[SIGCIS-Members] Volunteer for SIGCIS!

Thomas Haigh thaigh at computer.org
Tue Mar 16 15:54:38 PDT 2010


Hello everyone,

SIGCIS needs some enthusiastic volunteers to assist with special projects
and fill a vacant position on our Executive Committee.

As you're aware our activities have been growing steadily over the past few
years and include this email list, our website at www.sigcis.org, the
organization of sessions for the main SHOT conference, an annual one day
workshop held in conjunction with SHOT, the Computer History Museum prize
for an outstanding book in the history of computing, a guide to resources
for the history of computing, the Mahoney fund as a capital reserve (now
over $5,000) and our supplemental student travel grants (four made last
year) supported primarily by the book auction at our annual meeting. In the
near future we should be posting a new set of regional resource guides and
expanding our online syllabus repository.

Coordinating all this hard, particularly in an environment where pressure on
graduate students and untenured faculty limits the amount of time anyone
person can devote to the SIG.

So to help us push forward with new initiatives and make sure our existing
commitments are handled properly we are looking for a couple of volunteers.
In the past these have tended to be dissertation writing graduate students
and new faculty, but we're open to volunteers of all kinds including those
outside academia. You do not need to be based in the US, and there are many
opportunities for which it is not necessary to be able to attend the annual
meeting.

Our current needs are described below. If you have any questions or want to
volunteer for something please get in touch. My main priority for the SIG
now is to institutionalize its structure and make sure that we have a
pipeline of new volunteers so that it will not collapse when the existing
cohort needs to move on.

Thanks,

Tom

COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER

The main post we need to fill is that of Communications Officer. You may
notice that our website is not updated as often as it should be, and our
email list sometimes misses important announcements. That's why we need a
communications officer. 

.Monitor relevant email lists and website for news of forthcoming
conferences, journal special issues, and other developments of interest to
SIGCIS members. Forward relevant material to the list with short
introductory summaries.
.Post a current selection of interesting news items to the front page of the
SIGCIS website. 
.Create and maintain a set of reminders of forthcoming events and deadlines
on the SIGCIS website. 
.Create and maintain an online repository of history of computing syllabi in
Acrobat format. 
.Create and keep current a page of fellowships sometimes given to history of
computing students.

We've invested a lot of effort in our Drupal content management system,
which makes it easy to update the website, promote items to the front page,
and share responsibility for different parts of the site. So you would
really be focusing on the content itself rather than being a traditional
webmaster. 

The communications officer is a member of the SIGCIS Executive Committee,
which also means taking part in monthly conference calls (we use Skype).
These are usually scheduled early afternoon in the Eastern US/early evening
for Europeans.

Existing terms expire at the next SHOT meeting, so we aim to make a trial
appointment for approximately six months, which might be followed by
nomination to a full two year term.

SPECIAL PROJECTS

There are a number of special projects for which we need volunteers for a
limited period. This would be a great way to get involved with SIGCIS.

* SIGCIS Workshop program coordinator (2010 meeting). Dealing with technical
aspects of submissions, corresponding with possible participants,
coordinating the review process, drafting a program schedule.

* Member contributions area. We have already an area on our site where
contributions from members can be posted -- similar to a technical report
series. In the near future we aim to expand this and issue a general call
for possible material. Having a volunteer to oversee this and work with
authors to get material posted would expedite the process.

* Other specific aspects of the SIG's activities (see
http://www.sigcis.org/?q=node/6) including those currently demarcated for
its officers. For example someone might volunteer to lead the improvement of
the member directory or to develop bylaws.

* Anything else you think the SIG needs.






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