TCCC Policies and Procedures [DRAFT] *** Name IEEE Communications Society Technical Committee on Computer Communications, abbreviated as TCCC *** Mission The TCCC facilitates research and education in computer communications, particularly the transport of data and multimedia content in packet networks. *** Charter The primary goal of the Committee is to provide its members with a forum that promotes technical discussions and interactions on topics in the general area of Computer Communications, as well as give them the opportunity to broaden their professional contacts through interactions with peers. The area of Computer Communications is clearly a broad one, and also a continuously changing one because of the pace at which the underlying technology is progressing. The goals of TCCC are, therefore, to both enable our members to keep abreast of the latest trends and results in the field of Computer Communications, and also, and probably more important, to provide them with a vehicle through which they can contribute to and influence the direction of research and engineering in this field. Achieving these goals take many forms. Through our conference representatives, we participate in the paper review process and session organization of the different conferences and workshops we sponsor, and also play an active role in proposing tutorials as well as organizing special sessions on hot or emerging topics. During our meetings, we exchange views on how we can further promote the topics of interest to our members, initiate discussions on other relevant IEEE issues such as publications or interactions with other Technical Committees, and open the floor to technical questions and discussions. Finally, many of our activities are carried on the TCCC mailing list, tccc@comsoc.org, which is used to post relevant technical material as well as announcements on available positions, calls for papers, etc. As mentioned earlier, the field of Computer Communications is by now a very diverse one. The areas of interest to TCCC include "traditional" networking topics such as performance of computer networks and switch architectures, interfaces and protocols, scheduling and buffer management, routing, multicast, flow control and admission control algorithms, error control, wireless and optical networks, network security, network reliability, network measurements and network management. They also encompass areas such as multimedia applications, Web server performance and caching strategies, end-to-end performance, network pricing models, protocol verification and testing, end-systems designs, and other recent research topics from the field of networking. *** Membership Anybody interested in furthering the goals of the TCCC mission statement can become a member of TCCC by subscribing to the TCCC mailing list. The IEEE Communications may impose additional membership requirements in the future. Anyone can subscribe to the TCCC technical mailing list; only subscribers to that mailing list can post messages. *** Elected and Appointed Officers TCCC has four elected officers: - Chair The Chair sets overall direction and policy, in consultation with other officers and the TCCC membership, coordinates the activities of other TCCC Officers, chairs the TCCC meetings, represents the committee in the ComSoc Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), and initiates elections for vacant officer positions. The chair, in consultation with the other officers, also approves or denies requests for TCCC to technically co-sponsor conferences and workshops. - Vice Chair The Vice Chair fulfills the duties of the Chair in his or her absence. - Secretary The Secretary maintains the TCCC web page and mailing list(s), deals with questions regarding mailing list postings and web page, arranges for meeting facilities for TCCC meetings, announces these meetings to the TCCC membership, compiles minutes of the meetings, and participates in the discussions of the TCCC Officers. - Conference Coordinator The Conference Coordinator solicits reviewers and participation for suitable IEEE Communications Society events. *** Officer Elections Officers are elected for renewable terms of two years, usually co-incident with the calendar year. If an officer resigns before the expiration of his or her term, a successor is elected to fill the remainder of the term. Any member of the TCCC can nominate candidates, including himself or herself. At the time of election, candidates must be members of the IEEE Communications Society, IEEE Communications Society Affiliate or IEEE Communications Society Sister Society. The Chair solicits nominations for a period of at least two weeks on the TCCC mailing list. It is highly desirable that each position has at least two candidates. Candidates nominated must agree to serve before being put on a ballot. Each TCCC member has one vote for each office. For each office, the candidate with the highest number of votes wins. Ties are resolved by having each candidate be assigned a number between 0 and the number of ties minus one. The candidate number that matches the appropriate module of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for a future date wins. A candidate can be candidate for more than one office. If a candidate is elected for Chair, he or she is removed from consideration for all other offices. Similarly, if a candidate is elected for Vice Chair, he or she is removed from consideration for Secretary or Conference Coordinator. If a candidate is elected for Secretary, he or she is removed from consideration for Conference Coordinator. Votes for candidates removed from consideration for a particular position are discarded. Balloting is by email, for a duration of two weeks. At the end of the election, the election results will be presented to the TCCC mailing list. The email addresses of those voting are also indicated, but not their vote. Email is sent to a person designated by the Chair. All officers, except those under consideration for a particular position, may inspect the ballots. If such inspection does not satisfy a candidate or a member of TCCC, such person can appeal the election to the appropriate officers within the IEEE Communications Society. The election is supervised by the Chair unless the Chair is also a candidate for TCCC office. In that case, the Vice