MEETING SUMMARY
CS-Can/Info-Can: Formation of a National Computer Science Association
Town Hall
January 8, 2016, 1:00 – 3:00PM EST
University of Waterloo
Mark Green Jörg-R. Sack mark.green@uoit.ca
sack@scs.carleton.ca
MARK GIESBRECHT opened the town hall and introduced the organizers.
JÖRG-RÜDIGER SACK described
- purpose of the town hall
- rationale behind the formation of a new CS organization,
- relevant initiatives of the NSERC Liaison Committee (LC)
- the history of interaction between the LC, CACS-AIC and the CS community leading up to this Town
Hall.
ELIZABETH BOSTON (NSERC Director) provided a brief statement of NSERC’s support of this communityled initiative.
MARK GREEN outlined the Working Group’s proposal for CS-Can, including:
- mission and role
- membership and governance
- request for research community’s input on CS-Can priorities, staff and budget.
Panel members SUSAN DAVIDSON (CRA Board Chair), RICHARD MACKENZIE (CAP VP) and ROBERT
SCHNABEL (ACM CEO) shared relevant experience from their own organizations, including:
- engaging community members
- advocacy and lobbying
- funding and membership
- encouraging diversity and participation from underrepresented communities
- challenges faced by their organization
- opportunities for cooperation between CS-Can and their organization.
JÖRG-RÜDIGER SACK and MARK GREEN opened the floor for questions and feedback directed to them and/or panel members. Below is a summary of questions. Please see the webcast recording to hear all questions and answers.
Further feedback can be sent at any time to JÖRG-RÜDIGER SACK and/or MARK GREEN .

Edward Chrzanowski:
What will be the relationship between CS-Can and Compute Canada?

Vic DiCiccio:

The membership model is unusual. Has the Working Group decided on this model deliberately, and why?

Alan Mackworth:
How many Canadian departments are members of CRA? Would CS-Can have a formal affiliation with CRA? Would you recommend Canadian departments drop their CRA membership?
Have you considered a president elect position, so the president is not coming in cold?

Ian Munro:
It would be good to have an opportunity for entire community to meet regularly. If main
Canadian CS conferences could co-locate and occur around the same time, this would be useful and a good opportunity for Canadian networking. Could CS-Can work on this?

Paul Ward:
First: We do not need another CS conference.
In terms of membership: Who are we advocating on behalf of, researchers or departments? It seems like departments from the current structure. Could we have something between department and individual memberships?

Robin Cohen:
Are we re-inventing the wheel with this organization? I agree that we do not have an advocate group with the Canadian government. However, the other roles CS-Can has envisioned for itself are already covered under CRA and/or individual departments’ mandates (e.g., recruiting students, promoting CS, industry partnerships). Is it possible to just use/share material from these sources instead of re-creating?

Alan Mackworth:
Do you see CS-CAN providing a home or services to the organizations such as CAIAC (Canadian
AI Society) that organize those conferences?
Also: We already have a joint national conference for AI, Graphics and Vision and Robotics.
It’s been going for 40 years. We have been collocating! CS-CAN should build on that success!

Charles Ling:
Computer Science (and Computer Engineering) is making a huge impact in the society by many start-up companies (Facebook, Google, Uber, etc) that utilize computer science knowledge and students.
I think Computer Science in Canada should put more emphasis on empirical research and industrial collaborations. Ultimately to make bigger impact to to the society and economy in
Canada.
What do you think?

Michael Shepherd:

The feeling in our committee is that if we started a new Canadian CS Conference, no one would come or people would not put their best work into this conference. We tend to go to ACM, IEEE conferences etc.
What is different about the CAP, that they can have a successful conference?
Does it attract international participants?

Benjamin Fung:
There is a number of iSchools in Canadian Universities. In some iSchools, >30% of their faculty members are funded by NSERC CS. Can they join CS-Can as "department" members?

Marsha Chechik:
First comment: I strongly applaud this initiative and support it completely!
Second: many of us join ACM because of reduced fees for conferences. I wonder if such a model is useful to explore.
Third: I cannot imagine a national conference!
Fourth: I have looked at the proposed composition of this new organization and am worried about the diffusion of focus. I firmly believe that the biggest visible outcome of the Canadian
Physics Association is extra NSERC funding for funding research. I believe we should focus, ideally on funding and lobbying.

Timothy Lethbridge:
Over 50 years ago, CIPS was formed with many of the same objectives, by early CS academics.
CIPS is still tasked with undergraduate accreditation in Canada. But academic membership in
CIPS became sparse 30 years ago, with academics opting to joing IEEE-CS and ACM to get benefits of conference discounts and publications. The Electrical Engineers had the same problem, and their Canadian organization simply became IEEE-Canada.
This raises the following questions: a) How can we get CS academics to join 'yet another' organization so it doesn't go the way CIPS has gone? b) Would this organization be willing/able to co-operate with CIPS on accreditation and/or offer to take over accreditation from CIPS?

Jon Dron:
I head the School of Computing and Information Systems at Athabasca U, but do not consider myself a computer scientist at all. I am interested in computing, applications of computing, information systems, the nature of technology, technology management, learning technologies, engineering, bricolage, and all sorts of relevant things, but none that could be rightly described as ‘science’. My big concern is that we put a lot of people off the subject by describing it as science when the majority of computing jobs and roles have very little to do with science.
‘Computing’ is a sufficient and all-encompassing term, IMHO.

I wonder whether the panel has any thoughts on whether an alternative nomenclature might make the organization more accessible?
JÖRG-RÜDIGER SACK outlined the next steps for CS-Can, including the launch in May 2016.
MARK GREEN and MARK GIESBRECHT thank all participants, panelists, NSERC and the host University of
Waterloo. Close of town hall discussion.