2013Q1 Reports: Office

Priscilla Rasmussen 7 February 2013

ACL Business Office Report

Pat Kirby continues to work for us on an as-needed basis throughout the year. It seems to be working well with her working primarily at conference times (almost full-time when she would be needed most) and at other high-volume times. When (or if) our current arrangement is no longer working, I will search for a more permanent arrangement with someone else but, with the ebb and flow of office work requiring more than one person, finding someone who is flexible is difficult.

I have issued the 1099s and am working with Graeme and the accountant to finalize our 2012 IRS tax filing requirements. And, Kevin Knight and I collected, reviewed and made awards to five new ACL Fellows this year.

Otherwise, the office is chugging along nicely.

Publications and Royalties:

With our ongoing arrangement of Curran Associates now handling print-on-demand of our publications, I receive few requests for publications in the office. In all of 2012, I filled only 4 orders.

We have received royalties from Curran Associates for the last quarter of 2011 and four quarters of 2012 in the amount of $1,985.33. Copyright Clearance Center also sent a check for $1,266.81 for the period ending December 31, 2012. MIT Press Journals’ royalty year ends March 31, 2013. Their annual statement has not yet been received but it is expected that, similar to last year, if we earn less than $50 in royalties, this small amount will be credited to our account for next year.

Membership:

We surpassed 2100 members in 2009 and 2010 and in 2011 and 2012 have reached over 2000 members. I was surprised to see the China membership fall off to 94 in 2012, after having been at a high of 348 at the end of 2010 and 311 at the end of 2011. It seems the extra efforts put forth to focus on bringing China’s membership up from the 65 represented in 2009 worked but a sustained effort of some sort needs to continue if we are to keep them as active members. Please see Membership spreadsheets for the full 2012 calendar year details on countries represented and statistics.

The new Membership Portal is cooperating with my needs. The problem continues, though, that a lot of members are not updating and correcting their information in the Portal and many seem to have never visited their record at all. Pat and I are doing our best to keep the membership information updated and as correct as we can. It is unfortunate that membership records are not being properly updated by the members themselves as was originally envisioned, especially since I often cannot trust the mailing address and must go to people’s websites to find updated information.

February 4, 2013	   MEMBERSHIPS  BY  COUNTRY  FOR    2012  CALENDAR YEAR										

	        TOTAL	REG	STUD		        TOTAL	REG	STUD		        TOTAL	REG	STUD
  				 				 			
ARGENTINA	3	2	1	HONG KONG  	16	9	7	QTAR	        6	5	1
AUSTRALIA  	37	24	13	HUNGARY   	7	5	2	ROMANIA   	2		2
AUSTRIA  	1	1		INDIA   	25	10	15	RUSSIA        	8	7	1
BAHRAIN  	1	1		INDONESIA	1	1		SAUDI ARABIA	1	1	
BELGIUM   	14	8	6	IRAN	        1		1	SCOTLAND  	31	19	12
BRAZIL        	12	9	3	IRELAND  	15	6	9	SINGAPORE   	29	17	12
BULGARIA	7	5	2	ISRAEL         	21	11	10	SLOVENIA	3	2	1
CANADA  	78	43	35	ITALY     	40	28	12	SOUTH AFRICA 	4	3	1
CHILE   	1	1		JAPAN   	113	98	15	SPAIN         	46	35	11
CHINA    	94	43	51	KOREA    	184	90	94	SWEDEN  	26	16	10
CROATIA  	2		2	LATVIA	        2	1	1	SWITZERLAND  	26	13	13
CZECH REPUBLIC	15	8	7	LITHUANIA	1		1	TAIWAN 	        32	10	22
DENMARK   	8	5	3	MACAU	        1	1		THAILAND	1		1
EGYPT	        1	1		MALTA	        2	1	1	TURKEY        	8	4	4
ENGLAND  	66	39	27	MEXICO        	4	3	1	UNITED ARAB EME 1	1	
ESTONIA   	3		3	NETHERLANDS  	31	22	9	UNITED STATES	732	471	261
ETHIOPIA	1	1		NIGERIA	        1	1		URUGUAY	        1		1
FINLAND  	12	7	5	NORWAY   	10	5	5	VIET NAM	3	2	1
FRANCE       	89	54	35	PHILIPPINES	2	2		 			
GERMANY  	160	87	73	POLAND	        7	3	4	 			
GREECE        	9	6	3	PORTUGAL   	6	4	2	 			
  											
