Communications of the ACM

Communications of the ACM

The ACM Annual Report FY01

By CACM Staff
Communications of the ACM, January 2002, Vol. 45 No. 1, Pages 49-52
10.1145/502269.502270
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It's an extraordinary time to be a part of the information technology field. Advances in wireless and embedded technologies are making more of our work invisible; while Wall Street's roller-coastering, amazing returns in worldwide e-commerce, and government debate over technology policy keep IT firmly in the spotlight.

Where's it all headed? ACM certainly took some unprecedented steps this year to help answer that question. Our landmark conference ACM1: Beyond Cyberspace....A Journey of Many Directions celebrated the future of computing by inviting renowned leaders in the field to share their observations and predictions and by inviting dozens of lead-edge companies, institutions, and R&D labs to showcase technologies of tomorrow. The San Jose Mercury News described ACM1 as "one of the technology world's great gatherings." Indeed, ABC News hailed the conference as an event "where some of the greatest minds in the world of computers come together once every four years."

We also spent a good part of the year finalizing ACM's answer to the future direction of scientific publishing with the opening of the ACM Portal to Computing Literature. The ACM Portal offers the ultimate online resource for ACM publications and bibliographic citations from the broad universe of published IT literature. It is a work-in-progress that clearly defines progress made in the digital distribution of vital scientific and computing information.

Today, we are putting the finishing touches on the ACM Career Resource Centre where professional and student members will benefit from a unique Web-based environment offering job-matching services, real-world career advice, leadership chats, interactive forums, and valuable articles and columns about careers in IT.

In addition, we have initiated a process to more systematically request and assess input from you, our members, to better understand how ACM can meet the needs of our professional and student members.

It is a challenging time, but thanks to the generous commitment of devoted volunteers and supportive members, ACM is able to make a real difference in the future of computing and thereby, help shape the future for generations to come.

John R. White
ACM Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer

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Activity Highlights

 Public Policy

The U.S. Public Policy Committee of ACM (USACM) continues to serve as the focal point for ACM's interactions with the U.S. government, the computing community, and the public at large. This year the committee drafted and/or signed statements that registered its objections to the proposed Council of Europe Convention on Cyber-Crime and concerns regarding the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)'s approval of seven new generic top-level domain names. USACM also issued statements critical of the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and advised Congress to recognize and preserve the needs of all data users during talks to provide new legal protection for databases.

ACM's Committee on Computers and Public Policy (CCPP) aids the ACM with respect to a variety of issues relating to computers and public policy and helps to broaden ACM's international scope. The Committee's most visible project—indeed, a digital institution in its own right—is the online Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems (aka Risks Forum) where thousands are drawn each year to debate or dissect controversial cases involving reliability, safety, security, privacy, and well-being.

The Committee on Professional Ethics reports ACM's Code of Ethics has enjoyed major recognition and distribution. Along with its ACM print- and Web-based presence, it has also been included in a variety of software engineering and ethics textbooks. It is currently available in English and Japanese and will soon be available in Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish.

 Education

The ACM Education Board's Curriculum Committee (working in partnership with IEEE-CS) completed a major undertaking with the release of a draft report on Computing Curriculum 2001. Approval of the new curriculum is expected this year.

Educators Day at ACM1 provided a forum for illuminating how the IT community can inspire students and teachers to pursue math, science, and technology careers. The event was part of ACM's commitment to the K–12 arena.

SIGCOMM continues to vigorously sponsor student travel to its conferences. The SIG distributed 32 student travel grants to SIGCOMM 2000 in Stockholm and another 20 travel grants to its first Latin America workshop in San Jose, Costa Rica.

 Students

The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest continues to grow in breath and stature. This year 2,700 teams representing over 1,000 universities from 70 countries participated in regional contests. Sixty-four teams participated in the ICPC finals in Vancouver, B.C. last March, where the team from St. Petersburg State University was crowned champions for the second year running.

The ACM Student Chapter Resource Kit Program was introduced in partnership with leading IT companies to distribute educational products and material to ACM student chapters. Resources such as software and training books on a variety of technical topics are delivered to student chapters free of charge every fall and spring semester.

 Local Activities

A record number of international ACM chapters were chartered this year by the Membership Activities Board. Of the 66 new chapters, 10 of the 12 professional and SIG chapters were international and 33 of the 53 student chapters were international.

 International

The first ACM Egyptian National University Programming Contest was held this year and drew a total of 78 students from 11 schools. It also drew a good deal of press exposure in the region to ACM and its activities.

