2006-10-06: Fall 2006

Fall 2006 SSRIC Meeting
Friday, October 6, 2006 at Humboldt

Members present: Ellen Berg (Sacramento), Chris Bettinger ( San Francisco), Greg Bohr (San Luis Obispo), Nan Chico (East Bay), Stafford Cox (Long Beach), Jae Emenhiser (Humboldt), Robin Högnäs (Bakersfield), Carole Kennedy (San Diego), Ed Nelson (Fresno), Mike Reibel (Pomona), Stephen Routh (Stanislaus), Steve Stambough (Fullerton), Steve Stratton (Channel Islands), Lori Weber (Chico)

By phone: John Korey (Pomona), Gene Turner (Northridge)

Guests: Bruce Haston (Humboldt), Glenda Morgan (Chancellor’s Office), Andrew Roderick (San Francisco)


Pending action items:

Subcommittee on Chancellor’s Office Partnerships (Research Synergies Committee) was formed (members: Mike R., Ed N., Nan C. (resource person on online education), volunteered: Jose M., Billy W.). They will explore possibilities of research opportunities with Chancellor’s Office. (item 5)

Mike R. suggested compiling a list of research expertise of SSRIC reps, as well as a list of research centers at the various CSU campuses. (item 6) He will send out a brief survey to SSRIC reps.

Lori proposed developing a FAQ for standard issues that could be handed out at workshops or posted on the website. (item 7) Mike R. and Lori W. will begin developing the FAQ.

Ed N. agreed to write a letter to council members focusing on contributions by the reps to the CSU. He will send it to reps that would like to receive such a letter and to other campus administrators as designated by rep. (item 7)

Change of name of the SSRIC requires Webpage changes that Andrew R. will implement. (item 13)

Nan C. will choose the date for the spring conference based on room availability at East Bay. It will either be April 27 or May 4 (Fridays). She will bring posters for the conference to the winter meeting. (item 16)

TRD Committee charged with redesign of the TRD webpage to include instructions on submitting updated or revised materials. Committee will also provide submission guidelines for the TRD page. (item 11/12)

Andrew R. will explore the cost of maintaining a separate mailing list for Roper e-mails. Ed N. will also explore other possibilities for reducing number of Roper e-mails based on group consensus. (item 15)

A new committee (Robin H., Steve S., Lori W, Chris B., Mike R.) will explore the possibility of obtaining money for a California Social Survey modeled after the General Social Survey. They will also work on putting together a proposal for funding. (item 22)


1) Introductions of attendees and new reps were made.
a. Robin Hognas, Sociology, Bakersfield
b. William Wagner, Sociology, Bakersfield was not able to attend
c. Ellen Berg, Sociology, Sacramento

2) Announcements.

Discussion of allowing a second alternate representative. David M. requested that we discuss the possibility of a second alternate. Steve S. thought this was important in the case of a FERPing faculty. Mike R. thought we ought to differentiate between first alternate and second alternate. Agreed to allow a second alternate rep with one designated as first alternate and other as second alternate.

Andrew Roderick won the Outstanding Professional Achievement from the CSU Community of Academic Technology Staff (CATS)

The ICPSR OR meeting next fall is October 18, 2007 – October 20, 2007. A list of those eligible to travel was circulated.

The ICPSR undergraduate student research competition deadline is January 31, 2007.

ICPSR has several new tools for OR’s to track of campus usage.

Jae provided maps to his house and to the restaurant for the evenings activities.

3) Minutes from Spring meeting. No changes were proposed. Mike R moved to accept them. Lori W. seconded. Approved.

4) The revised SSRIC budget for 2006-07 was handed out. There were three changes from the budget distributed at the spring, 2006 meeting. Field was originally budgeted for $59,000, but received $57,000. Field accepted this. Campus subscription rates increased by 5% at the request of the Chancellor’s Office. Additionally, we agreed to put our program initiatives on hold.

5) Glenda stated she had already paid the Field bill this year and that we could begin implementing our program initiatives. Glenda also stated that the Chancellor’s Office wanted to establish a partnership between the Council and the Chancellor’s Office (CO). She is not sure exactly yet what specifically this might mean but the CO is often looking for research to be done in several areas and sees the Council well situated to handle some of it.

Mike R. sees definite synergies in assisting the CO and the benefits to the Council would be obvious.