COUNTRIES REPRESENTED							 	TOTAL        	2,064	1,252	812

February 4, 2013	ACL  RECENT  TEN YEARS'  MEMBERSHIP  STATISTICS									
 										
(all full-year finals)	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
										
TOTAL MEMBERSHIP 	1583	1641	1562	2123	2104	1602	2151	2136	2028	2064 
										
TOTAL REGULAR	        1214	1198	1114	1326	1365	1137	1402	1162	1111	1252
TOTAL  STUDENTS  	369	443	448	521	729	463	749	974	917	812 
										
TOTAL WITH NO TYPE				276	10	2	0	0	0	0
							 			
DISCOUNTS APPLIED TO ABOVE:										
REDUCED RATES	        24	9	15	8	12	8	4	282	276	81
AMTA DISCOUNTS	        3	1	1	0	0	0	1	1	4	0
ISCA DISCOUNTS	        12	0	4	1	3	3	3	3	14	4
HLT/NAACL FREE YEAR	108	590	0	540	324	0	535	548	0	0
COLING/ACL FREE HALF YEAR			301	0	0	0	0	0	0
COLING/ACL FREE FULL YEAR			188	0	0	0	0	0	0
										
TOTAL BY WORLD AREA:										
TOTAL ASIA/PACIFIC RIM	362	209	203	419	314	214	384	569	552	539
TOTAL CANADA/MEXICO	76	68	74	93	83	59	54	60	51	82
TOTAL EUROPE	        480	498	414	676	803	439	639	614	564	694
TOTAL SOUTH AMERICA	5	6	8	5	10	10	9	22	16	17
TOTAL USA	        660	860	863	930	894	880	823	871	845	732
								 		 
HOW MEMBERSHIPS CAME IN:										
MEMBERSHIPS-ONLY	943	447	878	870	981	1602	2151	2136	2028	2064
MEMBERSHIPS + ORDERS	213	205	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
ORDERS (FROM OUTSIDE ACL)	48	27	38	64	24	17	5	8	4
ORDERS (From ACL Membership)	        0	0	223	7	5	0	2	4
THROUGH CONFERENCES:										
EACL-03	63									
HLT/NAACL-03	6 + 108 Free Year									
ACL-03	250									
HLT/NAACL-2004	590									
ACL-2004	369									
ACL-2005	487					 				
HLT/EMNLP-2005	197									
EACL 2006	224									
HLT/NAACL 2006	540	('+ 126 extended through 2007)								
COLING/ACL 2006 	489	 								
NAACL HLT 2007	324	('+ 145 extended through 2008)								
ACL 2007	759	(790 '- 31 Fraudulent and No-Shows who did not pay)								
ACL 2008 (incl. vol, spkrs, spons)	426									
EMNLP 2008	110									
EACL 2009	355									
NAACL 2009	535	('+ 133 extended through 2010)								
ACL/IJCNLP 2009	632	 								
NAACL HLT 2010	548	('+ 78 extended through 2011)								
ACL 2010	767	(new or renewed members captured of the 950 total attendees)								
INLG 2010	26	(new or renewed members captured of the 49 total attendees)								
EMNLP 2010	141	(new or renewed members captured of the 292 total attendees)								
ACL 2011	866	 								 
EACL 2012	288	 								
NAACL 2012	488									
ACL 2012	673	(Includes EMNLP/CoNLL and SIGdial 2012)								
Others such as  INLG 2012	0	(any memberships from INLG went through normal online membership)																			

Elections:

We abandoned the experiment of sending out postcards this year and the elections seemed to go very smoothly. The Office had very, very few bounced emails and no complaints of not being allowed to vote due to lapsed membership status. I think setting a membership cut-off date for those who would be eligible to vote worked well.

Conferences:

EACL 2012, in Avignon, was a success with registrations totaling 362.

The office also provided advice and support to Barbara Di Eugenio who organized the INLG 2012 in Utica which had 41 registrants.

