Communication Theory Technical Committee (CTTC)
17 May 2005

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. Executive Committee Vision
service award, symposia award, best paper nominations/awards

2. CTW technical program format
invited papers in sessions, one slot/session devoted to
"young professor" (to be discussed at CTW'05 before a final
decision), voluntary posting of presentations on
the web.

3. GLOBECOM 2005 will have poster sessions
Rather strong feeling regarding poster presentations.
It appears to be something that will be with us for a while.

4. Review process for ICC/GLOBECOM
A "Best Practices" document will be published.

5. ICC/GLOBECOM Author registration policy
The student penalty: this is unpopular, but changes appear
unlikely.


DETAILED MINUTES

Meeting called to order at 6:00 PM
Andrea Goldsmith, Vice-chair, conducting

The new executive committee was introduced
Attendees introduced themselves

A. Goldsmith outlined the executive committee's vision for the next two years:
+ create a more responsive and inclusive committee
+ solicit ways that the CTTC can serve its members better and make a difference
+ seek new ways to recognize the accomplishments of its members, such as
a committee service award,
student paper award,
promote a more systematic way for good papers (conference or journal)
to be nominated and judged.
+ revisit the technical program structure of the Communication Theory Workshop
+ consider holding another workshop
+ consider ways to increase networking opportunities for students

General discussion followed. The following points were made:
+ There was general support for sponsoring awards to committee members.
The satellite committee sponsors just such an award.
+ There was general support for a symposium "Best Paper" award.
+ A Student Thesis award may be controversial, should be considered very carefully.
+ A Student paper award can also be controversial. For example, if a faculty co-author
is allowed, how can the award committee be assured that the student did most of
the writing?
+ Can CTTW promote a transparent process for best paper selection? The concensus
seemed to be that not enough papers by CTTW members get nominated for journal paper
awards and that the current process is too haphazard. It was suggested that relying
on editors (for journal papers) and symposia co-chairs (for ICC/GLOBECOM papers) is
not always the best. It was suggested that a sub-committee might be formed to assist
editors and symposia co-chairs in identifying candidate papers.

The new CTTW web pages were previewed. There appeared to be general approval of the
format.

Committee members were reminded to vote for their favorite logo.

Details of the proposed CTTC Service Award was reviewed. The wording was changed to
suggest a more broad definition of service. There appeared to be unanimous support
for the document after changes.

A discussion about the CTW technical program format occurred. The
question was the preferences for a technical program consisting of invited papers only
(the traditional format) or a mixture of invited papers and papers from an open call
(the tendency of late). The following points were made:
+ A committee should be formed to carefully consider these issues.
+ The "invited papers only" program produces a more coherent program, maximize the
control the session chairs have on organizing their sessions, and has always
worked in the past.
+ The "recent results session," usually held on Monday evening, is the appropriate
venue for open call papers.
+ Each session could be required to hold at least one spot in its program for a
"young professor" ("Young professor" would need to be appropriately defined.)
A vote was taken on adopting items 2-4 above as the approved format for the CTWs.
~50% of the attendees voted in favor. 0 votes against.
It was agreed to revisit the issue at the next CTW.

To date, CTW has produced no published proceedings. Historically, this was, in
part, a consequence of the fact that many of the presentations were related to
recent advances in defense applications (security concerns prohibited a
published proceedings) and also due to the fact that the presentations included
the latest results (the fact that no written manuscript was required three months
in advanced allowed this). It was suggested that the presentations could be posted
on the web. The feeling was that this was OK as long as it was voluntary --
it should not be a condition for presenting at a CTW. The use of web video
technology to record the presentations was mentioned.

ICC 2005 Report: F. Babich:
F. Babich thanked all for the opportunity he had to serve.
The acceptance rate was 30% (240 papers total).
The CT Symposium had good session chairs -- all of them showed.

GLOBECOM 2005 Report: C. Tellambura
209 total submissions
50 TPC members
all papers had 3+ reviews.
45% is the acceptance rate
1600 papers were submitted in total, ~740 will be accepted.
The paper score threshold is 3.2.
There will be poster sessions.
There is talk of having a best paper for each symposium.

A lively discussion on the merits of poster papers ensued. The following points
were made:
+ There is a huge concern about the perception that poster papers are
second class papers.
+ Many are concerned about the selection process. It seemed that most do not want
to have their papers selected for presentation in a poster session. Will the
author have a choice?
+ Is there a way for the Comm Theory Symposium to opt out of poster sessions?
+ GICC and COMSOC both support poster sessions for the following reasons:
* It is a low-cost way to increase the number of papers in the conference.
Recent attendance trends suggest that attendance is strongly tied to paper
presentation. Thus: more papers -> more attendees -> more revenue.
* Many in GICC and COMSOC feel that an average 30% acceptance rate is too
low for a conference.
* It appears that Industry people prefer to present papers in a poster session.
(This is a way to make the conference more appealing to industry.)
+ All the other IEEE conferences now include poster sessions.
+ Is there another way to address these concerns without resorting to poster
sessions?

ICC 2006 Report: H. Sari
Four co-chairs are now in place.
The technical program committee is set up and the submission deadline will
be mid-September.

A discussion about the numerical method used for accepting/rejecting papers
ensued. The main points were
+ A numerical threshold alone is insufficient. For example a paper that receives
three reviews with scores 4, 4, and 1 would be rejected.
+ Decisions should not be made mechanically.
+ Variance should be taken into account.
+ The symposium co-chairs should do this: Papers with mixed reviews should be
considered in detail.
+ It was recommended that the committee generate a "Best Practices" document as
a resource for symposia co-chairs. Mansoor Shafi has a document that he is
willing to let us use as a starting point.

A discussion about the author registration policy (the part the requires
student authors to pay full registration) followed. The main points were:
+ This policy is viewed as a "penalty" for students.
+ There are some who want this issue reconsidered.
+ This is a very touchy issue since it impacts budgets and COMSOC is
reviewing budgets closely.
+ The real zinger: "Is COMSOC striving to be a learned society or a
business operation?"

GLOBECOM 2006 (San Francisco, California):
Hamid Jafarkhani (Univ. California, Irvine) and Erchin Serpedin (Texas A&M Univ.)
have agreed to serve as co-chairs of the Communication Theory Symposium.
Tiffany Jing Li (Lehigh Univ.) has agreed to serve as Committee Representative
to the General Conference.

ICC 2007 (Glasgow, Scotland):
Peter McLane (Queens Univ.) and Murat Uysal (Univ. Waterloo) have agreed to
serve as co-chairs of the Communication Theory Symposium.
Rohit Negi (Carnegie Mellon Univ.) has agreed to serve as Committee Representative
to the General Conference.

CTW 2005 Report: M. Rice
The technical program is set.
The advanced registration deadline was extended to 1 June 2005.
The "Recent Results" Session is still accepting papers.

CTW 2006 Report: A. Sabharwal
A nice presentation was given showing images of the venue
(Hyatt Dorado Beach Resort and Country Club) in Puerto Rico.
Two weeks were available: 17 - 19 May 2006 and 22 - 24 May 2006.
The team is in place.

Attendance: 37.