Since the organization’s inception in 1937, the annual meeting of the American Society for Information and Technology (ASIST) has been the premier venue for convening an interdisciplinary community of Information Science researchers and professionals. ASIST 2010 is no exception. Navigating Streams in an Information Ecosystem reflects our historic roots in information diversity as well as looking forward to our future role in enabling information creation and use in a technologically complex and increasingly networked society.
In organizing ASIST 2010, we sought to build on the community’s core strengths, while reaching out to include new forms of work, greater participation in the review process, and new special events. As in previous years, the call for contributions included full-length technical papers, posters, demonstrations, panels and half- or full-day pre- and post-conference events. We introduced short papers to the program to showcase exciting emerging work and, for the first time, attempted to solicit video submissions. Six new themed tracks—Information Behavior; Knowledge Organization; Information Systems; Interactivity and Design; Information and Knowledge Management; Information Use; and Information and Society: Economic, Political, Social Issues—drew on the intellectual and disciplinary diversity of the community, and allowed us to identify area experts to lead and form distinct program committees to ensure the highest quality reviewing in each area. Several other changes—a more compressed schedule of deadlines and notifications, coupled with broader dissemination of the work as part of the ACM Digital Library as well as through the ASIST Digital Library—moved us in the direction of archival proceedings with the most exciting, up-to-date content possible.
As a result of these changes, we received a record number of submissions this year, including 149 papers, 103 short papers, and 34 panels, 155 posters and demonstrations, and 6 proposals for half-day/full-day events. From this large pool of high quality submissions, we were faced with the formidable challenge of selecting a conference program, and adding the selected content to the ASIST and ACM digital libraries; only 52 full papers, 23 short papers, 16 panels, 86 posters and demonstrations, and 6 workshops were selected to be part of the ASIST 2010 program.
The new compressed reviewing schedule gave us two opportunities to shape and refine the program. First, track program committee members worked overtime in June to provide the track chairs and us with guidance for selecting an outstanding program and to provide authors with constructive narrative feedback about their submissions. Fourteen track co-chairs representing each of the six tracks hand-assigned each paper to three reviewers from our 165-member program committee, which included many leading Information Science researchers. Each program committee member received detailed reviewing instructions that carefully described the criteria we were using to evaluate submissions this year; this set of uniform criteria, coupled with the expertise of the individual program committee members and track co-chairs, helped ensure that same reviewing standards were applied, and that the resulting program reflected the rich mix of diverse information cultures within the ASIST community.
At the conclusion of the first review period, the track co-chairs submitted their recommendations to a group who attended a two-day face-to-face meeting to discuss the entire program. That group included at least one co-chair from each track, the SIG Cabinet Director, chairs from other conference venues, and both conference co-chairs. In the face-to-face meeting, we not only used the guidance provided by the individual tracks, we also discussed each paper and panel proposal in turn that had one or more reviewers advocating for its acceptance. We examined the narrative reviews closely, as well as the submission itself, and came to a decision about whether the submission would be accepted for the ASIST 2010 program. Our goal in this process was to ensure both quality and balance across the program. During a second review period in July and August, the posters and demonstrations chair rounded out the program with an excellent slate of late-breaking results. Posters and demonstrations were evaluated based on two reviews each, with the aim of providing some of the same rich feedback the papers and panels had received earlier.
The program is rounded out by special venues including two events aimed specially at student members of the organization: the ASIST Doctoral Seminar and an exciting new student design competition that will take place during the conference; an industry track, that is bound to enlighten both practitioners and researchers with its real-world emphasis; and two days of seminars designed to provide members with continuing education. We are thrilled that Dr. Lucy Suchman, Professor of Anthropology of Science and Technology in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University, and Co-Director of Lancaster’s Centre for Science Studies, will open the conference with her keynote address, “Restoring Information’s Body.”
At the heart of the society—and at the heart of ASIST’s annual meeting—are people. Putting together the program (and trying to make so many changes to the reviewing process over such a short period of time) reminded us of how just how many talented people it takes to assemble an event like this. Under constant stress and time pressure, 20 track and venue co-chairs, 165 track program committee members, and 67 poster and demo reviewers, produced, discussed, and managed over 1184 reviews of with grace, patience, and a sense of humor. In the acknowledgements that follow, we make our best effort to credit all who had a hand in making this new process a success.
In our effort to count organizers and reviewers, we do not want to forget those who entrusted their best efforts to us in the form of submissions. Overall, 1,060 authors contributed submissions that were reviewed and organized by 254 of their colleagues. It’s an astounding number of participants! We acknowledge their significant contributions in making ASIST2010 a success, and especially thank our track and venue co-chairs who are listed in this volume. We additionally thank Gary Marchionini, ASIST President, for enthusiastically supporting our proposed changes for this year’s conference, and Richard Hill, Executive Director, and his staff who worked hard with us over this long year to achieve the ASIST 2.0 vision.
We hope you enjoy the conference!
Cathy Marshall and Elaine Toms
ASIST 2010 Conference Co-Chairs