Communications of the ACM

Communications of the ACM

ACM Annual Report For FY05

By CACM Staff
Communications of the ACM, January 2006, Vol. 49 No. 1, Pages 21-30
10.1145/1107458.1107459
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A year in the life of ACM is always a study of progress and promise, but FY05 was truly exceptional. The Association recorded a third consecutive year of excellence over performance and accomplishments; introduced a bevy of new publications, products, and services to our professionally diversified members; and made great strides on a number of ambitious initiatives.

ACM's professional membership continued its upward climb for the third year in a row, making for a total increase of almost 15%. The Association has not experienced such growth over a three-year span in almost 25 years. Moreover, student membership hit an all-time year-end high of 20,300.

We also conducted the first systematic measure of member satisfaction with ACM's major products and services and the findings gave us significant insight into membership needs. This expansive study—which we intend to conduct annually—will help us create more targeted e-services and e-products best suited to serve our members.

The report we present here highlights a number of initiatives launched by ACM in FY05, including the Computer Science Teachers Association created to provide K–12 teachers and students a resource for addressing and appreciating the computing disciplines and to more successfully prepare them to teach and to learn. The response to the CSTA premise was immediate; its membership grew to 2,400 worldwide in its first six months.

The new Professions Board is as significant a change to the ACM organization as CSTA. The Professions Board focuses on providing services to practitioners, just as the SIG board and the journals and Transactions from the Publications Board focuses on researchers.

Another impressive effort was put forth by ACM's Job Migration Task Force, a 25-member panel drawn together to explore the globalization of IT and the migration of jobs that has resulted from offshoring and outsourcing. Their much-anticipated report will undoubtedly spotlight ACM as the first computing association to study the impact of IT outsourcing from a comprehensive global perspective, rather than a domestic one.

Those of us responsible for steering ACM in the coming year have a wide-ranging job in front of us. Fortunately, we are comforted in the knowledge that our Association is in great shape, which gives us the freedom to look at long-term issues that affect the computing discipline and the IT profession on a grand scale. We are committed to improving the educational quality of computer science through such efforts as CSTA, and to serve the science and the profession of computing though efforts such as the Publications Board. And we are determined to invigorate the volunteer ranks of ACM's leaders and to better serve the computing field beyond North America.

We welcome your input and advice. And, as always, we are most grateful for the industry and membership support we receive each year that help turn our ideas into reality.

David A. Patterson
ACM President

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ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is an international scientific and educational organization dedicated to advancing the art, science, engineering, and application of information technology.

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Publications

ACM's stellar online service—the Digital Library/Guide—continues to flourish in content, usage, and prestige, and remains in great demand worldwide. The number of full-text articles in the DL grew from 138,000 to 158,000 and the Guide to Computing Literature bibliographic database increased to over 870,000 entries last year.

Four new ACM publications launched in FY05: Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computer Systems; Transactions on Algorithms; Transactions on Sensor Networks; and Transactions on Storage. Moreover, the ACM Publications Board gave final approval to three new publications this year: Transactions on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (TKDD); Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS); and Journal on Computers and Cultural Heritage. ACM's goal in starting new, high-quality journals is to feed the DL, which now has more than 50,000 downloads per day.

SIGBED (Embedded Systems) introduced the SIGBED Review, a peer-reviewed quarterly e-newsletter that provides a dissemination forum for research on embedded computing.

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Education

The Computer Science Teachers Association, created as a community that develops programs and priorities to stem the shortfall in K–12 CS education, embarked mid-year and by June 30 had welcomed over 2,400 members. The CSTA has already established a series of committees to confront the issues of pre-college CS education and unveiled its quarterly newsletter "CSTA Voice."

Software Engineering 2004: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Software Engineering was issued last summer providing guidance to academic institutions in setting up their curriculum. The two key goals of the report, issued by the Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula, the ACM, and the IEEE Computer Society, were to construct a Software Engineering Education Knowledge (SEEK) model of what every SE graduate must know; and curriculum imparting the knowledge and skills fundamental to SE.

Java Engagement for Teacher Training (JETT)—the groundbreaking initiative to upgrade the programming skills of high school CS teachers—finished another notable year with nearly 3,000 teachers attending some 50 JETT workshops around the U.S. JETT was developed to meet the urgent needs of the nearly 4,000 educators preparing for the Advanced Placement language switch from C++ to Java.

The ACM Java Task Force, initiated by ACM's Education Board, is also working toward building the tools and resources required to make Java less daunting to first-year computing students. In FY05, the committee's efforts were primarily focused on identifying the most significant challenges to teaching introductory Java and on designing new teaching packages to address many of those challenges.

The Two-Year College Education Committee ended FY05 with the 2005 Guidelines for Associate-Degree Transfer Curriculum in Software Engineering; securing the endorsement of the Education Board, and initiating dissemination activities for this work.

