TEI Board Minutes: Conference Call 2015-01-13
xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"??Published on TEI-C website, January 2015
Born-digital.
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In attendance:
<ul class="bulleted"><li>Elena Pierazzo (EP)</li><li>Marjorie Burghart (MB)</li><li>Michelle Dalmau (MD)</li><li>Pip Willcox (PW)</li><li>Martin Mueller (MM)</li></ul><p>Apologies: John Unsworth</p>
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Action Items
<table><tr><td>November 2014 minutes need to be added to the TEI-C web site; Send
approved minutes to Kevin Hawkins for posting online</td><td>Michelle Dalmau</td></tr><tr><td>Board meeting minutes compiled in pairs (note take and reviewer);
reviewer for January 2015 Minutes</td><td>Pip Willcox</td></tr><tr><td>Repost to board list conference planning documents</td><td>Marjorie Burghart</td></tr><tr><td>Share tentative conference schedule with Pip Willcox, Chair of the
Program Committee for MM2015</td><td>Marjorie Burghart</td></tr><tr><td>Assist John Unsworth in the selection of a new accountant for the
TEI-C</td><td>Martin Mueller</td></tr><tr><td>Survey 2015 Member’s Meeting attendees for feedback on the 2015
meeting and locations for 2016 meeting</td><td>None Assigned</td></tr></table></div>
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Agenda
<ul class="ordered"><li>Minutes</li><li>Updates from TEI MM2015</li><li>Roles: Membership secretary, treasurer, secretary</li><li>New accountant</li><li>TEI Hackathon at DH2015 in Sydney</li><li>TEI MM2016</li></ul></div>
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Meeting procedures and other announcements
<p>MD volunteered to take minutes; PW volunteered as reviewer of the minutes; MD
agreed to send approved minutes to Kevin Hawkins for posting</p>
<p>Hugh Cayless has been elected Chair of the TEI Council for 2015!
Congratulations!!</p>
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Minutes
<p>November 2014 minutes need to be posted to TEI-C web site. (Kevin Hawkins had
posted the minutes over a month ago: <a href="/Board/bm55.xml">http://www.tei-c.org/Board/bm55.xml</a>. Thank you, Kevin!)</p>
<p>EP: restated the minutes-publishing workflow. Minutes should be written and
checked within 15 days of a call. The checked minutes should be sent to the
mailing list for emendation or approval. Silence will be taken as approval
after 48 hours, when the approved minutes should be sent to Kevin for
posting online.</p>
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Updates from MM 2015
<p>Bids in process for reserving locations (booking rooms, etc.) </p>
<p>Prospective schedule has been drafted; the schedule needs to be shared with
PW. Currently consists of 48 time slots, including SIG meetings, with rooms
booked for 2.5 days before the meeting for workshops</p>
<p>When will we send the call for paper?</p>
<p>PW: Skype call booked for this Monday, 19 January, with Program Committee to
plan Call for Papers</p>
<p>MD: Is there a procedural documentation to help with conference timeline and
planning?</p>
<p>EP: There is a document … MB will repost to the Board list. Arianna Ciula
significantly updated the documentation for conference planning (<a href="/Board/procedures.xml#mtgReq">http://www.tei-c.org/Board/procedures.xml#mtgReq</a>)</p>
<p>Suggestion to send Call for Papers late February/early March and close by end
of March/early April (to allow enough time for peer-review). Invitations to
present should be sent out by June (to allow time to booking travel).</p>
<p>Chair of local meeting and Chair of Program Committee are expected to report
updates at each board meeting</p>
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Roles: membership secretary, treasurer, secretary
<p>Several members of the Board have already expressed interest in the roles of
membership secretary, treasurer and secretary. If all in agreement, the
roles are to be filled as follows: <ul class="bulleted"><li>Membership Secretary: Martin Mueller</li><li>Treasurer: John Unsworth</li><li>Secretary: Michelle Dalmau</li></ul></p>
<p>In this instance, these are only one year positions, so they do not outlast
Board members’ elected time. All present are in agreement. </p>
<p>MM has ideas about improving TEI-C membership and reported the current
profile of institutional members: </p><table>75 institutional members:
<tr><td>34</td><td>United States </td><td>over $40,000</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>France </td><td>$10,500</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>Germany </td><td>$6,250</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>UK</td><td>$2,000</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>Norway</td><td>$2,000</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>Canada</td><td>$1,750</td></tr></table> (Full listing of institutional members is available: <a href="http://members.tei-c.org/Institutions">http://members.tei-c.org/Institutions</a>)
<p>MM: Pattern of funding seems to be changing. First decade of the TEI … fair
number of $5,000 contributors. Memberships at this level have dwindled.
