Minutes: UCGIS Board of Directors Meeting

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Capital Hill Suites, Washington D.C.

Present: Carolyn Merry, Sean Ahearn, David Mark, Suzy Jampoler, John Shuler, John Wilson, Mary Lou Larson, Lynn Usery, Art Getis, Shashi Shekhar, Donna Peuquet, Bian Lin, Jochen Albrecht, Scott MacKay, Doug Richardson, and Will Craig.

1.      Call to order: Merry, the president, called the meeting to order at 7:20pm.

2.      Introduction: Merry introduced guests: Donna Peuquet and David Mark.

3.      Agenda:

a.      Usery: add an item regarding sponsorship to AAG GAIA GALA next to Report on NAS/ARDA NGA meetings

b.      Merry: add an item regarding a collaboration proposal from Georgia Tech after the item regarding AAG

c.      Jampoler: Add an item on visualization workshop after the item regarding Georgia Tech.

4.      Committee Reports

a.      Usery moved to accept committee reports

b.      Getis seconded

c.      Motion passed

5.      Membership issues

a.      Delinquent members:

                                                   i.      Larson: calls had made to several lead delegates in delinquent member institutions. Larson had good conversations with some of these lead delegates and learned that reasons for delinquency are quiet different in these institutions. Examples include need to identify who will pay the bill; faculty who led the effort to join UCGIS moved to another institution; and lack support from other faculty on campus. In particular, Ohio GIS net has money to pay for another year, but is likely not to continue after one year. The lead delegate at BYU is unsure if they should continue because other faculty are not doing GIScience.

                                                 ii.      Jampoler: A message from UCGS accounting asks for procedures to pay for their membership ($50,000), among which $40,000 is for a postdoc. We need to decide how to handle the postdoc money.

                                                iii.      Larson: Many members have problems in their institutions. Removal of their memberships may actually solve the problems for the lead delegates. However, many of them only have one-year lag in their membership payment, and Larson would like to continue working with their lead delegates and keep reminding them by phone.

                                               iv.      Art: It took significant efforts to recruit some of these members. It is not a good idea to drop a member for whatever problems the lead delegates face. We should work with them to find solutions.

                                                 v.      Larson: need to communicate better with our members on UCGIS benefits. Merry asked if a letter from the UCGIS president to convince administration at these universities will help. Larson: only one out of nine lead delegates indicated that such a letter may help, and will offer the option to lead delegates.

                                               vi.      Mark: Some of the delinquent institutions seem only have one person doing GIScience or only had one active person who actually moved to another institution. 

                                              vii.      Bian: We should get faculty from delinquent member institutions (such as Stephen Walsh, Larry Bendom, or Allen Moody from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) involved in board meetings or chair committees.

                                            viii.      The group reviewed the list of delinquent members and decided to keep all members but Ohio GIS Net.

                                               ix.      Getis: need to get a list of people who actually pay the membership fee in our member institutions. We should send them reports and activities highlights once or twice per year.

                                                 x.      Merry: need to check member web pages. Larson indicated that there are eighteen (18) missing websites and many others are out of date or missing links.

                                               xi.      Mark: How many members are due for renewal. Merry responded, five (5).

6.      Reports on NSA/ARDA and NGA meetings: Usery

a.      NSA/ARDA

                                                   i.      Buttenfield gave a briefing to John Prange on the geovisualization workshop he, on behalf of NSA/ARDA, sponsored. Prange was pleased with the outcome. Three additional NSA analysts joined the discussions on future opportunities. Research issues of interest to NSA include development of tool kits, higher level and long-term research problems, and operational projects. They praised on the use of geography and location to integrate religions and other socioeconomic activities and expressed interest in temporal components.

                                                 ii.      NSA/ARDA participants indicate opportunities of IPA, student employments, internships, and postdoc and faculty employments. Issues were raised that a 6-12 month employment at NSA/ARDA may not be appealing to assistant professor because of the tenure system. Prange indicated that ARDA also can sponsor a workshop with a series of 4-day meetings that span over 9 months. Prange indicated that they are open for workshop proposals.

