Dear All,
Below is a first rough draft of the Ad Hoc conference document, which
has already benefitted immensely from suggestions by Harold. Please
comment and criticize freely! I attach an HTML version (I hope not
too ugly) for inclusion on the Ad Hoc web site, if that's appropriate.
Best wishes and happy holidays--
Julia
Ad Hoc: Conferences
Julia Flanders
1. Aims and objectives
The aims of the Ad Hoc group with respect to conferences are to
provide a framework within which related groups in the general Ad Hoc
domain can share conference resources to the greatest extent
possible, with four chief goals:
--to create intellectual synergies and increase opportunities for
interdisciplinary interaction through shared conference events
--to avoid scheduling conflict or competition and proliferation of
essentially similar, unsustainable small-scale conferences
--to achieve economies of scale in conference planning and scheduling
and reduce drain on the administrative resources of each group
--to improve the quality of the conferences in this domain by
increasing their international breadth (for instance, by addressing
the problems of translation/interpretation and multilingualism)
2. Current practice
A. Diversity of conferences
Prior to any intervention by the Ad Hoc group, the broad humanities
computing community is being served by a growing number of
conferences, of which the ALLC/ACH joint conference is of central
interest here, but also including Digital Resources in the Humanities
(DRH), possibly Digital Arts and Culture (DAC), and other occasional
conferences or workshops which arise from some specific topic or
opportunity, such as those sponsored by NINCH. There are also
conferences which are of relevance to this community but which have
their center of gravity in a well-established domain which is not
participating in the Ad Hoc discussions (e.g. the Hypertext and
Digital Libraries conferences, sponsored by the ACM). These will not
be considered here.
Harold has proposed that we develop a list of organizations and
conferences which might be interested in joining a new conference
framework (whether or not they participate in the Ad Hoc discussions
or become part of the overall organization). Here is an initial list;
please add:
ALLC (Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing)
ACH (Association for Computers and the Humanities)
DRH (Digital Resources in the Humanities)
DAC (Digital Arts and Culture)
NINCH (National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage)
IQLA (International Quantitative Linguistics Association)
AHC (Association for History and Computing)
CHArt (Computers in the History of Art)
CLiP (Computers, Literature and Philology)
B. ACH/ALLC Conference protocol
The current ALLC/ACH conference protocol makes some provision for
other related organizations, by allowing session proposals by allied
organizations, and by encouraging parallel conferences at the same
location where feasible. This provision has been better than nothing,
but is unsatisfactory in two ways:
--by placing the ACH/ALLC as the "owner" of the conference, it
explicitly marginalizes the participation of other organizations,
which discourages them from making this their primary conference
meeting (though they may take advantage of it to increase their
exposure). It therefore fails to reduce the total number of
conferences.
--by failing to include related organizations at the infrastructural
level, this provision achieves no economies of scale and in fact
increases the organizational overhead of the conference without
bringing in additional resources.
3. Range of possibilities
A. Streamline and improve the existing ACH/ALLC arrangement
--add more explicit provisions (either to the conference protocol or
to the practical guidelines) for soliciting, reviewing, and
scheduling allied organization sessions
--add provision for financial contribution by the allied
organizations (? does this make sense, given that the sponsoring
organizations do not make any financial contribution?)
--add provision for internationalization, translation/interpretation
and multilingualism
B. Keep the ALLC/ACH framework but expand to include another
organization/conference (e.g. DRH)
--modify conference protocol to include an additional sponsoring organization
--keep the existing provisions of the protocol except where they are
clearly contraindicated
--add provision for internationalization, translation/interpretation
and multilingualism
C. Create a new conference framework for the entire Ad Hoc group, or most of it
--perhaps use the existing (revised) ACH/ALLC protocol as a basis
--the group of official sponsoring organizations (if they still exist
as separate entities) might logically include ALLC, ACH, TEI, NINCH,
and the rubric represented by DRH, but there may also be a wider
group of existing conferences that wish to be included here (see
register in 2.A above); one question to be addressed is the extent to
which these organizations would wish to retain a degree of identity
and autonomy (and hence representation) within the larger structure.
However, if what is envisioned is a kind of federation with regional
and perhaps disciplinary chapters, that might provide a logic for
conference organization as well. In fact, the new conference
framework might result not in a single unified conference, but rather
in a set of conferences which were more explicitly coordinated as to
time and place, so as to avoid timing conflicts and duplication.
Harold suggests the possibility that there might still be a large
international conference representing the entire organization, which
could move among the various continents represented (as now), but
that it would be supplemented by chapter-based conferences which
might exploit disciplinary or geographical specificity.
--include provision for internationalization,
translation/interpretation and multilingualism
--some areas of possible synergy to be exploited: consider
coordinating or consolidating the publication of proceedings: share
formats and metadata, create a single unified collection of
proceedings/abstracts; use a common submission format (and perhaps
provide a DTD); publish the calls for papers in a single place and in
a common format. (Some of these points produce synergies which
benefit the participant as well, which is a good thing: it is
important to minimize the overhead for members in participating in
conferences.)
