| Thread Links | Date Links | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thread Prev | Thread Next | Thread Index | Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index |
Gentle People,
An election will be held for IASC to select a new chair and potentially other officers. Nominations will be accepted throughout this month (April 2009). I am not a candidate, although I will still have a role in IASC, and I am able to act as nomination officer. Please send nominations and questions to me. Candidates must be members of the IEEE (any grade) and Standards Association (IEEE SA) members. Self-nominations are welcomed, and nominations of others must be followed by acceptance by the nominee. Nominations for chair, vice-chair, secretary, and treasurer are sought. If only a chair is nominated and elected, that chair may temporarily appoint the other officers until further nominations and another election can be held.
Members of the IASC will vote on the candidates. These IASC members are: the current IASC chair (Jack Cole/US Army Research Laboratory), the working group chairs (Jack Cole, Don Wright/Lexmark, Matt Ball/SUN, James Borden/Microsoft), and two members at large (charter members): Stephen Wolthusen (Royal Holloway/University of London) and Yuliang Zheng (University of North Carolina at Charlotte).
As a reminder, it is against IEEE ethics and acceptable use policy to use IEEE email reflectors to campaign for or against anyone.
Several references are useful in understand the IASC and official duties of the IASC officers:
IASC Report (describes the current IASC projects, activities)
http://ieeeia.org/iasc/IASC_REPORT_20081114.pdf
IASC Procedures (gives the IASC scope, describes the IASC officers and their duties)
http://standards.ieee.org/board/aud/C-IA.pdf
IEEE Standards Development (multiple links to educational material and bylaws, procedures of the IEEE SA)
http://standards.ieee.org/stdsdev/index.html
IEEE Membership
http://www.ieee.org/web/membership/join/join.html
IEEE SA Membership
http://standards.ieee.org/sa-mem/index.html
Appended to this letter are my comments intended to give a qualitative description of the IASC history, activities, and work of the IASC chair.
Very Respectfully,
Jack Cole, IASC Chair 2004-2009
WHY I AM NOT A CANDIDATE
I regret very much not running for office in IASC, which has several very robust projects with high value to society and talented people in its working groups. But time demands from the IEEE SA, from my employer, from my other IEEE activities, and in my personal life continue to grow beyond my capabilities to satisfy. IASC will be better served by a new chair who is able to commit to the work and provide a fresh perspective.
STILL AN IASC MEMBER, WG CHAIR
Although I am not running for election, I will remain as an IASC member if the incoming officers desire. This is in the tradition of other standards committees and the Computer Society. By retaining past chairs as members, committees at all levels achieve a measure of continuity, ensuring that the committee goes forward with the benefit of past experience. Some committees retain several past chairs, and there are even provisions for past, present, and future chairs (chair elect) in some cases. I intend to help the new chair in whatever way possible, and I will remain chair of one working group (P1700) until the group is safely on its way to its first standard.
COMMITTEES OVERSEEING IASC
Sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Standards Activity Board (CS SAB), IASC is governed by it own procedures and those of the IEEE SA.
TERMINOLOGY NOTE
The term “sponsor” refers to the IASC, not the IASC chair. The chair of a standards committee is often mis-identified as the sponsor simply because the chair takes so many actions on behalf of the committee.
IASC PROJECTS
In addition to its current projects, IASC also seeks out and supports new projects within its scope when practical. New projects generally arise when there is an identified need and people identified to do the work (usually the identifiers).
Most projects are individual based, with some of these wanting to act as if they are entity-based while retaining their individual nature. And one (1667) is an entity-based group (started with CAG) that thinks about becoming individual-based. The sponsor has to help these groups sort out their identities with IEEE, and to meet IEEE requirements while they exist in their current identities. This produces some phone calls and emails.
IASC projects include multiples for 2600 and 1619, a single (but multiples in future) for 1700, a single for 1667, and 2200 is dormant, and should be withdrawn unless individuals to carry the work can be identified.
ROLE OF THE SPONSOR
The primary role of the sponsor (IASC) is to facilitate the efforts of the working groups pursuing its projects, helping them to focus on technology instead of bureaucracy while adhering to IEEE requirements. The IASC interfaces with its own groups, with the IEEE, with the CS SAB, and with outside groups either directly or through its working groups.
TRAVEL FUNDING
There is no current funding for travel for any positions within IASC, and the officers must be able to commit to the time required for their positions.
