IEEE Leadership Wire
1 April 2008
The IEEE LEADERSHIP WIRE is a report for top-level IEEE volunteers about IEEE affairs and organizational information. It is intended specifically for members of the IEEE Board of Directors, key Board committees and the six major operating boards. The newsletter is sent the first week of each month.
CONTENTS:
*EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES BOARD PRESENTS WORKSHOP IN BEIJING
*IEEE BIOMETRICS COUNCIL - CALL FOR OFFICER NOMINATIONS
*HISTORY OF VOLUNTEER COMMITTEE SERVICE NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE
*IEEE LAUNCHES MEMBERNET ONLINE DIRECTORY
*IEEE QUICK FACTS HAVE BEEN UPDATED FOR 2008
*CONFERENCE AND CUSTOM PUBLISHING BECOMES EXPRESS CONFERENCE PUBLISHING
*FIRST CORPORATE-SPONSORED IEEE UNIVERSITY CONSORTIUM ESTABLISHED IN URUGUAY
*IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SOCIETY LAUNCHES NEW CERTIFICATION PROGRAM
*CALL FOR PROPOSALS: REAL WORLD ENGINEERING PROJECTS
*IN THE NEWS
**EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES BOARD PRESENTS WORKSHOP IN BEIJING**
On 22 March, the Educational Activities Board conducted a half-day workshop in Beijing at the invitation of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST). The workshop was part of the Engineering Education Accreditation Training Conference which brought together 240 accreditation experts from China's provinces in preparation for pilot accreditation visits by CAST in 2008 and 2009. CAST plans to apply for provisional membership in the Washington Accord (a mutual recognition international agreement between accrediting bodies) in 2009.
IEEE representatives to the event were Douglas Gorham, Educational Activities; Ning Hua, IEEE China operations; and IEEE volunteers Moshe Kam and Michael Lightner.
Drs. Kam and Lightner conducted the workshop in two parts: (1) The Fundamentals of Accreditation; (2) Experience with Existing Outcome-based Accreditation Approaches and fielded a large number of questions from the audience, most of which focused on the applicability of experience gathered in the U.S. and Western Europe to accreditation in China. CAST has expressed interest in future joint activities.
**IEEE BIOMETRICS COUNCIL - CALL FOR OFFICER NOMINATIONS**
The IEEE Biometrics Council has been recently established by the IEEE Board of Directors to address the highly interdisciplinary field of biometric technologies in research and applications. There are now a total of seven IEEE Councils, and 38 Societies, for a total of 45 Societies and Councils.
Approved by the IEEE Board of Directors in February, the IEEE Biometrics Council aims to synergetically coordinate and expand the activities that the individual societies are already carrying out and ensure a significantly higher visibility and standing of the IEEE in the growing field of Biometrics.
The Biometrics Council is seeking nominations for the following officer positions: President, Vice President for Technical Activities, Vice President for Conferences, Vice President for Publications, Vice President for Education, and Vice President for Finances. Nominations should include the complete name of the nominee, affiliation, mail address, phone, fax and email; the nominee's curriculum vitae in English should also be attached. Each nomination will be acknowledged within two working days.
Nominations should be sent by email to the Secretariat of the IEEE Biometrics Council, c/o Paula Dunne, Technical Activities, at p.dunne@ieee.org by 9 April 2008. Paula can also answer questions regarding specific qualifications for each position.
**HISTORY OF VOLUNTEER COMMITTEE SERVICE NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE**
For several years, the IEEE Nominations and Appointments Committee has maintained a printed manual containing a listing of the annual rosters for the IEEE Board of Directors, as well as all of its standing committees and boards. Most rosters date back to 1963, or to the year when the committee or board was first formed. An online version of this manual is now available, via members’ IEEE Web accounts.
Historical rosters of the individual committees are also available for download in PDF format, and a link to a listing of all past IEEE Award recipients is included at the bottom of the page. Contact Tamara Seeley, t.a.seeley@ieee.org or Julie Cozin, j.cozin@ieee.org, Corporate Activities, for more information.
**IEEE LAUNCHES MEMBERNET ONLINE DIRECTORY**
The IEEE has launched an online member directory designed to encourage peer-to-peer networking within IEEE membership. memberNet is the first step in a series of next-generation capabilities that will encourage virtual collaborations between members with similar technical interests, regardless of geography.
While the basic member profile in memberNet contains every member’s name and membership grade, each member can indicate by check mark what additional information they would like to also have appear. These may include technical interests, local Section, or IEEE Society affiliation.The memberNet directory, and its opt-in management, is accessible from myIEEE. For more information, contact Brian Pratz, Member and Geographic Activities, at b.pratz@ieee.org.
Read more about IEEE memberNet
**IEEE QUICK FACTS HAVE BEEN UPDATED FOR 2008**
The list of IEEE “quick facts” – including the number of IEEE members, publications and sponsored conferences – has been updated for 2008. The list is based on 2007 year-end numbers, and can be incorporated into presentations, background materials, etc. The information is located online at the bottom of the About IEEE Web page.
