I kept myself silent for long. However, I feel that members must
respond or else 'managers' will destroy IEEE.
IEEE needs to make profit because it has to survive rainy days as well
as bad economic situations. Administration is not cheap, servers are
not cheap, as well as other costs. Besides, not all conferences make a
profit. So, I am fine with IEEE having a meaningful profit.
However, relying only on conference registration fees for profits does
not make sense. It appears that the conference locations such as
Hawaii or Las Vegas, with Casino-attached 7 star hotels, are chosen so
that more participants are tempted to attend. Doing so can be
attractive atleast for some of us today, however, in the long run it
will destroy the IEEE as a leading professional organization. The
choice of choosing the most expensive tourist location or hotels as a
tempting reason for people to submit papers or attend conference is
absolutely not a good idea. If the primary objective is receiving a
spa or a free massage service in the 7-star hotel where the conference
is conducted and not attending an IEEE event for its technical
content, then it is something that is really alarming. Other competing
conference-conducting organizations can easily practice the same
strategies and spoil IEEE's revenues. We need to look for new ways on
making Globecom an interested event instead of relying entirely on
the location where Globecom is conducted!
I think that IEEE is not changing fast enough to benefit from the
innovations made by its members in their profession. I meant to say
that IEEE should look for new revenue streams from its conferences
than holding it in expensive hotels and luxurious massage parlors or
similar places. Some possibilities are the following:
1. Create a video streaming service for all ORIGINAL conference
presentations. Make the fee for viewing the archival presentation to
be $0.99 per view. Making it cheap will help bringing in volume.
Further, make it available through formats such as iPhone or mobile.
Original conference presentation videos are highly valuable because
even authors who presented the papers will not remember what they
spoke, at a conference, a few years down the line. It can be detached
from the IEEE Explore digital library service.
As a side point, many of my senior colleagues and I myself believe
that in a few years from now, the revenue from IEEE Explore will be
down to zero because IEEE will be forced to make it absolutely free.
Even today, most technical content generated for IEEE publications
that eventually get repositorized in IEEE Explore is supported by
public funding sources. For example, in the US, NSF sponsors most
research in engineering sciences, in India it is DST/CSIR/MHRD sponsor
most research publications, and in China the NSF-equivalent sponsors
the creation of most publications. Similarly, every country has one or
more predominantly public source of money that help generate the
publications. Once publications are created, voluntary reviewers
choose, and help revise, before them being SOLD by either IEEE, ACM,
Elsevier, or ICST, to name a few organizations. How fantastic a
business model is it. Use public money for creating publications, get
volunteers to review it, and sell it back to public at a hefty fee!!!!
Not just IEEE is under threat here, but also ACM/ICST/Elsevier for
retaining the copyright and selling of the products of public
sponsored research.
What is the benefit for an average US citizen using his money through
NSF, an Indian laborer channeling his money through DST, or a Chinese
farmer or a European citizen to funneling his hard earned money to ACM
or IEEE, or ICST to see the publications COPYRIGHTED and made
accessible at a high per paper fee. What if NSF requires all
conference/journal publications supported by NSF in the public domain?
Because NSF distributes public money it must really consider doing
so. A Senior colleague of mine pointed to me of this issue and hinted
at the necessity for US Federal Funding agencies on engineering to
follow the line taken by the federal funding agencies in the medial
sciences that required all publications funded by them freely
available to the public.
We can see a time where all governments will want the research
publications to be free and available online to the public. And if
IEEE managers missing the point, then IEEE will cease to exist as a
leading professional organization for EEs. Part of the problem, it
seems to me, is that IEEE is managed by MBAs who does not worry about
anything other than profits. In other words, the extreme capitalism,
practiced by hundreds of failed US banks is in works at IEEE too.
Simply speaking as members, many of us don't want IEEE to be a
Shylock!
2. Bring down the charges for tutorial videos to single digit dollars
per view. Even there can be a concession from people visiting from a
geographical area. For example, there can be 50% discount for people
from Bangladesh for the tutorials. Note that YouTube has thousands of
free videos pooled in from universities around the world and the
viewer traffic is growing. Therefore, IEEE's charging policies in
tens, hundreds, or thousands of dollars for these contents would be a
big mistake. It is time to practice new revenue models with EXTREMELY
low price points, while benefiting from the traffic, must be given a
thought. The fastest growing class of IEEE membership is student
membership. Student members can even be given free access to some of
these contents. While making Fellows and other life members who can
afford to pay higher can be charged slightly higher!
3. Advertise on Conference web pages using Yahoo/Microsoft/Google
Advertisement services. Advertise on tutorial videos and presentation
videos. We tried the web advertisement strategy with HiPC workshop
WonGen last year, through the online advertisement company Google
AdSense and AdBrite. Initially, when Google AdSense was used, it
quickly generated a lot of money. However, Google disabled the
advertisement service as their algorithm detected large number of
clicks from a single organization. Subsequently our use of AdBrite
created much less revenue, however, the traffic was good even for that
small event. Large conferences such as IEEE Globecom and ICC could
easily rake in some amount of money through online ads at its
conferences. I am not sure if IEEE practices it though. It can be
given a thought.