Glenda has a new title, Director of Academic Technical Research

Glenda suggested a new committee to explore collaboration with the CO on research. The CO has a lot of data on students from campus surveys, but often nothing happens with the data due to lack of personnel. One suggestion was research on the need for online degrees in CA. There are definite policy considerations to be considered.
A new committee was formed and will report on discussions at the winter meeting.

A handout was provided with the subscription fees for all campuses. All but San Marcos have subscribe for this year. Glenda reported that updates to the contact list have been helpful in increasing quick turnaround this year.

Mike R suggested that we also maintain a list of SSRIC reps research expertise.

A list of CSI research centers in the social sciences was also suggested. Several were mentioned (Fullerton, Bakersfield, Fresno (Social Research Laboratory), Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Pomona (Center for GIS research), Stanislaus (Public Policy Center), Humboldt (California Center for Rural Policy). San Marcos (Social and Behavioral Research Institute).

6) Workshops.

Mike R. and Lori W. presented a workshop on the social science data bases yesterday in Humboldt. 15-16 attendees. Good diversity of faculty, staff, and students. Good questions were asked.

Future workshops:
Long Beach November 3, 2006. John K. and Gene T. will present.
San Diego Thursday February 8, 2007 before the Winter meeting February 9-10. John K. would be the lead with Carole the second person.
One workshop is set for next fall already, September 7, 2007 at Channel Islands

Other campuses mentioned interest: East Bay (possibly before the student conference), Stanislaus, Los Angeles (Ted is checking on that), San Bernardino (Pam checking on that).

Greg mentioned that SLO would be interested perhaps at the end of January or early March.

Steve R thought that Stanislaus would be interested in hosting a workshop in the end of March on a Saturday. Ed N. volunteered for this workshop.

Lori W., Ed N., John K. will develop a SDA workshop.

Mike R. volunteered to do the Training at Channel Islands..

It was explained for new members that the campuses where training is held typically pay for lunch. Travel expenses are paid by the Chancellor’s Office. Stafford C. proposed that there be honorariums. Mike R. thought released time from the campus made more sense, perhaps a certain release time for the exchange of a certain number of training sessions in a particular semester.

Lori W. agreed and mentioned that she would like to see a formal letter on SSRIC letterhead that explains the duty of the Council reps so that co-workers have an idea of the time that goes into being on the Council.

Ed N. thought a general letter for RTP purposes would be good and volunteered to send out the letter to Council members and anyone else on campus that the rep would like the letter be sent to. Ed will check with SSRIC reps to see who would like to receive the letter and where else it should be sent.

The Saturday workshop at the San Diego meeting will be either a SDA workshop or a census workshop by Gene T. and Rich T. (Note: Later in the meeting Gene indicated by phone that they were willing to do the census workshop in San Diego.)

There were 10 workshops on 8 campuses in 2005-06.

7) SSRIC Annual report for 2005-06 is on the website.

Mike R. has written the annual SSRIC report on council activities, governance issues and budgeting.

8) SSRIC utilization report for 2005-06 is on the Web.

Ed N. prepared the annual utilization report for ICPSR, Field, Roper, and other council activities.

Dramatic increase in ICPSR usage. 2004-05 3,479 sets were downloaded. 2005-06 7,872 sets downloaded. This is due, in part, to ICPSR Direct. Campuses can monitor utilization at any time from the ICPSR Website, just go to the OR site and sign in. If you do not know or have forgotten your password just contact Bree Gunter (bgunter@umich.edu) at ICPSR for the passwords

Roper Center also showed dramatic increase in usage. 2004-05 49 data sets used. 2005-06, 354 data sets used.

Field Institute also showed increase in usage. 2004-05 556 accesses. 2005-06 2862 accesses.

In 2004-05 there were 30 presenters at the student conference. In 2005-06 there were 36 presenters at the conference.

The incoming chair is now responsible for preparing the utilization report. The outgoing chair is responsible for the SSRIC annual report. The proposed budget and its justification is also sent to the Chancellor’s Office in late May or early June.

13) Change of name. Mike R. suggested that we distinguish between two organizations, one that handles the program work, SDA, teaching and another that manages the databases so that there is a difference between the specialty center and the board.

Jae moved that we refer to the Social Sciences Research and Instruction Center when we are referring to the data bases and the Social Sciences Research and Instructional Council when we are referring to the council. Lori seconded the motion.

