Dear Colleagues:

 

Here is a summary of our planned program committee meeting.  Please send comments and concerns by email, or raise them at the beginning of the meeting.  You can also reach me by phone at +1 812 877 8226.

 

Meeting Time and Place

======================

 

The program committee meeting will take place from 12:00 - 13:30 EDT (GMT - 6 hours).  My apologies to those of you who have to get up early or stay up late.  This was the best time we could find to accommodate as many PC members as possible.

 

Call this number:   +1 517 267 1046

 

You will be prompted for a conference code:   456522

 

When you join the conference please state your name, so that we can keep track of participants.

 

Expected Attendees

==================

 

These people expressed interest in attending the PC meeting:

 

Mark Ardis

Doug Blewett

Debbie Compeau

Steve Elliot

Eileen Forrester

Randy Hackbarth

Karl Kautz

Barb Marcolin

Tom McMaster

Stan Przybylinski

Nancy Staudenmayer

Richard Vidgen

Dave Wastell

 

I do not expect any others.

 

Agenda

======

 

Here is the planned agenda:

 

1.  Introductions, review agenda, selection of secretary and time-keeper. [5 min.]

2.  Overview of keynotes, invited speakers [5 min.]

3.  Overview of review results [5 min.]

            a)  Papers that are clear accepts will be identified.

            b)  Papers that are clear rejects will be identified.

4.  Discussion of papers [40 min.]

                     a)  Only papers that are not clear accepts or clear rejects will be discussed.  (See "Materials for the Meeting" below.)

b)  Some papers may be accepted as talks only, i.e. not published in the proceedings.

c)  Some papers may be presented in panel form, probably without publication in the proceedings.

5.  Review of selected papers [5 min.]

6.  Discussion of grouping of papers [15 min.]

7.  Review action items [5 min.]

8.  Adjourn

 

If you have suggestions for changes to the agenda please send them by

email or bring them up during the first item.

 

Special Roles

=============

 

It would be especially helpful if people volunteered to act as secretary or time-keeper.  The secretary needs to keep track of the disposition of papers (accept, reject) and action items that are assigned.  The time-keeper needs to remind me when we are getting close to the end of our budgeted time for meeting sections.  I would prefer not to assign these duties, but I will if I have to.

 

Materials for the Meeting

=========================

 

The papers, abstracts, and reviews are all on-line:

 

http://www.cs.rose-hulman.edu/~ardis/IFIPWG8.6/

 

I have removed reviewers' names and email addresses from their reviews.  You may download any of these before the meeting, but we ask that you destroy any copies of papers or reviews immediately after the meeting.  I will remove all materials from the website right after the meeting.  If you are unable to view these files I can email some of them to you, but I cannot email all of them.

 

In the directory containing the reviews there is a file that

summarizes review results:

 

http://www.cs.rose-hulman.edu/~ardis/IFIPWG8.6/Reviews/ranked.txt

 

I have also attached a copy of the file to this message.

The file ranks papers by their scores.  The top group of papers will be considered clear accepts, and the bottom group will be considered clear rejects.  We will spend some time during meeting item 3 discussing which papers to include in which list.

 

The Abstracts directory contains abstracts of the top papers (all but clear rejects and the bottom 4 papers from the marginal category).  Barb Marcolin has drawn up a proposed grouping of all of these papers, so that we have something to start our discussion of groupings.  The

file is:

 

http://www.cs.rose-hulman.edu/~ardis/IFIPWG8.6/Abstracts/groupings.txt

 

I have also attached a copy to this message.

 

Avoidance of Conflict

=====================

 

Although we did not use a double-blind reviewing process, it is still half-blind.  That is, the authors will not know who reviewed their papers.  I have removed references to reviewers' names and email in the reviews, and we ask that you not reveal which papers you reviewed during the meeting unless it is absolutely necessary.

 

In any case, we ask PC members who are also authors to excuse themselves from discussions of their papers.  Here is the protocol we will follow:

 

            1)  Before we start discussion of any paper I will ask authors of that paper to leave the meeting.

            2)  We will discuss the paper for no longer than 5 minutes.  (The time-keeper will remind us of the end of this period.)

            3)  Authors may rejoin the meeting after 5 minutes, announcing themselves when they rejoin.

 

It appears as if we will only have a few of these needed absences, as many of the PC members who are also authors are unable to attend the meeting.

 

Action Items

============

 

At the end of the meeting we will review action items that arose during the meeting.  In addition, I will prepare a summary of the meeting with the help of the secretary and distribute it within two weeks.

 

I will also send notices to authors about their submissions, including instructions on format, etc. within two weeks of the meeting.