Task will be to get more members in more modest ranges to create a broader
base and more buy-in. Revenue (from institutions?) is currently about
$70,000/year.</p>
<p>MM: Would like to run a TEI-C Membership campaign —
perhaps wait for TEI Simple to be ready and offered as yet another benefit —
may be especially enticing for newcomers to TEI.</p>
<p>MM: Would like to target colleges in the US, Canada, and up the numbers for
the other countries; noting Germany has had quite an increase in the last
couple of years. The membership campaign should appeal to our civic
responsibility to pitch-in, however little, please!</p>
<p>Role of Chair is a two-year role. EP will serve as chair through the end of
2015. She has been on the Board for 4 years and has served as Chair most of
that time. It’s time for new Chair, who will need to be elected in 2016.
</p>
<p>EP: Urging newly elected board members to consider the position of
Chair, noting that board members joining this year would only, if elected,
serve as Chair for just one year.</p>
<p>EP: Reminder that the Secretary is the Vice Chair, and can be called to run a
board meeting if the Chair is absent</p>
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New accountant
<p>John Unsworth is seeking a new accountant, but will work with current
accountant for the filing of the 2014 taxes.</p>
<p>EP: Appeals to the US board members especially to help JU in the selection
of a new accountant; MM volunteered to assist JU.</p>
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Hackathon in Sydney
<p>James Cummings was unable to attend this meeting, but sent an email to the
Board on 13 January 2015 with an update on the TEI Hackathon he’s
co-organizing with Conal Tuohy in Sydney as part of DH2015</p>
<p>The hackathon topic will have a “technical bent” in hopes to encourage
participation from developers less familiar with the TEI </p>
<p>The DH2015 deadline for the hackathon proposal is 17 February 2015. EP will
help James and Conal with the proposal, but will not be able to help on the
day of the event due to a workshop conflict. EP is hopeful other TEI-active
members will be there to help the day of the hackathon. </p>
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TEI MM 2016
<p>EP reported discussion at the in-person Board meeting during the 2015 TEI
Members’ Meeting in Evanston to seek collaboration with colleagues in Japan
— imagined as a joint conference of the TEI Members’ Meeting and Japanese
Association for Digital Humanities. </p>
<p>The Members’ Meeting currently alternates between Europe and North America,
with the Council meetings historically taking place in areas that benefit
from bolstering TEI adoption. </p>
<p>Big uptake in TEI in Japan; EP suggested it was a good time to show support
of TEI in Asia by hosting the 2016 Members’ Meeting in Japan</p>
<p>South America is another target area … Stimulate TEI activity across the
globe, not just US and Europe. </p>
<p>MB strongly supports global outreach; Members’ Meetings in areas with
burgeoning TEI activity may be less attended, but attendance is not the only
measure of a conference’s success … We [the TEI-C Board] should be able to
manage one conference every so often that may be less attended.</p>
<p>MM is skeptical and would like further discussion and to follow traditional
procedure for open-call to see who comes in for hosting the 2016 Members’
Meeting. MM reminds us that we have few members in Asia, no members in
Australia or New Zealand (1 in Japan, 1 in Taiwan). Perhaps focus on
building membership first. MM would like to survey current TEI-C members
for their feedback on Members’ Meeting locations. </p>
<p>MD agrees with MB that global outreach is important and that it would be a
useful exercise for the Board to forecast the costs of a conference once
every few years in one of these TEI-emergent areas. MD also agrees with MM
that an open call for hosting the MM 2016 should be disseminated. </p>
<p>EP would also like see one Members’ Meeting every X number of years (every 5
years was suggested) hosted in a TEI-underrepresented area … She feels we
can afford to do this every so often.</p>
<p>PW offers the suggestion that the TEI-C could establish or sponsor regional
conferences — based on themes or sub-themes of the primary Members’ Meeting.
