Summer Leadership Meeting
May 22, 2000
Rice University, Houston, Texas

Morning Session

Present: Balko, Barth, Bartlett, Benremouga, Crandall, Dente, Dressler, Gilgen, Hanneson, Higgins, Kuettner, Marston, Pankratz, Parkhurst, Rosen, Saury, Stone
Guests: Dr. Maria-Regina Kecht, Dr. Inge DiBella, Eric Grandquist, Henny Halliburton

IALL 2001 Planning

• Claire Bartlett opened the meeting with an introduction to the Rice staff. The Council was pleased to make the acquaintance of Dr. Maria-Regina Kecht, Director of the Center for the Study of Languages, Dr. Inge DiBella, Language Technology Consultant, Eric Grandquist, System Analyst, and Henny Halliburton, Coordinator. She gave information about the student population at Rice, comprised of approximately 2500 undergraduate students and 1800 graduate students.
• Dr. Maria-Regina Kecht welcomed the Council and provided background information on Rice University, the study of languages at Rice, and the new construction and initiatives being undertaken on campus.
• Dr. Inge DiBella presented two draft web designs for information and registration. The Council provided her with feedback and thanked her for her efforts.
• There was discussion of database compatibility between Rice and IALL. Rice uses Access and Sequel while IALL uses FileMaker Pro. Portability of data will need to be addressed.

• Chris distributed and explained the final accounting statement of IALL '99, as preparation for IALL 2001 budget discussions.
• Claire presented preliminary budget expectations, with an estimated budget of $85,000. She noted expenses assume 400 participants. Her figures were based on analysis of IALL '97 and IALL '99 figures.
• She estimated registration fees to run $185 for members and $155 for K-12 participants.
• Workshop fees are estimated at $50 for a half day session, $100 for a full day session and $150 for a two-day session.
• Discussion of workshop fees ensued.
• LeeAnn was particularly concerned about charging for the service workshops IALL sponsors. She noted at IALL '97, when no fees were charged, attendance at the service workshops was 75-100 participants; at IALL '99 where fees were charged and advance registration was required, there were only 25 participants.
• Chris expressed his opposition to not charging for workshops and described his experience at the University of Maryland, noting workshop facilities and equipment were expenses that had to be recovered.
• David commented the commitment involved in registering and paying for a workshop ensured stable participation. He suggested IALL's service sessions might be offered a very reduced fee; since facilities are inexpensive for the servcice workshops we should charge less accordingly.
• MaryBeth suggested there be no charges for the service workshops.
• Workshop charges, particularly the service workshops sponsored by IALL, should be revisited before a final amount is established.
• Accomodations
• The Warwick has reserved 50 rooms at a conference price of $102 per room, for a regular room with either two double beds or one king-size bed.
• Transportation costs were next discussed. Shuttle service between the Warwick and Rice University will not be free.
• The residential colleges (dormitories) on campus will cost $40 per room. Room configurations differ from college to college, and it is not yet known which rooms will be available. Claire has reserved 125 rooms for the conference.
• Meals
• Residential college meal costs will be: breakfast - $6.50, lunch - $7.50, dinner $9.50
• Box lunches will also be available.
• Lauren asked whether provision could be made for people not staying on campus to purchase a lunch-only meal plan.
• Facilities
• Computer labs will seat 15-25 people; rooms will be assigned per capabilities needed and the number of registrants
• The Grand Hall in the Student Center will be the exhibit hall.
• Events
• Claire has been exploring numerous events, both for registrants and their families. Ideas include:
• Tuesday evening theatre or concert
• Wednesday Local Lab Tour
• Wednesday evening reception (7pm) and banquet (8pm)
• Thursday evening 5-11pm trip to Galveston
• Friday afternoon trip to NASA and Kemah, as well as evening possibilities at Astroworld or a baseball game
• Texas barbecue, in the courtyard garden

• Deadlines
• As Soon as Possible: Release conference announcement via email
• Lauren will cull an email list of the membership for Claire.
• August 1, 2000: Announce Call for Presentations
• October 1, 2000: Proposals due (deadline might be extended to October 20)
• November 1, 2000: Print Announcement of Conference
• December 1: Program committee concludes deliberations followed immediately by notification and confirmation
• January, 2001: Program available via the web

• SOCALL plans not to hold an annual conference as IALL will be in that region and they wish to provide substantial assistance to Claire. However, they are concerned about losing the flavor and momentum of their annual conference by the hiatus. SOCALL will sponsor several scholarships for people who wish to attend but need extra funds.
• Following discussion regarding SOCALL's concerns, it was determined SOCALL could be guaranteed 10 slots for SOCALL presenters.
• The program could identify SOCALL offerings.
• SOCALL could assist in staffing the registration booth.
• As the sessions would be SOCALL sessions, SOCALL would select. It was determined there should be agreement between IALL and SOCALL on selection criteria. Jan had several individuals in mind who could work on selection procedures.

Adjourned for lunch at 12:32pm.

Afternoon Session

General Business

Read solicited the Council's opinion on moving up the Tuesday starting time to 8:30am. The Council was amenable. He informed the Council that following lunch on Tuesday, we would conclude our meeting in Baker Hall, where lunch would be served, rather than returning to Rayzor Hall.

