[iaoa-general] Public Reports IAOA-EC Meetings n.104-n.106, May 22 - Jul 10, 2014

Thu Sep 18 06:20:19 CEST 2014

Dear IAOA members and followers,

please find below three Public Reports of the IAOA Executive Council that
were so far missing:

* n.104 - Thu, May 22, 2014
* n.105 - Mon, Jun 16, 2014
* n.106 - Thu, Jul 10, 2014

I apologize for the delayed distribution.

Feel free to contact the Association if you have
any question by emailing to:   info at iaoa.org

Best regards,
Frank Loebe
on behalf of IAOA EC

---

One hundred fourth meeting of the IAOA Executive Council (EC)
Virtual Meeting of 22 May 2014

Attendees: 
John Bateman
Stefano Borgo
Michael Gruninger (chair)
Janna Hastings
Frank Loebe
Leo Obrst

Changes regarding the IAOA infrastructure will be implemented in June. By
the end of June, IAOA will stop to use the CIM3 facilities based on request
by CIM3. The EC grants the Infrastructure Committee the right to take
technical decisions on these aspects and to implement the changes in
cooperation with new partners. The Committee will periodically report to the
EC until the changes are completed. One option that is being considered is
to use a server at the Laboratory of Applied Ontology (LOA), Trento, Italy
for the website and as file server. Mailinglist services may be hosted at
the University of Magdeburg, Germany. The EC decided to spend ca. 130 EUR on
renewing the web domain registration "iaoa.org" for 9 years. The EC will
further investigate about the advantages of the conference bridge from
Instant Teleseminar [1] as used so far based on a CIM3 account. The EC
decided to continue using it until June 30 and to test other options
(including Skype and Google talk) in July and August.

The EC grants 300 EUR to the CONTACT workshop for a best paper award
including free IAOA membership for up to 3 student authors.

In the near future the EC will establish the Election Committee for the 2014
EC elections coming up in September 2014, prior to the FOIS conference. The
Infrastructure Committee is verifying the possibility (and security) of a
1-click vote option.

Leo Obrst, EC liaison of the SWAO SIG updated the EC on the SIG initiatives.
There could be a connection with the Education Committee for the
organization of tutorials and of a textbook. The website of the SIG still
needs to be set up.

The EC was updated on the last news regarding the IAOA relocation.
Discussion covered next steps, among others what an agreement with the
designated host at University of Bern should comprise. As anticipated, with
the relocation a change of the Statute and Bylaws to obey with the rules of
the new country are needed. The President and Treasurer will collect and
integrate the notes on needed and possible changes. The Secretary will
examine further formal steps, e.g. as required for requesting tax exemption.

The EC confirms two policies. Firstly, job postings that are sent to the
Association, e.g. from external parties, for distribution through IAOA's
communication channels will by default not be distributed, neither via
website nor mailing lists. Members themselves are free to distribute job
requests and job postings to the iaoa-member mailing list. Secondly, the
Treasurer is allowed to make regular expenses up to 200 Euro without a
previous EC decision.

Mike Bennett and Gary Berg-Cross will receive a free IAOA membership for one
membership period due to their result in the Hackathon at the Ontology
Summit 2014.

References:

[1] http://instantteleseminar.com/

(End of Report)

---

One hundred fifth meeting of the IAOA Executive Council (EC)
Virtual Meeting of 16 June 2014

Attendees:
John Bateman (chair)
Oliver Kutz
Frank Loebe
Fabian Neuhaus
Leo Obrst

The EC was updated on organizational aspects of the FOIS 2014 conference and
the 2014 Interdisciplinary Summer School on Ontological Analysis (ISC). The
transfer of 3,000 EUR of IAOA student grants (for both events) to the
managing company crEAct.eve has been realized. Moreover, the ISC has
received the confirmation of third-party funding of 18,000 BRL (roughly ca.
6,000 EUR). The Secretary will coordinate with the FOIS organizers on a time
slot for the physical part of the IAOA Assembly. Categories of potential
prizes to be awarded at FOIS have been discussed.