Chair, Secretary, and Conference Coordinator fulfill this duty, in that order. There is no quorum for the election. *** Mailing List(s) TCCC maintains one or more electronic mailing lists. The TCCC electronic mailing list(s) are for discussions of a technical nature and issues related to TCCC business. The mailing list for discussions of a technical nature ("technical mailing list") and for TCCC business ("business mailing list") may be combined or split according to operational needs of the Committee. The Officers of the Committee may establish additional mailing lists as needed. Faculty positions as well as post-doctoral, graduate and under-graduate student positions, and summer internships can be posted on the TCCC technical mailing list without consulting the TCCC chair, provided they are in areas that are likely to be of interest to TCCC members. If in doubt regarding the latter point, please check first with the TCCC chair. The TCCC technical mailing list is also open to other postings of potential interest to its subscribers, which include job offers, and Request for Information (RFIs) or Request for Proposals (RFPs) in areas of technical interest to TCCC mailing list subscribers. Those may be publicized on the TCCC mailing list, provided that such requests are first cleared with the TCCC chair. In the context of RFIs and RFPs, the TCCC chair and other TCCC officers will evaluate the technical relevance of the RFI/RFP, possibly with the assistance of other TCCC members, and determine their suitability for posting on the TCCC mailing list. Assuming a favorable response to a request for posting an announcement related to an RFI or RFP, the information to be distributed on the technical mailing list should preferably be in the form of a title and short abstract describing the essence of the proposal, with a pointer (URL) to a site from where the full document and additional information can be retrieved. In cases where the requesters cannot make their proposals available on-line and depending on the actual size of the documents, such postings will either be sent directly on the technical mailing list (short documents) or optionally posted on the TCCC web page with a short summary sent to the TCCC technical mailing list. Chain letters, political discussions or requests for donations are inappropriate for TCCC lists. There are plenty of other, more appropriate fora for these types of discussions and requests. Note that posting to the list without explicitly including the list in the "To" field is an expressly prohibited use of the mailing list(s). In other words, do not include the TCCC lists in meta lists, i.e., a mailing list consisting of other mailing lists, as this has been shown repeatedly to cause mail storms. Violations of this policy will be brought to the attention of the local administrator. Postings to the mailing lists should be in plain text, i.e., no attachments. Additional information should be referenced via a URL pointing to the document. If attachments cannot be avoided, they should use open-standard document formats such as HTML or PDF. The mailing list(s) should be archived. The TCCC mailing lists are not moderated. Only subscribers of the TCCC mailing lists can post to the mailing lists. Other postings are reviewed by the TCCC Secretary and may be forwarded at his or her discretion. TCCC will choose a suitable site for hosting the mailing list, preferably IEEE Communications Society. Such site must allow for the filtering of email as described. Posters to the mailing list should identify themselves by true name and professional affiliation. (It is sufficient if the sender's email address identifies the affiliation.) *** Budget and Expense Policies TCCC is provided by the IEEE Communications Society with an annual expense budget. The budget can be used for mementos of appreciation or similar expenditures. The budget cannot be used for cash gifts and ComSoc travel. Expenses are approved by the Chair or a designated Officer. The Chair sends the receipt and brief description of the expense to the ComSoc. VP-TA. Food expenses incurred at TCCC meetings are not applied against the annual budget, as they are provided by TAC. *** TCCC meetings TCCC meets at places deemed convenient for its membership, chosen from the major IEEE Communications Society conferences, currently ICC, Globecom and IEEE Infocom. Meetings are announced at least two weeks in advance on the TCCC mailing list. Meetings are open to any conference attendee. Meetings are chaired by the TCCC Chair or a designated substitute, typically another TCCC Officer. Any TCCC member can suggest items for the agenda. The Secretary will take minutes. Minutes should be made available within one month of the meeting. Their availability is announced on the TCCC mailing list. Minutes are posted on the TCCC web site and are public. *** TCCC Support of Meetings and Conferences TCCC aims to assist the IEEE Communications Society and other appropriate entities in meetings and conferences that fall within its scope. The Officers will do so through - approval of technical sponsorship when asked by TAC (Technical Advisory Committe); - solicitation of reviewers, session chairs, panel contributors for conferences from its membership; - dissemination of call for papers and participation on its mailing list and web page. TCCC has been sponsoring the IEEE Infocom and the Communications Workshop for many years. *** TCCC Information dissemination TCCC maintains a mailing list (see above) and web page. The TCCC web site, including the mailing list archive, is accessible to the public. *** Changes in Policies and Procedures Any TCCC member can petition to make changes in the above policies and procedures. Such changes can be voted in either by a "last call" or by an explicit vote. A "last call" solicits objections to the change on the TCCC mailing list. If there are none within a two-week period, the change becomes effective. If there are objections, a formal vote is held. Changes are voted by a simple majority of respondents, with a quorum of 10% of the TCCC membership. The change petition fails if no quorum is reached. If a part of the policy conflicts with IEEE or IEEE Communications Society policies, IEEE or IEEE Communications Society policy takes precedence, but the remainder of the policy remains in effect.