Lynne distributed the SLM Report binders, and briefly described their contents.

• Consulting Services
  Bruce presented further detail on the possible contents of the consulting services page.

• Responsible Person: to be officially recommended Nov 1, 2000, and would start Dec. 2000.

• Recruit an IALL member to function as the Consulting Services Coordinator, who would review the consultants contact, biography and short paragraph abut special area of expertise, have one exchange with a prospective consultant, and forward the new posting to the webmaster.

• The Consulting Services Coordinator would be able forward changes to the consultant services pages directly to the webmaster. The Coordinator can refer more complex questions to the Board as needed, and would report to the Web Editor of IALL on changes befores they are implemented.

• the PUBLIC page

• Survey
  Monika presented further detail on the survey.
• ongoing ability to update the database is important, but this ability should not interfere with creation and execution of the discrete survey
• snapshot portion should be conducted every two years
• Chris expressed concern about the anonymity of the data if a user id is associated with the data
• general consensus is that anonymity is more valuable than update-ability
• when the survey is being conducted, there will be a limited time the database is open for new data collection
• possibility exists for a second round of data collection at the conference
• info areas:

• institutional profile, center profile, faculty user profile, student users, hours, equipment, services, materials

• personal information

• address virtual facilities; advisory board; performance evaluation process; reporting structure

• include rewards or any identification marks AFTER survey is submitted via a thank you page

• drawing for free renewal memberships for members, free membership for non-members, grand drawing for free conference registration

• Timeline

• alpha test July-August by working group

• beta test in mid-late August by Council and LLTI volunteers

• survey data collection November-January; advertise in as many places as possible

• unveil database and report findings at IALL 2001 

Lauren reported on behalf of the Member Benefits Group.

• Web Site
• The group spoke at length about the web site and decided they needed an action plan. A few parts were proposed they thought should be there, but left final definition for the web committee.
• The group believes a content editor should be added to the web team--Chris or Rachel are willing to put out an announcement on LLTI requesting a brief statement of interest and possible cv, within two weeks they want responses back
• There was some confusion regarding the current existence of a web committee and subsequent discussion. The current web committee is comprised of David (as President-Elect), Bruno Browning (as Webmaster), and Pete Smith as Electronic Publications Editor.
• The group suggested two web editors will help form the web committee with current committee members. There was discussion regarding the need for two web editors. Justification might include the need for significant updating and addressing the interactivity issues that would be incorporated in a revamped site. It was noted the web committee could hire an interface designer.
• The group felt strongly that by August 15 a person should be in place to address interactivity issues and a design should be in place by November 15.
• Relationship to GEM and PLM
  GEM is DOE-funded project to tag metadata resources, the meeting per LeeAnn's SLM report brought the two groups together for the first time
• GEM would like to see a front end put together for language teachers to access resources; IALL's involvement could run on a continuum starting from "this is a resource our members should know about" to "take existing link lists and tag them for larger web access"
• want to find those sites that have one or a few exercises taggable via the software database

• Workshops
• Design and Managment workshops plus a new addition. They have narrowed the possibility to three: identifying funding resources and grantwriting, intellectual property issues, and strategic planning. They requested the Council to help select.
• By October 1, if Council approves, the group would like to have a K-12 Council representative in place.

• Affiliate Issues

• Council Publicity manager - manage booths

• CERCLES - Board should decide on interaction with this potential new affiliate

• FLEAT first conference took place in 1981 in Japan with reciprocal meeting planned in the United States. After a hiatus, IALL was contacted by LLA and discussions for reconnecting commenced. Regular FLEAT conferences have occured since that time. 

• Read will explore future FLEAT plans with LLA.

• Rachel will work with the Journal printers to create a new glossy brochure for use at conferences.
• Plan advertising campaigns in journals like FLANNAL and ADA. Lauren will discover their fees, co-sponsor, and get ads in

Jan presented the work of the Electronic Publications group.

• The Lab Design Kit and the Lab Management Kit should be made available on the members-only partition website. The electronic version will be updated as modules are ready, and the print version will be updated and reprinted on a two-year cycle.
  
  Editors of the manuals will work with the President-Elect to assure a module revision schedule consistent with having both publications updated on a two-year cycle and ready at the conference. (Each President-Elect will be responsible for one complete revision cycle). 

• The group asserted we now have resolved copyright clearance issues for publishing some representative Journal articles on the IALL website. We are now ready to do what we said we’d do last year, and get four articles posted on the web by July 1.  

• The group proposes to broaden the scope of the lab tours to include lab or facilities tours, training, promotion, and project documentaries. In addition, they proposed to rename the lab tours IALL Video Showcase. Submissions would be evaluated on their design, implementation, and integration.

• The group proposes a Board and Council resolution commending Otmar Folsche for his exemplary work as moderator of the LLTI listserv.

• The group supports a redesign of the IALL website with these goals in mind: visually inviting, engaging and interactive.

• The group is of the opinion that we need a web editor to work with the Webmaster and the President-Elect.

Respectfully Submitted by Lynne Crandall