4. (This is something that IEEE already does to some extend.) Live
streaming of conferences, sessions, or even paper presentations within
a session at a substantially low priced rate! Remember again, we need
to target the volume and not to squeeze the handful of people who
subscribe. At the right price, we will bring in volume. Again, student
members can choose to watch a couple of most interesting papers for
free!. Members and Senior members pay a little higher and Fellows pay
the highest (still probably within the lower or lowest of two digits).
5. Split large conferences to more than one locations that will be
virtually connected among themselves in order to scale it up. That is,
split large conferences such as Globeocm/ICC to two equally big
pieces. One will be held in the Americas while the other in
Asia/Europe. These two locations must be connected by high bandwidth
(read sponsored) links. Two physical parts of the same conference,
virtually a big single one, can reduce the travel costs significantly.
For example, European/Asian attendees can visit the European location
whereas attendees from the Americas can attend the US-side of the
split. The point is that participants from the US-side of the event
can virtually attend the other-side conference. That is, some halls in
each physical location will have live stream from the other location.
6. Increase transparency. When was the last time that IEEE sought your
opinions on anything? Are you clear how IEEE Fellows are recruited?
Many of my senior colleagues are worried about the hidden strategies
in the IEEE Fellows recruitment. I believe they have a point. There
are many questions unanswered in what we see in many of IEEE events.
Again, IEEE must utilize the technologies that its members help
created. Email surveys or updates of financial disclosures will help
avoid confusion.
7. New strategies are required for scaling IEEE upto the global scale.
Still we think of the days when there were only half a dozen
networking conferences all directly conducted by IEEE/ComSoc.
Networking has grown beyond leaps and bounds. Internet has become part
of our daily lives. More than 3 Billion people access the Internet
every day. And we think of having more events for people to present
results on such a giant infrastructure. Are we failing in our visions?
Or are we too old to understand the growth. Are we thinking that the
world will consist of only half a dozen east-cost and west-cost
universities in the US? We are not learning from the world's changes.
Time is changing rapidly and most of us including the IEEE are falling
behind. IEEE is not able to capitalize on the growth of opportunities
in China, India, Brazil and Bangladesh and host of many other
countries. How about having Globecom India or Globecom Asia, Globecom
Europe? The collective set of rich experiences of the global pool of
IEEE members is being neglected and instead decisions based on handful
of NJ-based managers are taken.
Remember, if we don't change, others will step in! We failed to answer
the 2007 Glasgow questions on how greedy Shylocks we were in not
returning the excess money that we collected from hundreds of poor
researchers around the world. I still feel that we MUST return a part
of the registration fee from Glasgow ICC. In doing so, we are being
fairer only. (To be clear, I did not have any papers at Glasgow ICC.)
8. I would suggest splitting of IEEE to a real world-wide organization
than what it is today or much like the AT&T split several decades
back. Take an idea from ACM India, for example. I find no other way to
scale IEEE up in its current monolithic shape. I am not aware of any
of IEEE's activities to this direction.
9. EDAS is helpful in doing many things and I am happy in using EDAS.
However, the profiling part of EDAS is highly deplorable. Especially
the profiling is not giving any indication to affected people that
this tool is being used for reducing their opportunities. More
discussions warranted on the EDAS's profiling strategies.
10. Participation of junior members to TPCs/committees: Participation
of new blood in conference organization/Journal editorial boards is
missing. Many journals take years to get back to the authors. There
are only handful of repeating old faces in the editorial board. Large
conferences such as Globecom see mostly repeated names almost all the
time. (Sorry no offense to anyone intended here because the larger
issue of IEEE's long term survival is at stake.) How can we make sure
that atleast 20% of new TPC members or even a certain percentage of
peole with less than 5 years of Post PhD experience will be included
in the TPC? Part of IEEE's failure is in not helping develop the
future human resources to make sure that the same set of people head
the TPC in almost all TPCs. It might work for a few years. However,
not for long.
Many of these points came up in 2007 Glasgow discussions as well,
however, no answer was provided. No cost reimbursement was provided.
While we want to see IEEE surviving and making a healthy profit, it
appears that IEEE is heading to be another failed US bank that pays
its executives hefty undisclosed pay package.
The main point is that IEEE has to think and change faster than it is
doing today in order to survive in the fast changing modern world.
Good to see so many responses on these topics. Unlike in the past,
members are not silent any more.
Sincerely
bsmanoj
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 11:34 PM, <habib@ccny.cuny.edu> wrote:
> I would like to remind you all that one of the main sources of income- and yes profit (lots of it)- to the IEEE is conferences. From experience, all ways to cutting-down costs will not really make a big difference in terms of what the IEEE charges you. In fact, I would argue that even if all events are cut-down attendees will still be charged at least US$500 or US$600 or more per person. This is to ensure a profit margin of at least 20% to 30% or even more per event.
