2009-10-23: Fall 2009

CSU East Bay

Present: Ellen Berg (Chair, Sacramento), Greg Bohr (SLO), Nan Chico (East Bay), Stafford Cox* (Long Beach), Rhonda Dugan (Bakersfield), Matt Jarvis (Fullerton), Pat Jennings (East Bay), John Korey (Pomona), Josh Meisel (Humboldt), Ed Nelson (Fresno), Ken Shultz* (San Bernardino), Rich Taketa (San Jose), Gene Turner* (Northridge), Billy Wagner* (Channel Islands), Lori Weber (Chico)

*Via Elluminate online conferencing software

1.      M/S/P to approve the minutes of the spring 2009 meeting.

2.   Budget. 

During the summer and early fall, the Executive Committee (Ellen, John, Kathy, Ed, and Lori) talked with Gerry Hanley and agreed (however reluctantly) to several changes to the budget necessitated by the current crisis.  We no longer have a SDA license or travel money.  Funding for the Student Research Conference is still in question.  San Francisco State has agreed for the time being to not charge us for Web hosting services, but will not be able to continue this indefinitely.

3.   Data Base Subscriptions. 

Not counting the Maritime Academy, all campuses except for San Bernardino have subscribed.  Ken is still working on getting that campus to do so.

4.   ICPSR Report (Lori, Ed)

A new slate of nominees has been proposed for the 2010-2014 term (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/or/announce.jsp#2009-10-21).  Official Representatives should be receiving their ballots by the first week in November.  Lori’s term extends until 2012.  We should be thinking now about someone whom we can propose for nomination when elections are held in 2011 for the 2012-2016 term.

Students should be encouraged to apply for the Summer Undergraduate Internship Program (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/careers/internship.jsp) and to submit papers for the Undergraduate Research Paper Competition (http://www.icpsr.com/icpsrweb/ICPSR/prize/index.jsp).

Webinars from the recent OR meeting are available at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/or/ormeet/program/index.jsp.

Bill Frey has inquired as to whether the SSRIC would be interested in a workshop in California on the Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN) (http://www.ssdan.net/).  We would.  Ed will contact him.

Merrill Shanks would be willing to host SDA datasets of interest to the SSRIC on the SDA site (http://sda.berkeley.edu/) for a nominal fee.  Ed was asked to inquire further and to note that we already have several datasets in SDA format and would be interested in sharing them.

New developments at ICPSR:

·         ICPSR Director Myron Gutmann will be leaving on November 1 to head the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral and Economics (SBE) Directorate.  George Alter has been named Acting Director.

·         The Minority Data Resource Center http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/MDRC/) will be renamed the Resource Center for Minority Data.  John Garcia will serve as center director.

·         A new Terrorism and Preparedness Data Resource Center (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/TPDRC/) has been established.

·         The Online Learning Center (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/OLC/index.html) has added a number of new modules.

Teaching With Data (http://www.teachingwithdata.org – caution, site still in early development). Ed and George Baldwin (Monterey Bay) are on a 10 campus committee to advise on the development of this resource.  The goal is to provide faculty with teaching resources, including datasets, tables, exercises, articles on pedagogy, and metadata.  A baseline survey of the 10 campuses will be carried out in January or February, with a follow-up survey about a year later.

5.   ICPSR Summer Program Czar. 

Pat agreed to serve again this year.  M/S/P: the overriding criteria for evaluating proposals will be overall quality and how the proposal will benefit instruction; preference will be given to faculty over students, to untenured tenure-track faculty over tenured faculty, and to those who have not previously received assistance from the SSRIC for this purpose.

6.   2008-2009 Annual Usage and Service Report.  Available at http://www.ssric.org/node/359.

7.  Workshops. 

We need to explore several delivery options in addition to the traditional face-to-face format.  These could include:

·         Video recording of face-to-face workshops.  Ed and John tried this on October 16 at Bakersfield.  The video has been sent to Andrew Roderick, with the notion that it can be cut up into segments and posted to ssric.org and DIVA.

·         Live webinars using Elluminate (http://www.elluminate.com/) or similar software.  These could then be posted to the Web for later viewing, as ICPSR is already doing.

·         Web-based screen casts using Camtasia Studio (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camtasia) or similar software.

·         Hybrid models, such as face-to-face workshops that incorporate Web-based segments.

8.   Field Report.

Faculty Fellow and Question Credit Proposals will be due on April 15.  (Note that this is a change from previous years.)

There will be no Field Workshop this fall.  Mark DiCamillo has inquired as to whether the SSRIC would prefer that the next workshop be held in spring 2010 (prior to the June primary) or fall 2010 (prior to the November general election).  Note was made of the fact that late May is a difficult time for faculty because of grading responsibilities.

9    Future meetings

Winter meeting: February 5 or 19.  Ellen will check with Ali Modarres at Cal State LA.
Spring meeting (Student Research Conference): late April or early May.  John will check on room availability.

10.   Website changes. 

Deleted: SDA datasets (due to loss of SDA license).  Added: SSRIC Newsletter (http://www.ssric.org/newsletters) and Instructional Data Subsets (http://www.ssric.org/node/361).

11.  Governance. 

The Bylaws (http://www.ssric.org/bylaws) are in need of revision.  Procedures for establishing a quorum and for amending the bylaws have become outdated.  The bylaws are silent regarding the Executive Committee and the increasingly important role it has come to play.  Some language has been made obsolete (by, for example, changes in technology such as email).  The Executive Committee was asked to serve as a Committee on Style to propose revisions and to circulate the proposal prior to the Winter 2010 meeting.

Committee structure (http://www.ssric.org/node/12#org).  Ed will check with the members of the Field Committee regarding their willingness to continue to serve; Gene will do the same for the Teaching Resources Committee.

12. California Social Survey. 

Ellen will check with Ted Lascher for an update.

13. Strategic Plan. 

Ellen will send the Strategic Plan developed last year to Gerry Hanley, and will send copies to Council members for review and further discussion at the Winter 2010 meeting.  Next steps should focus on stabilizing funding and on outreach to new faculty.

14. Use of Elluminate. 

There was concensus that, despite some glitches, the hybrid face-to-face and Web conference format for Council meetings seems to work fairly well.

Recorded by John L.Korey