                                                iii.      Jampoler indicated that there is some money left over from the geovisualization workshop. Sean suggested that more people get involved on the follow-up. Merry assigned Buttenfield, Shekhar, Ahearn, and Peuquet to follow up and Yuan to assist when needed.

b.      NGA

                                                   i.      Greg Smith and Scott Loomer presented their organization and research programs. They indicated that UCGIS original ten (10) research priorities had great influences on their first NURI RFP. They expressed interests in working with UCGIS. In particular, they are looking for new hires and can’t hire enough people.

                                                 ii.      Richardson: Army Corp of Engineers is also recruiting and look to work with universities.

                                                iii.      Bian will gather information from Loomer and Richardson and post job opportunities on the UCGIS website.

7.      Sponsorship to AAG GAIA GALA (Richardson left the room because of COI).

a.      Merry: The vote for a sponsorship of $500 to AAG GAIA GALA was split. The expense is not in the budget. However, it is AAG’s 100^th annual meeting. Such a sponsorship can bring up UCGIS visibility. Suzy indicated that we have the money to sponsor the event. Shekhar argued that the sponsorship may help recruit new members. Usery indicated that there are three levels of sponsorship starting with $500. Getis argued that the sponsorship will show our good will even at the entry level. 

b.      Usery called for a vote. John W. made a motion: $500 to sponsor AAG GAIA GALA. MacKay seconded. Result 6 to 1. Motion passed.

8.      Collaboration with Georgia Tech: An email message was passed around. No discussions.

9.      Grants

a.      UCGIS current grant situation

                                                   i.      Jampoler explained that we have handled two kinds of grants through UCGIS: (1) project grants which agencies provide the funds and UCGIS sponsored research committee issues RFP and selects winning proposals; and (2) workshops. The recent HUD project grants caused much administration overhead because HUD kept adding requirements and did not provide enough funds for the requested work.

                                                 ii.      Mark indicated that the FGDC project grant was very successful, however.

                                                iii.      Usery argued while there were no direct benefits to UCGIS per se, but project grants will help members.

                                               iv.      Albrecht indicated that it may be hard for some universities to compete at the national level, and UCGIS project grants can be important to them.

                                                 v.      Wilson suggested a survey to get feedbacks from past UCGIS grantees. Albrecht, one of the HUD grantees, indicated two problems with the HUD funds: (1) a delay of UCGIS administration process on fund release; and (2) additional demands from HUD after the project started without any increase in funding, which resulted in intensive work with less than $5 per hour.

                                               vi.      Richardson pointed out that there are different concepts and expectation between government agencies (short-term, operational) and academics (long-term, research-oriented). Wilson echoed that the chair of Sponsored Project Committee needs to evaluate requests and project specifics from government agencies before distributing RFPs to ensure that the funding level is adequate for the requested work.

                                              vii.      Ahearn stated that two grant issues to consider: (1) providing services to UCGIS members: passing through grants to our members; and (2) generating revenue to UCGIS: charging overheads.

                                            viii.      Getis indicated that one time it was believed that providing grant opportunities to members and connecting our members to government agencies was a major function of UCGIS. It was assumed that UCGIS would have a committee to oversee these funded projects.

                                               ix.      Richardson suggested professional help on formatting contracts and overseeing funded projects to ensure deliverables and timely reports. Members are the key asset to UCGIS, and we should provide them the service. Wilson echoed that UCGIS needs to have representatives to negotiate with funding agencies when issues arise. Getis agreed that it is a good idea to have a project manager to oversee research grants, workshops, and meetings; these are things to bring our members together.

                                                 x.      Wilson argued for overhead charged to workshop grants. Getis argued against charging UCGIS overheads.

                                               xi.      Mark indicated that we had a good experience with FGDC and should follow the model. They offered small grants, but some grantees were able to complete the projects and even produced publications.

