at a subsequent meeting.

Brian expressed concerns about the lack of progress on science and industries. Mike suggested that there were lots of opportunities for links between other sciences and statistics.

ASA site hosting, privacy policy

See handouts or web pages:

Zope server and Communication among AO board members

Brian encouraged use of our Zope server to keep all of us better informed. It’s a good vehicle to allow us to communicate and to learn about new web tools.

Tom asked about a threaded discussion tool. Brian said he is working on that.