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Professional Development

ACM chartered a new Professions Board this year to identify and vet ideas for products and services targeted to professionals. One of the major goals of the Board is to determine ways ACM should be recognized as a source of information on the computing profession by answering practical questions about current career opportunities, making career transitions, and developing new IT skills.

Online courses available through the Professional Development Centre remain a major member benefit. In FY05, PDC included over 300 Web-based courses from Sun Educational Services and 400 online books. In recent months, PDC offerings more than doubled.

One of the most ambitious initiatives the Association has undertaken was the creation of the ACM Job Migration Task Force. The charter of this committee is to study the globalization of IT and the migration of jobs resulting from offshoring and outsourcing. As an international association, ACM must look at this issue from a global perspective; a task that has proven as daunting as it has been rewarding. A report from the committee should be released shortly.

The Membership Services Board launched a bimonthly news digest that provides information about IT careers. CareerNews offers members timely news on significant trends regarding job skills in demand, career profiles, outsourcing, training, and certification.

ACM's Career Resource Centre continues to thrive as a career-oriented community for professional and student members to search and/or apply for jobs as well as a vehicle for finding informative career research and professional development opportunities.

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Public Policy

ACM's U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM) focused a great deal of its efforts this year on four themes: Advancing the computing discipline; seeking balance between innovation and intellectual property protection; protecting privacy in a technology-intensive society; and advocating for secure and reliable computing systems. USACM is a magnet for the media covering U.S. voting options as its efforts have been instrumental in alerting the industry—and the voting public—to the technological weaknesses of current e-voting systems. The committee also created a digital rights management subcommittee and a privacy committee and has joined other scientific and IT organizations to voice concerns over various R&D funding issues, export policies, as well as recent landmark technology legislation.

ACM's Committee on Computers and Public Policy continues to handle a variety of computer and public policy issues on a global scale; and through those efforts make ACM more visible worldwide. CCPP members represent an extraordinary resource of creative thinking, often serving in advisory roles as it pertains to computer policy issues. The ACM Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers, RISKS; The ACM Software Engineering Notes; and the "Inside Risks" monthly column in Communications of the ACM, serve as evidence of the CCPP's notable, long-running commitment to public policy concerns.

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Students

ACM's 29th International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), sponsored by IBM, drew a record 4,109 teams from 1,582 universities in 71 countries competing for a spot in the World Finals in Shanghai last April. The team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University was named the 2005 world champions.

The ACM Student Research Competition, sponsored by Microsoft Research, offers undergraduate and graduate student members a forum to present their original research. Student winners from the OOPSLA, SIGGRAPH, and SIGCSE SRCs advanced to compete in the Grand Finals where their research contributions were evaluated online by the ACM SRC committee members.

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Conferences

ACM cemented its partnership with the Anita Borg Institute and co-presented the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing.

Supercomputing `04 (now known as SC'XY, reflecting the integration of high-performance networking and computing into the annual meeting) is one of the most distinguished annual gatherings in the field. This year's conference drew a record audience of almost 9,000 attendees, and featured Bill Gates as the keynote speaker.

SIGGRAPH 2004 drew almost 28,000 from nearly 90 countries, with 229 companies represented in the 73,000 net square-ft. exhibition space. The conference exceeded all expectations with an overall 14% increase in attendance over the previous year and a 5% increase in technical program attendance. George Lucas, of Star Wars fame, gave the keynote address.

ACM Multimedia 2004 recorded one of the best conferences in its history with attendance more than 50% over the previous year.

Significant measures were taken this year to redesign SIGCHI's flagship (CHI) conference. The format of the annual meeting has been dramatically restructured by organizing the conference around a set of community-controlled venues with greater flexibility to accommodate practitioner communities.

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Local Activities

The Membership Services Board chartered 32 new chapters in FY05. Of the six new professional and SIG chapters, six were internationally based, as were eight of the 26 new student chapters.

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International

SIGMOBILE's conferences continue to reflect its concerted efforts to be a truly global organization. MobiSys 2005, for example, generated media coverage in the popular and technical press from 10 countries, including Italy, France, Denmark, the U.K., and Romania. Moreover, the SIG established new local chapters in Sydney, Australia, and Singapore to further extend its international reach.

To broaden its efforts to connect with the networking community in Latin America, SIGCOMM dedicated $10,000 to fund junior faculty from Latin American to attend SIGCOMM `05 in Philadelphia.

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Electronic Community

ACM's History Committee funded the digitization (by the National Museum of Natural History) of some 1,500 pages of transcripts by former ACM presidents and other early influential leaders in the field. The group is also working on another 1,500 pages of oral history transcripts pertaining to computing hardware pioneers, all of which will ultimately be available via the ACM Digital Library.

The History Committee also began work on an ACM A.M. Turing Web site to feature the history of the award and its recipients, a collection of Turing lectures, as well as nuggets of history behind those selections.

