2013Q1 Reports: Info Officer

Preface: As the inaugural Information Officer (IO) executive member at-large, it is not yet clear what the scope of my duties are. As such, I will attempt to define them, while reporting and planning in this document. This is written without prior knowledge of the ACL Exec's structure, so please forgive me if I overstep my bounds as to my presumed responsibilities.

Presumed duties

As relayed by Drago and Jian, I understand that the IO's duties are to look after the integration of the different ACL-wide (exclusive of SIGs) activities that are related to information dissemination. These include the Anthology, journals, website, and archive. Each of these individual information services are served by a different coordinator, so an understanding of the individual components and being able to help with coordination and delegation to address issues.

Currently, I'm largely unaware of the pressing points with respect to information services, so I hope the teleconference will help bring out a list of points that individual Exec member have noted that are problematic about the information services. I hope to address some of these easier points within the next 2-3 months and them turn attention to 1) harder problems on the list and 2) forward planning to address longer-term information services.

Website

The website duties are governed by our webmaster, which looks after aclweb.org, domain registration (on behalf of the business office), electronic mailing lists, Wiki, ExecWiki and AdminWiki.

Webmaster

A current difficulty is that our former webmaster (for aclweb.org) has resigned. Ali Hakim (through Drago) has been working as Webmaster for over 5 years and resigned for personal reasons. Let us extend our sincere thanks to him on the record for fixing and updating the website with minimal delays.

We are currently sourcing for a new webmaster through Drago's solicitations and so far only one member (Baoli Li from China) has shown interest. I'm currently assessing him. An important responsibility of the webmaster is to reply and act in a timely manner. If you have suggestions or would like to nominate someone, please let me know, as personal connections usually work better than open calls for help. This is a paid position (as I understand it is 20 USD per hour).