It was mentioned we would need to change verbal habits to make the change clear to everyone reading materials or viewing the Web. Mike R. thinks it will work as long as we are clear in that regard. He wants to make sure it is clear we are one of the CSU Specialty Centers.

Bruce H. thought Center sounded good. Chris thought the word Center would give the group immediate credibility if we were applying for grants.

A discussion of overhead charges focused on the difference between CO overhead and campus overheads. CO overhead is only 15% so grants look better going through that office.

16) Student Research Conference (item 16 on the agenda)

Two options for the spring Student Conference at East Bay. Friday-Saturday April 27-28 or Friday – Saturday May 4-5

Spirited debate on which dates might be better for various campuses and how it fits calendars, spring breaks, semester endings. Nan C. will check to see which of the two dates will work for room reservations.

Suggested speakers for the spring conference include: Elizabeth Hill, legislative analyst, Mark DiCamillo (Field Institute), Mark Baldassare (PPIC), Tom Piazza (Berkeley)

Nan C. will design and work on the posters for the Spring Conference. Students from fall graduation are welcome for spring presentations.

9) DIVA presentation from Andrew.

Will go live in Fall ’07. He sees it as a subscription-based product available to campuses. An online digital file management system.

10 & 12) TRD and SSRIC website

John K. and Gene T. joined us via phone for this section of the meeting.

John presented the mock up of the new TRD Website. He discussed proposals for the changes to the site.

Suggestion that the SPSS book needs an alt.tag to make the image accessible.

Steve Stambough made the motion to make it so. Second from Mike R.

Amendment was added to create a page that has links to other datasets that we do not currently subscribe to but may be accessible including Pew, IPUMS, Gallup Poll, and PPIC.

The name has been changed from the Teaching Resources Depository Committee to the Teaching Resources Committee.

14) Email procedures.

Your name and password allow you to control mail lists of your own campus colleague.

Andrew handles the passwords, speak with him if there are issues regarding either. Andrew handed out the mailing format.

15) Remember to edit your list of interested faculty.

Mike R. suggested creating a second list of faculty that were interested in receiving the numerous Roper e-mails. Andrew suggested that programming to create this second list could probably be done.

Much discussion ensued regarding establishing a second mailing list. It was mentioned that an individual can subscribe themselves to the Roper list so this may be a solution to the problem of too many e-mails that several members mentioned. Ed N. to take care of this problem.

17) Two meetings per year are budgeted for travel reimbursement by the CO. Pam at the CO has forms posted on the SSRIC Web site for easy download. Remember your department reimburses you, then your department seeks reimbursement from the CO.

Pam would like a pre-meeting cost estimate form filled out as a courtesy to her and to ease the workflow.

18) Field Workshop RFPs

$1000 stipend plus 12 questions for the Field Fellowship. Six questions for the Question Credits program.

19) IP addresses

Andrew handed out a list of the known IP addresses for the various campuses. Please be sure and check with your campus to make sure no other locations exist that need to be covered.

20) Steve S. discussed the DC intern program that has been developed. Fullerton has the infrastructure set up and Steve suggested that others may be able to take advantage of this structure for their own students. He would like to see the program expanded to other CSU campuses. One student from another CSU campus did participate this past summer. Junior, senior standing or graduate students are eligible. Placements were at the Dept of Energy, Dept of Housing and Urban Development, Dept of Education this past summer. Speak with Steve S. for further details.

21) ICPSR summer program czar is now Carole K.. There is $3000 to distribute in travel awards for travel costs to attend the summer sessions.

Discussion changed to reimbursable travel. It was suggested that it would be good to have an online system that Andrew could design and Pam could operate at the CO. The Council could review submissions for accuracy but not edit them. Ed to check with Andrew and Pam about this.

22) Ed N. brought up the California Social Survey. This has been a dream of the Council to create for quite some time. John K. and Ed N. would like to turn this over to someone else.

Questions arose as to what might be different than in the General Social Survey (GSS) Funders were thought to be looking for a different set of topics than the GSS.

The downside to the GSS is that you cannot pull Californians out of the Western subset of the GSS so they can not be differentiated from Nevadans.

Everyone agreed it would be a great idea. Several people were interested in exploring it but also a few were concerned that it might not be at a good point in their career to attempt something so large with their limited time. People were going to return to their campuses and seek input and volunteers from their colleagues.

A committee was formed to look into this further. (Robin H., Steve S., Lori W., Chris B.

Respectfully submitted,

Steve Stratton (Channel Islands)