4. Proposals
If the Ad Hoc group's other discussions lead to a plan for thoroughly
merging the organizations involved, or at least bringing them
together under one umbrella, then option C above seems like the most
appropriate for the long term. It allows for maximum participation at
each conference by the Ad Hoc community, and it encourages a new look
at the kind of conference and review protocol is appropriate for this
new meta-organization, rather than assuming that the existing
arrangements can be tweaked into an appropriate shape.
The proposal given here, therefore, is to pursue option C in the long
term. Given that it may not be possible to work out the details in
less than a year (and given that the conference details may be
dependent on establishing the details of the larger organization,
which may take time), option A may be the best interim solution.
High priority should be given to addressing the
internationalization/multilingualism issue, which is a constant in
all three options and has high stakes attached. Successful handling
of multilingualism is crucial to our credibility as an international
scholarly organization, and also to our ability to attract the
membership (not just in numbers, but in breadth of constituency) that
the organization will need in order to thrive. The goal should be to
create an organization within which there are (at a minimum)
significantly reduced barriers to scholarly communication (the goal
of zero barriers is highly desirable but may be very difficult to
achieve), and in which the collaborative atmosphere that has been the
hallmark of ACH/ALLC can be extended to speakers of languages other
than English. The goal should also be to avoid at all costs the
creation of separate organizations for groups which find themselves
excluded for linguistic reasons from the larger organization. The
existence of such groups could be taken as prima facie evidence that
greater efforts need to be made...
Finally, it may be useful to mention here a couple of points that
have arisen during the review of the conference protocols, since
these will also be important for the new framework:
--advance planning and careful timetables are essential to ensure
that conference programs and keynote speakers are set well in
advance. This advance planning gives the conference organizers
maximum leeway to economize and optimize: by making room and
equipment reservations, lodging arrangements, travel arrangements for
speakers, and the like, while choices are stil flexible and prices
are low. It also ensures that the volunteers (e.g. paper reviewers,
program committee, local organizer) on whom the conference
organization depends are not put under painful time pressure which
saps their enthusiasm and makes them less willing to take up this
burden year after year
--the reviewing process (and perhaps the paper solicitation process
as well) needs to be given careful thought and scrutiny to enhance
the quality and subject range of papers submitted and accepted. This
has been a recurring problem and one which requires a systematic,
long-term solution. This topic is closely related to that of
recruitment (both of younger scholars and of scholars from other
languages and disciplines).
5. Financial implications
The financial implications for the conference are not as far-reaching
as one might imagine, since the conference is funded entirely by fees
and by the local host institution. Increased participation (resulting
from a larger community base) would improve the financial basis for
the conference, since the overhead costs are largely fixed and the
incremental costs scale up fairly smoothly. (We are assuming here
that the conference will not increase by an order of magnitude, which
might alter its basic arrangements--e.g. by requiring a much larger
and more expensive venue.)
The one very significant cost we can foresee is the cost of
addressing the multilingualism challenge. This could be met in
several ways:
--through corporate sponsorship?
--in a few venues, by local collaboration (e.g. through a translation school)
--through subvention by the sponsoring organizations, as part of
their larger plan for handling multilingualism
--through some increase in conference fees (particularly if the
conference is larger than at present)
--through innovation and advance planning: e.g. by providing advance
translation services to reduce the need for simultaneous
interpretation; by creating a compensation or incentive structure for
organization members who assist in translation
6. Transition requirements/options
Because conferences are periodic events, the transition process is
eased somewhat: the new structure and protocols can be developed over
time, and implemented in the conference that follows their
completion. The transition from our current arrangment (ALLC/ACH plus
many other conferences) to the possible future endpoint (a single
overarching conference plus regional/chapter conferences) may take
several steps to complete, some of which will depend mostly on
decisions about how the new organization will be structured. A
possible set of steps might be:
1. If a transitional conference is deemed desirable (rather than just
keeping what we have until the new system is ready) discuss combining
the ACH/ALLC conference with a few of the most obvious other
conferences, using the revised ACH/ALLC protocols: in other words,
broaden the constituency for this conference without fundamentally
altering its nature. The resulting conference could be explicitly a
"joint-joint" conference: e.g. "ALLC/ACH/DRH" and its theme could be
crafted to accommodate the resulting breadth of discipline and
audience, perhaps through multiple tracks. It would also be
explicitly a temporary/transitional arrangement: a way of beginning
to achieve some of the goals of the larger reorganization
(consolidation, breadth, etc.) while the larger process is taking
place.
2. (Without waiting for the completion of 1) Undertake the longer
process of framing the larger conference structure: begin discussions
with other organizations and conferences to determine who wishes to
consider participating, and assess the degree of accommodation that
will be necessary (i.e. whether this will be a major diplomatic
effort to reconcile fundamental differences of approach or just a
matter of signing people up). The Ad Hoc group could come up with an
initial framework which could then be modified on the basis of
feedback from potential participants.
3. From the set of participants, create a conference steering
committee which will be charged with adapting the ALLC/ACH conference
protocol to the new conference organization, and also with developing
a logistical framework to coordinate the timing and location of
chapter conferences.
4. Concurrent with the above, solve the multilingualism issue...
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