In its continuing efforts to expand its scope of activities and support, ACM's Committee on Women in Computing has established seven ambassadorships representing Pakistan, Canada, Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

The National Congress of Computer Engineering Systems was held in Tuxtla Gutierrez, in the Southeast region of Mexico. The goal of the conference, which drew over 500 attendees to its lectures and 2,000 to its exposition, was to spread the word about ACM to the nations of Central America.

 Publications

The ACM Portal—formerly the ACM Digital Library with 25 ACM magazines and journals, proceedings from 80+ ACM-sponsored conferences, and up to 47 years of archives representing over 750,000 pages—seamlessly integrates this digital material with ACM's Online Guide to Computing Literature, a collection of over 350,000 bibliographic citations. This information mecca (portal.acm.org) includes some personalized services as well, with many more on the way.

A new online magazine dedicated to distance learning—eLearn—made its debut this summer and has built a strong following in just a few months. This new publication (www.elearnmag. org) offers the latest news, timely commentary, in-depth feature articles, and valuable tutorials that detail how to effectively teach, train, and learn online.

Computing Reviews moved online earlier this year (computingreviews.com), and in the process expanded its scope beyond that of a review journal.

The ACM Publications Board completed its groundbreaking Rights and Responsibilities document which makes explicit the commitments from ACM about our publishing programs to readers, authors, reviewers, editors, and libraries. The statement also clarifies the expectations that ACM has from the same groups.

The online Journal of Educational Resources in Computing (JERIC) made its debut this year. Two other journals—Transactions on Asian Language Information Systems (TALIP) and Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT)—were approved.

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 Electronic Community

Great progress was made in building the new Career Resource Centre scheduled to launch later this year. The CRC will provide a unique career site for students and professionals complete with job-matching services, career-related articles and columns, and interactive forums.

The ACM Interactive Timeline of Computing (www.acm.org/top/tl) was officially launched earlier this year. This unique online timeline allows the computing community to participate in its creation and continual maintenance.

SIGMICRO made its debut a new Web site (maul.ecn.purdue.edu:8080) on microarchitecture research and education. And SIGPLAN has begun development of an idea dubbed SIGPLANet that would serve as an online portal to papers, tools, and projects related to programming languages.

 Recognition

The ACM Fellows Program, established in 1993 to honor outstanding ACM members for their achievements in computer science and IT, inducted 27 new fellows in FY01, bringing the total count to 411. The Fellows program was established in 1993 to recognize and honor ACM members who have distinguished themselves by their technical and professional contributions to CS, IT, and the ACM.

 Conferences

ACM1: Beyond Cyberspace. . .A Journey of Many Directions was a major event in FY01. The conference—a celebration of the future of computing—drew over 1,000 attendees to its plenary sessions and over 21,000 to its free exhibition showcasing technologies from dozens of lead-edge companies, institutions, and R&D labs.

In addition to ACM1, ACM SIGs sponsored (or cosponsored) over 80 leading-edge conferences and symposia this year. For example, SIGGRAPH 2000, held in New Orleans, was a technical, creative, and financial success attracting 26,000 attendees with a technical attendance of over 8,500—outstanding numbers for a non-West Coast conference.

The first ACM–Mills Conference on Pioneering Women in Computing—featuring five industry forerunners who shared their memories, observations, and advice to others in the field—proved a big success.

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Who's Who

 ACM Council

• President Stephen R. Bourne
• Vice President Maria Klawe
• Secretary/Treasurer David S. Wise
• Past President Barbara Simons
• SIG Governing Board Chair Alain Chesnais
• Publications Board Chair Robert Allen
• Members-at-Large: David Arnold, Michel Beaudouin-Lafon, David Brown, Denise Gürer, David S. Johnson, Edward Lazowska, Barbara Ryder
• SGB Council Representatives; Mark Scott Johnson, Mary Lou Soffa

 ACM Headquarters

• Executive Director/CEO John R. White
• Deputy Executive Director/COO Patricia M. Ryan

 2000 ACM Award Recipients

• A.M. Turing Award Andrew Chi Chih Yao
• Software System Award (No award given)
• Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Yale Patt
• Outstanding Contribution to ACM AwardHal Berghel
• Doctoral Dissertation Award Salil Vadhan
• Honorable Mention William Chan (posthumuously), Michael D. Ernst
• Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Narendra Karmarkar
• Allen Newell Award Lotfi Zadeh
• Grace Murray Hopper Award Lydia Kavraki
• Distinguished Service Award Peter Wegner
• Eugene L. Lawler Award for Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics (No award given)
• Eckert-Mauchly Award John Hennessy

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The Digital Library is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2002 ACM, Inc.

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