SRN Executive Minutes – January

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Minutes of SRN EC Meeting

Monday 27.1.2020 at 9 pm GMT/UTC (via Skype)

Circulation list: Carmen Sofia Brenes (CSB), Rose Ferrell (RF), Alexandra Ksenofontova (AK),
Rafael Leal (RL), Margaret McVeigh (MM), Paolo Russo (PR), Rosanne Welch (RW)

Agenda

1. Apologies for absence

RW and MM.

2. Minutes of previous EC Meeting for approval

  • Minutes Approved. PR to send final draft to RL for upload to website.
  • Note: the date of the January meeting was postponed to today (27th) from the date scheduled originally (20th) due to availability of most EC members.

3. Membership: quarterly update

  • RF reports healthy numbers and steady increase in the number of new members since last September with only a few members having signed off the network. Currently, membership
    stands at around 590.
  • RF suggests to establish stronger contacts with other networks in underrepresented regions – e.g. India (where she has a good contact) or Singapore, both English-speaking countries and therefore potentially good places to start with. The EC agrees this is a good idea.
  • ACTION – RF to proceed.
  • RF also points out that the procedure/protocol to join the SRN seems to be confusing for some people, due to the double-step process (i.e. joining the JISCMail mailing list and filling in the
    registration form separately). RF suggests to simplify instructions on the website as follows: 1) Keep only the link to JISCMail on the website; 2) As soon as a new member joins, RF receives a
    notification anyway; 3) At that point, RF follows up by welcoming the new members and invites them to fill in the form via email, which also makes the process more “personal”. The EC agrees this is a good idea.
  • ACTION – PR and RL to update the relevant section on the website.

4. News/update re:

a. SRN2020 Oxford Conference (PR)

  • PR reports that the shortlisting process should be completed by the end of this week (31 January) at which point he will notify all delegates via email. Although numbers are not final yet, SRN2020 has received 124 submissions, 112 papers have been shortlisted, with 120+ delegates from 36 countries from all continents (including some new countries: e.g. Paraguay, Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Georgia, Greece, Estonia, Mexico, South Africa). PR also reports that the keynotes should hopefully be secured and confirmed soon.
  • ACTION: PR to send JISCMAIL update to all members re: shortlisted papers before individual notifications are sent out + another update on keynotes as soon as available.
  • ACTION: AK to post updates of the above (i.e. shortlisting and keynotes) on FB as soon as available.

b. Newsletter

  • This item was postponed to the February meeting.

c. Website

  • RL confirms that a plugin has been added to the website which automatizes Newsletter alerts. This is now ready to be tested with the next issue.
  • Google Analytics has also been installed and RL has emailed some interesting data about the users of the website in the past few months. He will keep checking every few months, so we can
    have an overview by the end of the academic year.
  • ACTION: The SARP section should be nested under Resources, to make room for the upcoming SRN Awards section.
  • ACTION: Also under Resources, RL will add a section for “Local Initiatives” as per discussion in the December meeting. In order to start populating it: 1) AK will send one short para re: the German network plus link to website, which can then be used as a (flexible) template; 2) RL will then contact John Finnegan asking him to write a similar paragraph re: his initiatives.

d. Social media

  • Facebook page: PR has sent past membership statistics those to AK who posted them.
  • AK also shared her posting schedule for the upcoming weeks. The EC commends AK for her excellent work on the SRN Facebook page which shows some really good stats, with interactions
    growing from previous months.
  • ACTION (linked to 4a): PR to send AK some stats about SRN2020 once the shortlisting is complete.
  • ACTION (for future months’ meetings): when the EC posts the Call for nominations for the next election round, it would be good to include a description of the role of the ECR so as to attract
    interest for next year’s nominees to replace AK. AK can also suggest names of potential ECRs.
  • The Twitter account has been revived. The EC acknowledges that it will become more useful when SRN2020 will be approaching and that for now, it can be used to retweet basic info about
    FB postings and similar.

5. SRN Awards (PR, All)

  • PR reports he has contacted and liaised with the new Jury members with the suggestion of adding Book chapters from edited volumes as a new award category and to set up a subcommittee who
    could screen submissions to avoid excessive workload for the jurors. All three Jurors welcomed the idea but agreed to include the book chapters in the same category as journal articles. The EC agrees.
  • Also, the Jurors don’t think a subcommittee is necessary as they envisage that the book chapters should not add too much work; moreover, they’d prefer to assess the submissions as they are sent in to them, whereas with a subcommittee in place they should wait until the deadline and until the initial screening process is completed. The EC welcomes the suggestion and decides to keep the idea of the subcommitte only as a backup in case the submissions do eventually end up being too many in number, and following consultation with the Jury anyway.
  • The Jurors also confirmed that they did not use a specific template or rubric to guide last year’s proceedings. Instead, they designed a spreadsheet used by each jury member to vote the quality of each publication (1-5), then tallied up the votes to determine the winners. They confirm they are happy to do the same this year too.
  • The Jurors also agreed that the website should contain clear information and a Call for submissions.
  • All Jurors gave expressed permission to provide their contact details for submissions.
  • Finally, the Jurors agreed to revise the yearly time frame (and related deadline) for acceptable publications to 1 June/31 May to better accommodate their other commitments.
  • ACTION – PR to draft text with info about SRN Awards, categories, submission protocol, jurors’ email and mail addresses, and revised deadline. This will be run by the Jury first, and then sent to RL for upload on the website. Once this is done, AK will publicize the Call on the FB page. This should be done within a couple of weeks.

6. Suggested items for February EC meeting

  • a. Diversity and awareness
    b. Address membership in underrepresented regions
    c. Initiatives in specific regions (visibility, liaising, etc.)
    d. Elections: Call for nominations
  • Approved.

7. Any other business

  • There was no other business.

Date of next meeting: Monday 17 February, 9 pm UTC/GMT
Confirmed.
The meeting ended at 9:48 pm