While paper submissions were down for NAACL HLT 2012 in Montreal, our final body count of attendees was 705 at part or all of the meeting. Of these, 468 were paying main conference attendees. Another 52 were volunteers, SRW students, sponsors, exhibitors, and guests/organizers. There were also 181 people only attending tutorials, the *SEM co-located conference, or workshops. This was the first ACL-related conference that had close to 40% of the total attendees *not* attending the main conference. If it becomes a trend of some conferences becoming dominated by workshops and co-located conferences, the increased registration fees we currently charge for workshops without main conference are more than justified. Workshops are becoming more and more mini-conferences, complete with poster sessions (13 workshop and *SEM poster sessions took place during the two workshop days in Montreal). It seems everyone enjoyed the conference quite a lot. And, given it was my first time as Local Arrangements Chair, I found it more satisfying and more challenging but, overall, very good to feel truly a part of the conference team.

ACL 2012, held in Jeju, South Korea, had 931 total attendees. Of these, 173 attended only workshops or SIGdial or EMNLP/CoNLL and 13 are complimentary or sponsors. Another 33 are volunteers or SRW student attendees and 14 are staff (mostly Korean local organizers). Overall, the conference went very smoothly, in good part due to the extraordinary efforts of Gary Guenbae Lee and the PCO he selected.

The Office provided advice, online registration system and support to the SIGdial 2012 organizers in Seoul and to the co-located EMNLP/CoNLL 2012 conference in Jeju as well as an advance to SIGdial. SIGdial numbered 79 registrants and EMNLP/CoNLL had 335 registrants plus one invited speaker. Both were quite successful.

ACL 2013 will be in Sofia, Bulgaria. Graeme has signed the venue contract with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), where Svetla Koeva will be our Local Arrangements Chair, and also signed the contract with the AIM Group who will serve as the local PCO. Graeme and I made a second site visit in January where we met with the AIM Group, revisited the conference venue and other places and were happy to see that our suggestions and plans are being followed up. It is possible that Hinrich Schuetze and I may make a visit in April so he can be assured of what is envisioned to make this an interesting and exciting conference.

NAACL HLT 2013 will be held in Atlanta, GA, at the Westin Peachtree, June 9-14. Lucy Vanderwende and others of the organizing committee and I have been working closely on the various planning stages for both NAACL HLT and *SEM which will co-locate in Atlanta. And, the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) has been definitely decided to be in Atlanta the week immediately following NAACL (June 15-21). I hope that there can be some cross-event planning to take advantage of this positive co-location.

Conference Sponsorship:

ACL 2012 had sponsorships totaling $38,646.76 to the Office plus approximately $65,890 USD equivalent in sponsorships directly to/in Korea; EACL 2012 received sponsorships totaling € 5,372.88 through the Office; and, NAACL 2012 received sponsorships totaling $30,304.84 plus $1,800 as a portion of the NSF SRW grant. Baidu committed to being a Platinum Level sponsor, with certain concessions, for ACL 2012. Nuance was a Platinum Sponsor for NAACL 2012, and Google was 3-Pack Gold Sponsor for ACL, EACL and NAACL this year. Elsevier was a new sponsor, supporting ACL 2012 at the Gold level. IBM made a generous contribution of $2,500 toward the NAACL Student Lunch in addition to their “standard” IBM Best Student Paper awards at both ACL and NAACL. And, Microsoft continues to be generous in supporting ACL and NAACL. I am also pleased to report that this year, we had more 3-pack sponsorships (for a somewhat reduced rate, they support all three events) than ever before with 5 companies opting for 3-packs and two other companies supported two of the three conferences. Baidu, Google, Microsoft, IBM and AT&T, among others, also provided support to SIGdial (well over $7,000) and EMNLP/CoNLL ($11,750).

So far we have commitments to ACL 2013 in the amount of $22,254, primarily from Baidu at the Platinum Level and Google as a 2-Pack Gold sponsor plus additional support dedicated to student travel from disadvantaged countries. NAACL 2013 has sponsorship commitments of $8,586 to date as well as $500 in support of the BEA Workshop. IBM continues to support the IBM Best Student Paper awards at both ACL and NAACL and, in addition, will provide $2,500 toward defraying the costs of the Student Lunch at NAACL as they did last year. I am in discussions with Microsoft, Nuance and the Qatar Computing Research Institute as well as others for larger donations to either or both conferences.

The new plan of appointing a Sponsorship Committee with two representatives from each regional world area (Asia, North/South America and Europe/Africa) and having an overall Chair is working very well. It is usually quite difficult to get sponsorships from world areas not hosting a conference, so expectations of support from Asia for 2013 are not high.

The area Sponsorship Chairs are working diligently to help make our conferences successful and it is a pleasure working with them. And, many thanks to all sponsors who help to make our conferences and workshops successful!