StevenBird: New page: = DRAFT SIGDAT CONSTITUTION = I. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE The purpose of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Special Interest Group on Linguistic Data and Corpus-Based Approa...

2009-01-27T03:48:12Z

New page: = DRAFT SIGDAT CONSTITUTION = I. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE The purpose of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Special Interest Group on Linguistic Data and Corpus-Based Approa...

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= DRAFT SIGDAT CONSTITUTION =

I. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

The purpose of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Special Interest
Group on Linguistic Data and Corpus-Based Approaches to NLP (SIGDAT) shall be to:

* Sponsor and organize conferences and workshops on empirical, statistical and corpus-based natural language processing, including its current flagship Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing.
* To promote and facilitate research in empirical, statistical and corpus-based methods in natural language processing and to to support the creation, modeling and sharing of the linguistic data underlying these approaches
* To provide members of the ACL having a special interest in linguistic data and corpus-based approaches to NLP with a variety of means of exchanging news, recent developments, timely research findings and other matters of interest in this field.
* To provide and make available resources relevant to empirical, statistical and corpus-based approaches to NLP, including corpora, analysis tools, software, research papers and generated data.
* To facilitate the standardized evaluation of systems and algorithms by promoting the development of shared test suites, evaluation measures and evaluation protocols, and to sponsor such evaluations as desired by SIGDAT membership

II. SIGDAT GOVERNANCE AND ELECTED OFFICERS

The governance of SIGDAT shall be based on the participation of 3 groups:
(a) The Officers of SIGDAT, consisting of a President, Vice-President,
Vice-President Elect and Secretary/Treasurer, who shall engage in the
day-to-day management of the SIG and perform all roles that require
direct liaison or negotiation with other organizations or individuals;
(b) an Advisory Board, which provides institutional memory, and shall
provide a source of feedback, nominations and advice from experienced
prior SIGDAT organizers, and (c) when possible, major decisions such
as the location and timing of SIGDAT meetings should be informed by
a direct survey or vote of SIGDAT's Membership.

Officers:

The President shall serve a 3-year term sequence, as Vice-President
Elect in the first year, as Vice-President in the second year, and
as President in the third year. Elections will be held anually
for the position of Vice-President Elect, by direct vote of the
membership. At the end of the first-year term, the Vice-President
Elect shall automatically become Vice President for a subsequent
term of one year, and at the end this term the Vice President shall
automatically become President for a subsequent one-year term,
with a total combined term of 3 years. One of the responsibilities
of the VP-Elect/VP/President will be be the early-stage and late-stage
planning and oversight of the SIGDAT conference to be held during
his/her Presidential term. The Vice President and President will
also promote and lead community initiatives or special projects and
will conduct administrative, communication and management roles
as appropriate for the leadership of the SIG.

The Secretary/Treasurer shall be elected by a direct vote of the
membership, and shall serve a term of 2 years.

The Advisory Board: For the purposes of maintaining active institutional
memory, SIGDAT will have an advisory board consisting of past SIGDAT
program chairs and past SIGDAT presidents who can provide ideas,
guidance and experienced feedback to the executive Officers.
SIGDAT will maintain its long and successful tradition of
having all major decisions, including the selection of conference
chairs and the selection of the location/timing of SIGDAT conferences,
to be made by discussion and democratic vote of the Advisory Board
and Officers combined. The Officers can strongly influence the outcome
by their arguments and framing of the questions, but democratic vote of
a relatively large and experienced body of committed individuals helps
provide breadth of background, geography and experience that is more
representative SIGDAT's overall international membership than the
Officers alone, yet be of a moderate size viable for email
discussion not possible with SIGDAT's entire membership. Following
SIGDAT tradition, all past SIGDAT program chairs and past presidents
are invited to join the Advisory Board, and may serve in this
advisory capacity until they choose to resign. The careful geographic
balance usually maintained in the selection of program chairs
helps ensure the relatively high geographic balance of this board.

III. MEMBERSHIP

All ACL members or anyone who has participated in a SIGDAT conference
or workshop within the previous 36 months are eligible to become
SIGDAT members. Dues will not be required at the time of the ratification
of this constitution, but SIGDAT reserves the right to institute dues
in the future. Benefits of membership include (a) the right to participate
in elections for SIGDAT officers, and (b) the right to participate in periodic
surveys regarding the location and timing of SIGDAT future conferences
and other policy decisions, (c) the right to participate in SIGDAT
community initiatives and (d) receipt, if desired, of timely
announcements of SIGDAT meetings, activities, tools, resources
and community initiatives.

IV. ELECTION OF OFFICERS

All officers of SIGDAT shall be elected by a vote of the membership.
Two officers will be elected each year (a Vice-President every year and
the Secretary/Treasurer in alternate years) as detailed above.
A slate of two candidates for each office will be nominated by
discussion and vote of the SIGDAT Advisory Board. Also, candidates may be
nominated directly by the Membership if the Secretary/Treasurer receives
a nomination petition from 3 members not including the candidate
by a deadline specified by the Secretary/Treasurer. The identity of a candidate
as an "official" or "from the membership" nominee will not be distinguished
on the final ballot. All candidates must accept nomination, and
must be members in good standing of both ACL and SIGDAT. All current members
of the SIG will be eligible to vote in SIG elections. Elections shall normally be
carried out at least one month, and at most three months, before the expiration
of current terms of office. In the event of a casual vacancy, an extraordinary
election shall be held for an officer to complete the current term of office.
The timing of the elections of Officers, within the constraints above, shall be
set by vote of the Officers and Advisory Board.

V. REFERENDA

A change to this constitution, or a motion on any other matter, may be initiated by
five members (petitioners) in writing or by majority agreement of Officers and
Advisory Board (on the suggestion of a member or otherwise). The motions will be
put to the members within six months of receipt of a petition, if the petitioners
so request. Otherwise, constitutional amendments and other motions will be put
to the vote in conjunction with the regular elections.

Members will be given notification at least three months in advance of any referendum,
and further motions or amendments proposed by two members shall be accepted up to two
months before the close of voting. Votes may be entered by electronic or physical mail,
and votes arriving by the notified closing date will be counted by a returning officer
appointed by the President and agreed to by all petitioners. All members shall be notified
of the date of the referendum and the proposed motions and amendments at least four weeks
prior to the close of voting, and results shall be notified to the members within
four weeks of the close of voting.

Any change to this constitution requires a two-thirds majority of those eligible
to vote and is subject to approval by ACL. Any other matter requires a simple majority
of those actually voting.

2009Q1 Reports: SIGDAT Constitution - Revision history

StevenBird: New page: = DRAFT SIGDAT CONSTITUTION = I. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE The purpose of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Special Interest Group on Linguistic Data and Corpus-Based Approa...