SIGIR PROGRAM REVIEW

Susan Dumais (Chair, SIGIR)
with help from Nick Belkin (Past-Chair, SIGIR)
October 2, 1999

Recent Elections• New Officers - elections summer 1999
– Chair: Susan Dumais– Vice-Chair: Susan Gauch– Secretary: Liz Liddy– Treasurer: Jamie Callan– International Reps: Peter Schauble & Ross Wilkinson• Outgoing Officers– Chair: Nick Belkin– Vice-Chair: Howard Turtle– Secretary: Elke Mittendorff– Treasurer: Susan Gauch

Mission Statement• The mission of ACM SIGIR is to foster excellence inresearch, development and education in information
retrieval and to serve the community of individuals
and organizations interested in this field.
• As the information superhighway has become areality, the mission of SIGIR has expanded to cover
new fundamental research topics, such as locating
information in the global computer network, digital
libraries, and issues which arise when information
retrieval software is embedded in other applications
or when IR models or techniques are applied in them.

Addressing Our Mission• Conferences• Publications• Informative Web site
• Joint activities with other SIGs and othergroups• Initiatives to support student involvementin SIGIRPublications• Main membership benefits are thepublications, conference discounts, andthe Web site
• SIGIR Annual Conference Proceedings– Special issue of the SIGIR Forum– About 350 pages (390 in 1998)

Publications• SIGIR Forum– Two regular issues per year, refereedpapers, lab reports, news-like comment– Will move online beginning Fall 1999

• SIGIR Web site
– Online Forum– More community focus and timlinessConferences• SIGIR ‘nn - sole sponsor– ‘95 - Seattle; ‘96 - Zurich; ‘97 - Philadelphia; ‘98 - Melbourne;‘99 - Berkeley; ‘00 - Athens; ‘01 - New Orleans; ‘02 Tampere; ‘03 - in process• DL ‘nn - co-sponsor– ‘96 - Bethesda; ‘97 - Philadelphia; ‘98 - Pittsburgh;‘99 - Berkeley; ‘00 - San Antonio• CIKM ‘nn - co-sponsor– ‘96 - Rockville; ‘97 - Las Vegas; ‘98 - Bethesda;‘99 - Kansas City

SIGIR ‘nn• The major international conference in IR• One year in North America, the nextelsewhere• North American conferences aresponsored solely by SIGIR, thoseelsewhere are sponsored and funded by
local organizations, in cooperation withSIGIRSIGIR ‘nn• Attendance steadily growing, N.A.
conferences are at about 450, overseas
conferences at about 250• Overseas conferences were always inEurope, SIGIR ‘98 was in Melbourne• Conferences routinely profitable;
problem for SIGIR is what to do inalternate years

SIGIR ‘nn• Very high quality conference– Typically ca. 25% acceptance rate
– Recognized as the premier publication outlet in IR(only one journal which is devoted entirely to IR,
and it is in vol. 1, no. 1)• Still manages to be primarily a singletrack conference• Successful Tutorial and Workshopprograms

SIGIR ‘99 - special eventDL ‘nn• Jointly sponsored (50-50) with SIGWEB• DL ‘96 began the series• Held in collocation with HT ‘nn andSIGIR ‘nn in alternate years• Supervised by a Steering Committee– Two from SIGIR, two from SIGWEB, pasttwo DL Chairs, past two ADL chairsDL ‘nn• Popular conference– Oversubscribed (more than 300) for first
conference, continues to be attractive• Collocation is both advantage andproblem• Relationship to other DL conferences isa problem• Maintaining structural continuity has
been a problem

CIKM ‘nn• Jointly sponsored with SIGMIS (used tobe with SIGART)• Organized by Charles Nicholas, moreformally by a Steering Committee which
has run the conference for its existence• Increasing focus on IR concerns,
example of SIGIR expanding interest(Knowledge Management)

Membership• Year• 1995:• 1996:• 1997:• 1998:• 1999:

Membership
1326
1317
1190
1125
1035

Retention Rate
61%
64%
67%
66%

Membership• Like everyone else, slowly declining• Like others, lower membershipaccompanied by increased profitability• Concerned with what new services
need to be offered• Concerned with how to attract newmembersMembership• International membership andrepresentation is a crucial issue– European and Asia/Pacific IR organizations
nominate representatives to the EC– More candidates for EC offices coming fromoutside North America– Local SIGIR Chapter being formed for
Asia/PacificMembership Issues• Dues-paying membership is declining slowly– A general ACM trend, competition from other sources …
– Declining membership is not a financial threat• Is it a threat to the sense of “IR community”?
• Issues for SIGIR to consider:– How to inform and involve interested non-members– How to increase dissemination of high quality IR research– How to better serve the dues-paying members• >> but doing so isn’t likely to increase membership much

Informing and Involving
Interested Non-Members• The Information Director will begin
maintaining a database of people likely to beinterested in IR– Dues-paying members, and people who attend
conferences sponsored by SIGIR– Info conferences and workshops sponsored bySIGIR• “Value Plus” Membership Proposal– Usual member benefits plus copy of DL or CIKM
proceedingsFinances• Healthy, perhaps too healthy• Major source of income is from SIGIR‘nn, then DL ‘nn and CIKM ‘nn• Major expenditure (outsideconferences) is mailing the SIGIR ‘nnConference Proceedings• Membership wants the printed version

Finances• Fund Balance– 1995: $133,555– 1996: $213,776– 1997: $243,645– 1998: $328,580• Accomplished primarily through very
conservative conference budgetingAwards• Gerard Salton Award for Excellence in
Research in Information Retrieval 3-yearly
award, last to Tefko Saracevic in 1997
– Previous winners: Cyril Cleverdon, Gerard Salton, Karen
Sparck-Jones, William Cooper• Best Student Paper, Best Non-Student Paper,
Best Poster Awards at each SIGIR– SIGIR ‘98: one from Europe, one from NA, one from Asia
– SIGIR ’99: two from NA, one from Asia

• W. Bruce Croft our most recent ACM Fellow

New (kind of ) Initiatives• Support for students to participate in
SIGIR Annual Conference– Each overseas conference to contribute atleast a portion of its profit to a fund for thispurpose– SIGIR to budget annually for this purpose– Support for students from throughout theworld to attend each meeting

Initiatives, Cntd• Increasing number of co-sponsorshiparrangements– To increase visibility, to move into newareas• Continuing to work on electronic
publications, in particular to digitize ourold conference proceedings

What’s Coming Next
• Explore different member benefit
packages• Increase IR community development– Mailing lists and Web-based Forum• Increasing internationalization• More interaction with other organizations• Figuring out how to spend our money
without fear of going broke