**CONFERENCE AND CUSTOM PUBLISHING BECOMES EXPRESS CONFERENCE PUBLISHING**
IEEE Conference and Custom Publishing Services is now eXpress Conference Publishing. The change comes as the department adds a wide array of new services and expands existing services. Current initiatives include new links to free author tools such as Xplore-compliant Microsoft Word and LaTeX templates on each PDF eXpress entry page, and the development of a new digital-only version of Conference eXpress. For further information, contact Gordon MacPherson, Publications, at g.macpherson@ieee.org. Find out more about IEEE eXpress Conference Publishing.
**FIRST CORPORATE-SPONSORED IEEE UNIVERSITY CONSORTIUM ESTABLISHED IN URUGUAY**
Four Uruguay universities have come together to form IEEE’s first corporate-sponsored university consortium. The consortium, funded by Uruguay’s telecommunications giant ANTEL, includes four schools, both private and public. ANTEL, which has its own corporate subscription to IEEE, provided funding for the venture with hopes of furthering engineering education and technological growth within the Latin American country and surrounding regions. Read the full story in What's New @ IEEE in Libraries.
**IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SOCIETY LAUNCHES NEW CERTIFICATION PROGRAM**
A new program to certify the competency, practical knowledge and skills of practicing communications engineers has been launched by the IEEE Communications Society. The IEEE Wireless Communication Engineering Technologies (IEEE WCET) Certification program has been designed to address the worldwide wireless industry’s growing need for qualified communications professionals. The program will help wireless professionals advance in their field, develop new opportunities in a global marketplace and certify their expertise with real-world applications.
The IEEE WCET Certification exam is administered online, and has a program fee of US$450 for IEEE members and US$500 for non-members. The first testing period is scheduled for late September 2008 at more than 500 testing sites located in 75 countries. The next testing period is slated for March 2009. Wireless areas including RF engineering, propagation and antennas; access technologies; network and service architecture; network management and security; facilities infrastructure; agreements, standards, policies and regulations; and fundamental knowledge are covered in the exam.
For specific program details read the full press release (PDF, 50.3 KB). Read more about IEEE WCET Certification.
**CALL FOR PROPOSALS: REAL WORLD ENGINEERING PROJECTS**
The IEEE is continuing with a second year of funding for the Real World Engineering program designed to develop projects in IEEE fields of interest for use with first-year students studying electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science and electrical engineering technology. The program seeks high quality, hands-on, team-based projects that focus on real-world problems whose solutions benefit society. Projects are expected to make electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science and electrical engineering technology more relevant to first-year students and illustrate how the work of engineers and computer scientists directly impacts society.
Completed projects will be disseminated by IEEE for use by faculty in the development of first-year courses. Projects should be stand-alone modules requiring a combined 10 to 30 hours of lecture and laboratory instruction, and should be easily replicated at institutions worldwide with reasonable cost and effort. Authors of completed projects will receive an honorarium from IEEE. Submissions are open to all faculty members who teach Electrical Engineering (EE), Computer Engineering (CE), Computer Science (CS) and/or Electrical Engineering Technology (EET) at a university that grants degrees in accredited EE, CE, CS and/or EET programs. Deadline for abstracts is 15 April 2008. Review the call for proposals or contact the Real World Engineering program at realworldengineering@ieee.org
The IEEE, its members and its products and services are mentioned frequently in journalists’ reports on technology and the engineering profession. Here are just a few recent references.
18 March – WIRED SCIENCE.COM – A story discussing Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s death included reference to his final interview – conducted by IEEE Spectrum Radio’s Saswato Das. Clarke, author of 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY, discussed terraforming planets, space elevators and the search for extraterrestrials. Clarke died 18 March at the age of 90. Listen to the audio clip or read the IEEE Spectrum article.
12 March – CNN.COM – Numerous key online and broadcast media outlets ran stories on a paper published at the 19 May IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy which discussed a new technology used in monitoring defibrillators, which may be vulnerable to hacking and reprogramming. The study discusses how the technology may cause the devices to stop functioning. FOXNEWS.COM, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD and THE PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER also published stories. Read the full article.
11 March – THE NEW YORK TIMES – “Keeping Iraq in the Dark,” an editorial by IEEE SPECTRUM editor Glenn Zorpette, was featured on the publication’s editorial page. The article examines the factors regarding the lack of electricity in Ira q, specifically the differences between Iraq’s Ministries of Oil and Electricity. Read the full article.
***********************************************************
IEEE LEADERSHIP WIRE staff contact:
Francine Tardo
IEEE Corporate Strategy and Communications
Tel: +1 732 465 5865
Fax: +1 732 981 9511
Mailto: f.tardo@ieee.org
IEEE. Fostering technological innovation and excellence
for the benefit of humanity.
***********************************************************