The local host for these regional conferences would have some level of
support from the TEI-C, and use these smaller, regional conferences to build
support for TEI before holding the annual Members’ Meeting there.</p>
<p>Discussion about attendance at past conferences and attendance profiles at
these conferences. The Rome MM2013 was named as one of the most-attended
conferences (over 200) while conferences in North America have historically
been more poorly attended. The Board’s sense is that most in attendance are
European delegates. TEI MM2014 in Evanston had nearly 100 attendees; most
highly-attended Members’ Meeting in North America in the past 7-8 years.
(Attendance figures for all past conferences available: <a href="/Board/procedures.xml#mtgReq">http://www.tei-c.org/Board/procedures.xml#mtgReq</a>).</p>
<p>MM suggests sending the Board and Council chairs to attend the DH meeting in
Japan to build connections and goodwill and assess TEI interest. The
following year, after additional groundwork is completed, a conference in
another continent like Asia becomes more feasible. </p>
<p>PW notes that if the ambition of TEI is global, we should reach out to people
using the TEI for non-European/N American work. One of the two P5
translations was done in Chinese — in support of a rising TEI community.
Contributions from Asia have gotten silent and worth exploring the cause of
this silence. </p>
<p>MB: What would be lost by members?</p>
<p>EP: The Members’ Meeting is not just a conference, but a meeting for the
members. The members are invited to participate, contribute, vote, etc.
</p>
<p>We couldn’t plan the next Members’ Meeting without considering our membership
(mostly US and Europe). </p>
<p>MB wonders since US conferences are much less attended; does the US not value
the TEI? MB states: if US members won’t attend meetings in the US, they
won’t attend meetings in Japan so there’s no loss. MB expressed more
concern about the “old hands of the TEI” not being able to attend. If
European delegates indeed represent the largest number of attendees, then
traveling to Asia costs about the same as traveling to North America. </p>
<p>PW noted that the financial implications both to individual members and to
the TEI-C should be considered in selecting Members’ Meeting hosts.</p>
<p>MM again advocates for building membership in core constituencies and
encouraging them come to conferences. He mentioned Montreal as an important
location (also suitable for a bilingual conference in French and
English).</p>
<p>MM supports building membership in an area before locating a Members’ Meeting
there. The suggestion of a conference in an under-represented area is to
encourage membership. Which should come first should be discussed
further.</p>
<p>MM also points to the greatest increase in membership from German
institutions. Focusing on areas of uptake like Germany to further increase
membership is also strategic. </p>
<p>MM also reminds the Board that the US has lots of longstanding institutional
commitment — Illinois, Indiana, Michigan that may likely fall away in the
coming years. In anticipation of that, we need to build membership and
presence in these areas. MM strongly feels that we have urgent business in
the places we have been — we need to solidify those commitments and then
focus on the places we want to go. </p>
<p>PW asked if we send follow-up emails to conference attendees to gauge how
they enjoyed the Members’ Meeting and identify/rank locations for upcoming
conferences. EP responded that we haven’t, and probably should. </p>
<p>It was suggested that we need to discuss plans for MM2016 further, perhaps
over email. Some concern that we wouldn’t be as responsive over email.
Newly elected members reminded the rest of the board that this is the first
time they heard anything about plans for the 2016 Members’ Meeting and
current discussions with colleagues in Japan. </p>
<p>MD asked whether the procedure for Call for Hosting is documented and where
one can access that document. </p>
<p>EP responded that the Call for Hosts is part of the program planning
documentation that MB will share with the board. </p>
<p>Though the Board will issue a public call for a host, the Board could also
make strategic decisions about lobbying for hosts to submit a proposal.
</p>
<p>It was agreed to continue this discussion by email and decide whether the
Board will encourage a 2016 Members’ Meeting in Japan.</p>
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<p>Next meeting board meeting: 24 February 2015. </p>
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