USACM unveiled a new Web site and technology policy Weblog to provide timely analysis of current technology policy issues and legislation as well as better access to the committee's resources and activities.

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Recognition

This year's ACM A.M. Turing Award went to Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn for TCP/IP. The New York Times broke the story on the front page of its business section, and the award was widely covered. Their Turing Award lecture was presented to 1,000 people at the SIGCOMM `05 conference at the University of Pennsylvania this summer; SIGCOMM also sponsored a live Webcast of the lecture.

The ACM Fellows Program, established in 1993 to honor outstanding ACM members for their achievements in computer science and IT, inducted 20 new fellows in FY05, bringing the total count to 518.

ACM's Committee on Women in Computing initiated a program of regional "celebrations" of women in the field to bring research and career interests of women to the forefront. The goal of the regional meetings is to tailor them to local interests and to bring students, faculty, and industry leaders together to focus on topics of concern regarding women in the computing field and to help them network and gain mutual support.

SIGCHI initiated a new Social Impact Award this year to recognize individuals who promote the application of human-computer interaction research to pressing social needs.

SICSAC approved the creation of two new annual awards: The SIGSAC Outstanding Innovation Award will honor contributions to computer and communication security that have had a lasting impact in the field; and SIGSAC Outstanding Contribution Award will recognize work that fostered R&D activities, educating students, and providing professional services.

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Balance Sheet

June 30, 2005 (in thousands)

ASSETS:
Cash and cash equivalents	$17,107
Investments	35,339
Accounts receivable and other current assets	4,302
Deferred conference expenses and other assets	4,608
Fixed assets, net of accumulated depreciation and amortization	185
TOTAL ASSETS	$61,541
LIABILITIES AND NET ASSETS:
Liabilities:
Accounts payable, accrued expenses, and other liabilities	$ 7,743
Unearned conference, membership, and subscription revenue	18,409
TOTAL LIABILITIES	26,152
Net Assets:
Unrestricted	35,031
Temporarily restricted	358
TOTAL NET ASSETS	35,389
TOTAL LIABILITIES AND NET ASSETS	$61,541
Optional contributions fund—program expenses ($000)
Education Board Accreditation	$50
USACM Committee	20
TOTAL EXPENSES	$70
ACM Development Fund—program expenses ($000)
Jett	$26
New Publications Queue (net)	525
TOTAL EXPENSES	$551

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Statement of Activities

Year ended June 30, 2005 (in thousands)

	Unrestricted Net assets	Temporarily restricted Net assets	Total
REVENUE:
Membership dues	$4,919		$ 4,919
Publications	17,044		17,044
Conferences and other meetings	21,517		21,517
Interest and dividends	1,248		1,248
Net appreciation of investments	520		520
Contributions and grants	1,270	176	1,446
Other revenue	292		292
Net assets released from restrictions	216	(216)	-----
TOTAL REVENUE	$47,026	(40)	$46,986
EXPENSES:
Program:
Membership processing and services	$1,174		$1,174
Publications	10,917		10,917
Conferences and other meetings	17,862		17,862
Volunteer activities	1,440		1,440
Program support and other	3,776		3,776
TOTAL PROGRAM EXPENSES	$35,169		$35,169
Supporting Services:
General Administration	$7,043		7,043
Marketing	1,455		1,455
TOTAL EXPENSES	$43,667		43,667
Increase (decrease) in net assets	3,359	(40)	3,319
Net assets at the beginning of the year	31,672	398	32,070
Net assets at end of year	$35,031	358	$35,031
*Includes SIG fund balance of $19,517

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ACM Council

President	David A. Patterson
Vice President	Stuart Feldman
Secretary/Treasurer	Laura Hill
Past President	Maria Klawe
SIG Governing Board Chair	Robert Walker
Publications Board Co-Chairs	Ronald Boisvert, Mary Jane Irwin
Members-at-Large	Roscoe Giles, Wendy Hall, Michel Beaudouin-Lafon, John "Scooter" Morris, Barbara Ryder, Gabriel Silberman, David S. Wise
SGB Council Representatives	James Cohoon, Mark Scott Johnson, Jennifer Rexford
ACM Headquarters
Executive Director/CEO	John R. White
Deputy Executive Director/COO	Patricia M. Ryan

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2004 ACM Award Recipients

A.M. Turing Award	Vinton G. Cerf and Robert E. Kahn
Software System Award	Raghuram Bindignavle, Simon S. Lam, Shaowen Su, Thomas Y.C. Woo
ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award	Richard P. Gabriel
Grace Murray Hopper Award	Jennifer Rexford
ACM/IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award	Robert P. Colwell (2005)
Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award	Richard T. Snodgrass
Distinguished Service Award	E.G. Coffman, Jr.
Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award	Robert Schapire, Yoav Freund
Doctoral Dissertation Award	Boaz Barak Honorable Mentions: Ramesh Johari, Emmett Witchel

The Digital Library is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2006 ACM, Inc.

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