Populating the Computing Portal

Richard Snodgrass
October 1, 1999

The Vision

The ACM Computing Portal

A web-based repository of bibliographic information

• contains information on all papers and books in the computing literature

• contains a pointer to the digitized version, if available

SGB Portal Committee 

• Rick Snodgrass (University of Arizona, CS), chair

• Steve Cunningham (Cal State University-Stanislaus, CS)

• Carol Hutchins (Courant Institute of Math. Sci. Library)

• Bob Krovetz (NEC Research Institute)

• Michael Ley (University of Trier, CS)

• Andreas Paepcke (Stanford University)

• Kathy Preas (KP Pubs on CDROM)

• Bernie Rous (ACM Publications)

• Charles Viles (Univ. of North Carolina, Info and Lib Sci)

Overview

Commitments

Populating the ACM DL

• Journals

• Magazines

• Conference Proceedings

• SIG Newsletters

Future Portal Needs

Computing Portal Management Board

ACM HQ Commitments

• Donate entries from ACM Guide to Computing Literature.

• Negotiate cross-use agreements with associated societies.

• Acquire full text of books copyrighted by ACM.

• Fund acquisition of ACM journals.

• Help fund hardware and software to host the Portal.

• Help fund staff to manage Portal.

Individual SIG Commitments

• Propose that each SIG be responsible for ensuring correctness of SIG-relevant bibliographic entries, abstracts, and keywords.

• Negotiate with steering committees of associated conferences and workshops.

• Allocate funds to populate the ACM DL: conference and workshop proceedings, SIG newsletters.

• Roughly $400K total, or $5K-20K per SIG

SGB Opportunity Fund

Use opportunity fund to subsidize content development in areas associated with low-fund SIGs.

Use opportunity fund to subsidize infrastructure.

• software acquisition and development/customization

• hardware

• support staff

SIGDA matching funds: $50K

Populating the ACM DL: Journals

• Total: $130K

• To be paid by ACM General Fund.

• Access by journal e-subscription or DL subscription or institutional subscription.

• Use in SIG-specific CDRoms on a case-by-case basis.

Populating the ACM DL:Magazines

• All the following were started after 1990.

• Crossroads: The International ACM Student Magazine

• Intelligence: New Visions of AI in Practice

• Interactions: New Visions of Human-Computer Interaction

• netWorker: The Craft of Network Computing

• StandardView

Populating the ACM DL: Conference Proceedings

See handout for details on 1985-1990

• SGB, SIGARCH, SIGPLAN: $6K

• SIGACT, SIGGRAPH, SIGMOD, SIGSIM: $5K

• SIGCHI, SIGSOFT: $4K

1940-1984: approximately 200K pages

• need to collect information to decide on allocation

• SIGs should pay for this

Access to all proceedings decided by relevant SIG(s): subscribers, SIG members, world readable

Populating the ACM DL: SIG Newsletters

• Initial Estimate: 120K pages

• Will come back to the SIGs with more reliable figures.

• SIGs should pay all costs of digitization.

Summary

For journals 1940-1990: $128K

• paid by ACM General Fund

• material available to subscribers

For conferences 1985-1990: $82K

• paid by individual SIGs total: $71K

• paid by SGB: $11K

• access decided by relevant SIG(s)

Time Scale: funding allotted and scanning started by December, 1999

Future Needs

For conferences pre-1985: roughly $200K

• to be paid by SIGs (access determined by SIGs)

For SIG newsletters: roughly $120K

• to be paid by SIGs (access determined by SIGs)

Software

• to be paid by SGB, in a future proposal

Portal maintenance

• Maintenance of the database

• Support hardware and software infrastructure

• Future new search and presentation facilities

• to be cost-shared between SGB and General Fund

Motions

• The SGB recommends that each financially viable SIG (with a fund balance over the required balance) cover, out of its fund balance, the cost (see backup 5.0 for estimate) of producing PDF versions of the 1985-1990 conference proceedings relevant to its domain, with the resulting material added to the Digital Library.
• SGB funds cover the cost (up to $15K) of producing PDF versions of 1985-1990 conference proceedings relevant to the domain of defunct and financially non-viable SIGs, with the resulting material added to the Digital Library.

Management 

SGB Portal Committee

• continue with broad strategic and tactical decisions

Propose a new Portal Management Board

• Each SIG would have a member

• Communicate via email

• Tasks

Ensure that the ACM DL was fully populated

• e.g., allocate publications to SIGs, locate proceedings

• Define the scope of the Portal

• Identify existing SIG-specific resources

Portal Management Board

Populating the Board

• Initially, the Chair of each SIG would be a member, until and unless the Chair appointed someone else.

• Possible titles for this person:

• SIGX Portal Chair

• SIGX Portal Editor

• SIGX Portal Management Board Representative

Board would choose its chair, who would also become a member of the SGB Portal Committee.

• Rick Snodgrass would serve as interim chair.

Motion

• The SGB creates a Portal Management Board according to the proposal in Backup 5.0.