QUALIFICATIONS FOR IASC CHAIR
The IASC chair needs reasonably good skills in and dedication to diplomacy, team facilitation and joint achievement in the development standards when individual aspirations, corporate competition, and organizational rivalry would otherwise lead to failure. The chair must not impose her or his biases on the development of standards, maintaining the same objective relationship to the process as the working group chairs. A new IASC chair should meet with all of the IASC groups to establish a relationship with and an understanding of the groups. The IASC chair need not be an expert in all areas or perhaps any area for which IASC sponsors projects, but needs to have a basic understanding of technology and human dynamics.
IASC HISTORY
The IASC formed as a result of the Task Force on Information Assurance (TFIA), and maintains a close relationship with TFIA. Historically standards committees were sponsored by technical committees and reported to them.
TFIA formed in 2001, and IASC was established in 2004 after the TFIA held the Information Assurance Standards Workshop (IASW) to determine the community need and acceptability of an IASC. At that workshop critical infrastructure segments (finance, healthcare, energy, defense) were invited to present on their activities in developing their own standards, and to gauge their acceptance of IEEE standards efforts in these areas. All were supportive of the IASC.
Similarly, there are other pairings of technical committees in Storage Systems and Software Engineering. Collectively the TFIA and IASC are known as the “IEEE IA Activities”. TFIA has held workshops on behalf of IASC, and these began before IASC formed. TFIA held the first Security in Storage Workshop in 2001 before the Security in Storage Working Group formed, and as a direct result of the experience of the Storage System Standards Working Group in developing a security in storage standard (IEEE 1244.2, Session Security, Authentication, Initialization Protocol) without any representation from the ‘crypto’ community. In 2003 the TFIA held the first and only IASW prior to IASC formation.
DESCRIPTION OF MEETINGS AND OTHER DEMANDS
The IASC itself has never held a face-to-face meeting, but should, and these have to be counted in adding up the demands for officers.
The IASC chair or a representative should attend some or all of the IEEE CS SAB meetings, which are held 3x/yr. This year in March/Piscataway(NJ), June/Savannah(GA), September(?)/Piscataway(?). Each of these meetings is one day in length. Attendance by teleconference is permitted, but IMHO is much less productive.
The time commitment has much less to do with these meetings and associated travel than with email, phone calls, and occasional participation in working group meetings.
Each working group has a set of procedures, associated PARs, ongoing balloting in various states, and groups have needs that must be brought to the sponsor. In addition, there are reports (financial to IEEE, activity to IEEE CS SAB). Each group has a web site and one or more email reflector with the need to monitor these, advise when a group gets wrapped around an axle needlessly or neglects a point that will cause danger to the IASC and the group (and consequently the other groups and IEEE). Some groups have bank accounts. Occasionally a few members will engage in debating personalities instead of technical issues, and this has to be stopped. Sometimes groups become so parliamentarian that progress is jeopardized. The sponsor is responsible for all that the groups do, for better and worse. It is the sponsor that produces standards in the eyes of the IEEE, not the groups, although IEEE recognizes working groups chairs and members when a standard is published. It is the sponsor that will be involved in any appeal (lawsuits?) that results from group activities. IASC has never been involved in an appeal or lawsuit, but other standards committees have. When this happens, it takes a dramatic part of your time and the time of many others. So sponsors make all attempts at steering groups away from activities that would result in an appeal. And IEEE shares that goal.
And there are odd things to do. For example, I wrote a letter over one weekend this year for one member to be excused from reserve duty so that he could serve as an officer in a WG meeting. The letter was successful. Without this reservist, an international meeting scheduled with many others already in travel status from other countries would have been canceled.
Obviously the IASC chair time commitment will be less with a vice chair, a secretary, and a treasurer. And the IEEE CS SAB is a helpful resource for IASC. John Harauz chairs the CS SAB, and very approachable.
There are email lists and web sites, domain names to maintain.
The IASC participates in workshops and conferences of related TCs, and this requires time and work. For example, the Security in Storage Working Group contributes to the Security in Storage Workshop now sponsored by the Technical Committee on Mass Storage.
And there are relationships with other groups both within IEEE and outside of IEEE, sometimes with mild complaints about duplicate effort. Sometimes there are warm, friendly relationships with both parties wanting to proceed in partnership (e.g., IEEE and INCITS on vocabulary for information security). These relationships require effort, time, and travel.
And the sponsor is sometimes called on to run elections for WGs when the WG is unable.