The 2014 EC elections coming up in September were discussed. In particular,
the EC considered potential candidates from the Advisory Board for the
Election Committee.

The EC decided to accept the workshop Ontologies and Data in Life Sciences
(ODLS) 2014 as a Supported Event, to be held on Oct 07-08, 2014 in Freiburg,
Germany [1].

In preparation of the relocation of the Association's legal domicile from
Italy to Switzerland, Statute and Bylaws need to be adapted to the
requirements of Swiss law. The EC discussed about the question of how much
modification should be admitted beyond that what is required for
Switzerland. This item is to be resumed in a future meeting. One argument
for minimal changes is the easier maintenance of the consistency between
both documents.

The EC was updated on recent activity in the special interest groups (SIGs)
on Design Semantics, and on Semantic Web and Applied Ontology (SWAO). The
SIG on Design Semantics is advancing the preparations for its first SIG
workshop in 2014 in Bari, Italy [2-3]. Regarding the SWAO SIG, Andrea
Westerinen faces new commitments and must resign as a co-chair at this time,
such that Mike Bennett and Eli Abi-Lahoud are the two co-chairs of the SIG
since June 6, 2014. An initial version of a new SWAO SIG website was
created, primarily implemented by Naicong Li, and is under review by the
SIG.

In connection with the CIM3 infrastructure phase-out, the EC discussed
options of conferencing services, including chargeable options. The issue is
urgent and is continued in the next meeting.

References:

[1] https://wiki.imise.uni-leipzig.de/Gruppen/OBML/Workshops/2014-ODLS

[2] http://www.designsemantics.org/

[3]
http://cindy.informatik.uni-bremen.de/cosy/design-semantics/SIG-2014/about/i
ndex.html

(End of Report)

---

One hundred sixth meeting of the IAOA Executive Council (EC)
Virtual Meeting of 10 July 2014

Attendees:
John Bateman
Michael Gruninger (chair)
Marion Haemmerli
Oliver Kutz
Janna Hastings
Frank Loebe
Fabian Neuhaus
Leo Obrst

The technical infrastructure of IAOA is further undergoing changes as the
service provision by CIM3 phases out. Web and email server have been
transferred to the Laboratory of Applied Ontology (LOA), Trento, Italy and
to the University of Magdeburg, respectively. The EC decided to continue the
use of the conference bridge service provided by Instant Teleseminar within
2014 (for 67 USD p.m.) and to investigate other possibilities until January
2015. Switching may be necessary because the current Teleseminar conference
bridge provides access for 100 people only, which may be too limited, e.g.
for the IAOA General Assembly and for some Ontology Summit sessions.

The change in hosting services has led to unexpected expenditures (domain
registration, SSL certificate, conference bridge). On request of the
Treasurer, the EC decided to allocate 500 EUR originally provided in the
budget for "other event sponsoring" to cover costs emerging from changes in
hosting services.

The EC decided to allocate 500 EUR for sponsoring one keynote speaker for
the Supported Event Ontologies and Data in Life Sciences (ODLS 2014) [1].
The usual conditions (on reduced fees, reporting, etc.) apply.

The EC continued its discussion on the planned relocation of the
Association's legal domicile from Italy to Switzerland. To estimate the
administrative work after relocation to Switzerland, the EC has decided to
submit a preliminary tax exemption request to the Swiss authorities. Tax
exempted associations need not file annual tax declarations in Switzerland,
saving considerable administrative work. For that request, Statute and
Bylaws need to be adapted and will (partly) be translated into German, to
accelerate the formal process. The EC decided to prepare a first English
version of the modifications needed before starting the translation. Marion
Haemmerli will check the schedule of a tax exemption request with Swiss
authorities.

The EC decided to invest 200 EUR for prize artifacts for FOIS 2014.

Reference:

[1] https://wiki.imise.uni-leipzig.de/Gruppen/OBML/Workshops/2014-ODLS

(End of Report)