                                              xii.      Merry summarized that project grants seemed proceed well except for the recent HUD experience. It is good that UCGIS provides services to bring funding opportunities to our members.

b.      SPACE grant: Getis

                                                   i.      SPACE is an NSF grant to UCSB, Ohio State, and UCGIS. The goal is to develop spatial thinking, spatial concepts, and spatial analysis into undergraduate social science classes by providing workshops. It is a three-year project at $45K per year to UCGIS.

                                                 ii.      Due to a delay of funds released from NSF, Art Getis and John Weeks will run two SPACE workshops on behalf of UCGIS. Description of the workshops is available in the Board Pocket. Deliverables are evidences to show spatial concepts are introduced into social science curricula.

                                                iii.      Usery argued that this is a good thing for UCGIS to get involved, but we need to determine how to determine, in the Friday’s board meeting, the mechanisms to identify quality faculty from UCGIS member institutes to lead the workshops, such as a call for workshop proposals.

c.      Homeland Security grant

                                                   i.      Report on Usery’s Homeland Security workshop is available in the board packet.

                                                 ii.      The board needs to decide what to do with two outcomes of the workshop: (1) a pre-proposal that argues for a national geoinformation data network built at UCGIS member institutes as a backup network for homeland security to governments, meanwhile providing interoperability and data redundancy for unexpected data loss at government sites; (2) recognition of people who are doing homeland security at UCGIS website. Especially, who will be potential funding agencies for the pre-proposals?

                                                iii.      Shekhar commented we need also emphasize how GIScience roles in homeland security. 

                                               iv.      Ahearn indicated that base funding is critical for building such an infrastructure. Wilson added we will need technical personnel to go around member sites to ensure data quality and perhaps trouble shooting. Getis indicated that John Kent established a GIScience network and expressed interest in working with UCGIS.

                                                 v.      Usery indicated that the pre-proposal may be of interest to USGS National Map project and NGA.

10.  Model Curriculum

a.      Peuquet stated that the initial report of the model curriculum project was submitted in the summer meeting 2003. Wentz at Arizona State University is in charge of collecting and synthesize feedbacks. Marble and others in the education committee submitted a manuscript to IJGIS based on the model curriculum report. Revisions are underway to address reviewers’ comments and will seek a U.S. based journal to submit the revised manuscript. It is time to move on to the next phase: implementation, and pass onto people who have experience in pedagogies and curriculum development. Michael DeMers was contacted but could not take on the project.

b.      Getis provided some historical perspectives to the model curriculum project. In a UCSB meeting, Wiggins worked out a plan for the model curriculum. Getis brought Marble in charge. Later, issues arose, and Getis asked Don Janelle to take on the leadership on the project. Janelle declined. Getis asked Marble to take the lead again. Marble declined. Recently, Marble seemed become interested again. Getis ended with praise on the high quality of the strawman report of the model curriculum project.

c.      Peuquet commented that funding is required for the next phase of the project, which emphasizes on operation. Reviews on previous proposal submitted to NSF to obtain funds for the project indicated that community colleges should get involved. Richardson suggested that UCGIS work closely with Department of Labor. He passed some copies of an article published in Nature Magazine. The article indicated that the department of labor placed geotechnology along with biotechnology and nanotechnology as three key technologies of national needs for workforce development. Shekhar suggested contacting NASA and other foundations with emphases on education. Wilson elaborated on a model adopted by UGIS (?), in which education materials developed will be lessons at ESRI Virtual campus website.

d.      Larson commented that our members are looking for something from UCGIS and the model curriculum is useful to our members.

11.  Outgoing board members and committee chairs recognition: Getis, MacKay, Wright, Shekhar, and Craig.

12.  Other businesses:

a.      Ahearn argued for a UCGIS internship program, which would have very little administration overhead and be a great service to our members. In addition, UCGIS can charge 10% overhead to generate revenue.

b.      Shekhar suggested that NSF cyber-infrastructure initiatives may be opportunities for the homeland security pre-proposal discussed earlier if we can combine homeland security and supercomputing.

c.      Issues to be continued in the next board meeting (Friday, February 6, 2004).

13.  Adjourned at 10:05pm.