> The IEEE will continue to utilize these events as a main source of profit-generating. The bigger the conference the higher is the profit.
> The IEEE does not care if you have a grant to pay for your registeration or not, or if you are coming from a poor country or not. They are in the business of making sure that their costs as an organization are covered and that they have profit. Non-for-profit status does not mean that they do not want profit. It gives them many advantages in terms of taxes liability, legal, finanical and adminstrative operations.
> So in summary, I do not think the IEEE will change the current mode of operation because it is proven to make them a good profit margin.
> To them, it really does not matter that we are suffering from these registeration fees as long as we continue to pay.
>
> Prof. Ibrahim Habib
>
> ---- Original message ----
>>Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2009 15:48:24 -0500 (EST)
>>From: obazan@ee.ryerson.ca
>>Subject: Re: [Tccc] Cost of attendance from developing countries / in general
>>To: "Joe Touch" <touch@ISI.EDU>
>>Cc: tccc@lists.cs.columbia.edu
>>
>>I think the travel expenses represent the real burden. Unfunded graduate
>>students can find it impossible to pay for an air flight from a developing
>>country (Africa/Asia) to US, EU or Australia. This could cost more than
>>50% of the least possible expenses (IEEE student registration, no banquet,
>>2-stars hotel,..).
>>
>>With the IEEE no-show policy, those MASc./PhD students won't be able to
>>publish in major conferences.
>>
>>One solution would be a new registration category (online attendance)in
>>which the author can participate through online video conferencing. For
>>example, the author should be present online during his paper's session.
>>Moreover, a special 1-hr or 2-hr session could be organized in which
>>"online attendees" should be present online to communicate/network/answer
>>questions with interested "regular attendees" via video conferencing.
>>
>>Conference organizers can limit the "online attendance" registration to
>>specific countries /IEEE regions. However, it's worthy to note that not
>>every graduate student in developed countries' universities can get the
>>sufficient funds to attend conferences.
>>
>>-Osama.
>>
>>
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Miroslav Skoric wrote:
>>>> Ruay-Shiung Chang wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Please see the following Letter-to-the-editor in the October issue of
>>>>> IEEE
>>>>> Computer magazine.
>>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> To rectify the situation, conferences should be returned to university
>>>>> campuses where there are many classrooms that could be used as
>>>>> conference
>>>>> rooms. The professors and students could help organize and provide
>>>>> services
>>>>> for the conferences. Lodgings around universities typically are
>>>>> relatively
>>>>> inexpensive. It would be possible to reduce the budget for holding
>>>>> conferences and decrease the attendance fees.
>>>
>>> A few points on this:
>>>
>>> - - assuming this were viable, this would push all our conferences in the
>>> June - mid-August timeframe
>>>
>>>> In addition,
>>>> when lunches and/or conference banquets are provided (either included in
>>>> registration or offered for a small fee) within the campuses - the more
>>>> chances to feel academic lifestyle and mingle with students in a foreign
>>>> educational institution.
>>>
>>> - - you can't mingle with students and stay in their rooms at the same
>>> time. I.e., whenever the rooms are available, it's because the students
>>> are gone
>>>
>>> - - not only are the students gone, but many campus services shut down as
>>> a result. at universities homed in small towns (Cornell being one I have
>>> experience with), this shutdown spreads out to the surrounding town,
>>> i.e, some restaurants are closed
>>>
>>> The final point is that what universities contribute doesn't help the
>>> bottom line that much. Food still costs money, and dominates the overall
>>> fees. The only way to substantially reduce meeting costs is to:
>>>
>>> - do not provide lunch ($35-40/day)
>>> - do not provide breakfast ($25/day)
>>> - do not provide coffee breaks ($25/day)
>>> - do not provide a reception ($40-50)
>>> - do not provide a banquet ($80-100)
>>>
>>> Skip all these on a three day meeting and your overall costs will drop
>>> by $400 or so. Even if university costs drop *all* of these by 25%
>>> (which would be a lot, and would mean every event was at the
>>> university), that only saves $100.
>>>
>>> Joe
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32)
>>>
>>> iEYEARECAAYFAksaqHUACgkQE5f5cImnZruL/wCaAp7kzwvGYp0StrYsJeAFaqHD
>>> qSoAn3H5Y1SYjccgoRwEwpoTaeZ1CiHW
>>> =NS4r
>>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Tccc mailing list
>>> Tccc@lists.cs.columbia.edu
>>> https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/tccc
>>>
>>
>>
>>-----------
>>Osama Bazan, PhD
>>Post Doctoral Fellow
>>Electrical and Computer Engineering
>>Ryerson University
>>Toronto, Ontario, Canada
>>Phone: +1 416 979 5000 Ext. 4528
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Tccc mailing list
>>Tccc@lists.cs.columbia.edu
>>https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/tccc
> _______________________________________________
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>
--
B. S. Manoj, Ph.D
Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of California San Diego,
CA 92093-0436, USA
Ph:+1-858-822-2564 (office)
+1-858-429-8804 (mobile)
Fax:+1-858-822-4633
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