Re: [Tccc] Are IEEE publications and committees biased against women (and/or others)?

Joe Touch wrote:
> Virgilio Rodriguez wrote:
> ..
> > As far as I know, no scientific bias study has ever been focused on an
> > IEEE publication (or a publication in the ECE field).
> > Do you know of any? If so, please provide citation information.
> > If in fact no such study exists, the answer to whether or not such
> > review process is improperly biased (against women or anyone else) seems
> > to be:
>
> > we have no idea.
>
> > I respectfully propose that the previous answer is UNACCEPTABLE. Thus,
> > if that is in fact the answer, it would seem appropriate that a tiny
> > fraction of the ten million USD yearly 'surplus' reported by the IEEE
> > be devoted to fund a scientific study seeking to confirm or deny the
> > existence of improper bias in a reasonable subset of IEEE publication
> > outlets. That would seem to qualify as a legitimate use for a tiny
> > fraction of the so-called 'surplus'.
>
> Note that the surplus is at the IEEE level, not at the Comsoc level. I'm
> still waiting for that information. As has already been noted, the IEEE
> number represents 10%, and I'm sure there are other equally valid needs
> to be considered. It might be useful to consider how we would prioritize
> the need for the IEEE to fund such a study, e.g., given other resources
> (NSF, in the US, e.g.) that might also be available.
Hi, Joe: Yes it is at the IEEE level, which is consistent with what is
written above. Which needs do you have in mind? Please, remember that
we are talking about the NET PROFIT ('surplus') kept by the IEEE after
considering *all* expenses, grants, gifts, money-losing journals, etc.,
etc., etc. After *everything* has been considered, they still have 10
Million USD left, for *one* single year of operation (not bad in a
so-called recession time). At least this seems to be the implication of
previous comments on this matter. Somebody with accounting background
may perhaps further clarify this point.

Do you seriously expect them to reallocate their end-of-year profit back
to the community somehow? Can you cite a precedent on that?

If I had anything to do with NSF, I would vigorously oppose allocating
money for such study for a very simple, and I think, very powerful
reason: the NSF has ALREADY provided the necessary funding... after all,
how much of the 10 Million USD we are talking about ultimately came from
NSF grants? Would you guess at least 5, 6 millions? That seems to be way
more than necessary for a publication quality/fairness-control study.

> > Virgilio
> > P.S. The research below submitted the SAME article, with slightly
> > different author name (John (male), Joan (female)) for evaluation by
> > male and female adults.
>
> That study is 26 years old, an extension (as you note) of another study
> that is 41 years old. Are there any more recent studies like this?
>
> Also, how has internationalization affected such studies (i.e., I have
> seen many authors' names that I wouldn't know the gender of).
The survey I cited (R Snodgrass - ACM SIGMOD Record, 2006
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1168092.1168094 ) is very recent.
I do not recall any study that has "disproved" the basic conclusions of
the study above (which was confirming an earlier study). The subjects
were young people who have been raised during/after the "Women movement"
of the 70's. They were good candidates *not* to be prejudiced (that is,
their level of prejudice was supposed to be a "lower bound" of the
"true" level in the overall population).
Anyhow, that study seems to be rather cheap to re-do, wouldn't you agree?
The issue of gender-neutral names was considered in the study
(initialised author name, J.T. McKey).

Wmbr,

Virgilio

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