Meeting called to order: 6:25 p.m.
Special Award
David Binder opened the meeting by making a special award to Bill Kalsbeek
for outstanding service to the SRMS during the past year. He acknowledged
Bill’s work in authoring an SRMS page on the World Wide Web, arranging
for a new section logo, and developing a laptop presentation based on the
What is A Survey? brochures. He was a major contributor to the What
Is A Survey? series, and in general went way beyond the requirements
expected of a Publications Officer. David presented Bill with a t-shirt
emblazoned with the new SRMS logo and a plaque that contained a citation
describing his outstanding personal contributions to SRMS.
David also cited three other Section members for honorable mention for their contributions this year:
Treasurer’s Report
Terry DeMaio distributed copies of the treasurer’s report. She noted
two large expenditures that were made during the past year: printing of
the What Is A Survey? brochures and publication of a proceedings
containing the contributed papers from the Survey Measurement and Process
Quality Conference. She noted that neither interest nor royalties from
the conferences co-sponsored by SRMS have been posted to the books yet.
The current cash-on-hand balance is $21,431.
Publications
Bill Kalsbeek gave the publications report. SRMS now has a home page
on the World Wide Web, which serves as a primary vehicle for communicating
between members. A number of informational items have been placed on the
home page. He would like to get feedback from section members about what
they would like to see on the home page. He also noted that we need a separate
person to serve as the Webmaster.
Bill described the laptop presentation he developed based on the first three What Is A Survey? brochures, and invited people to view a demonstration of it after the meeting. It is appropriate for presentations to schools, clubs, civic associations, etc. The Section contributed money towards the development of the laptop presentation, and it will be available for use by Section members. Interested persons can contact Bill and get the discs to make their own presentations.
Next Bill discussed the SRMS Proceedings. He noted that only half of
the presenters put their papers in the Proceedings, and made a pitch for
encouraging paper presenters to do so. There have been some problems with
people who do not follow the prescribed ASA format. Papers may be rejected
if their layout strays too far from the prescribed format. The Proceedings
constitute the Section’s main source of income and expenses. Bill encouraged
the membership to take a role in marketing the Proceedings. ASA will provide
assistance. He invited members to contact the ASA office if they have marketing
ideas. He also noted that we had a three-year agreement with the American
Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), which involved including
relevant AAPOR papers in the SRMS Proceedings. This has not resulted in
an increase in Proceedings sales. We need to ask AAPOR to help market the
Proceedings, and we may need to ask for page charges from AAPOR contributors
if the situation does not improve.
What Is A Survey? Brochures
Fritz Scheuren reported that the fourth pamphlet in the What Is
A Survey? series (Judging Quality of a Survey) is out. It has received
a favorable reaction, and is helpful outside the statistical community
as well as inside. The series has expanded beyond its original scope (nine
are now planned) and we need to find alternative sources of support. This
has been an extremely successful initiateve, and we want to promote and
expand it.
Newsletter
Wendy Alvey announced that the July issue of the Newsletter was recently
issued, and apologized for the plethora of e-mail messages to Section members
who receive the electronic version of the Newsletter.
1996 Conference Program
Cathy Dippo reported that she received approximately 130 abstracts
and organized 35 sessions. About 40 percent of the papers were not received
by the June 1 deadline for submission to the ASA office. This resulted
in a time-consuming effort to track down the non-compliers.
1997 Conference Program
Mary Mulry noted that SRMS will have five invited sessions for next
year’s conference. They are pretty well organized: one will be a synthesis
of CASM II, a small conference focusing on the cognitive aspects of survey
measurement to be held in the spring; one will evaluate the quality of
U.S. business establishment frames (Dun and Bradstreet, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, and Census Bureau); one deals with calibration with many benchmarks;
one deals with issues related to confidentiality, data security, and privacy.
Two other sessions are also suggested: business customer satisfaction surveys,
and surveys and environmental statistics. One of these will be entered
in the invited paper competition.
A new feature of the program next year will be invited poster sessions.
Mary noted that she is open to suggestions, and Bill Kalsbeek’s laptop
presentation was suggested as an appropriate topic. She also issued an
invitation for Section members to organize special topic contributed sessions.
Council of Sections
There is a new on-line directory up on the ASA World Wide Web page.
The passive option has been exercised in developing the directory. All
members are included unless they tell ASA they do not want to be included.
SRMSNet
David reported that the SRMSNet is now up and running this year. There
have been flurries of interchanges on such topics as software packages
and probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling. It has been a great
success as a way of getting information out to members quickly. It is open
to anyone, even non-section members. Instructions to join are included
on page 6 of the July Newsletter. He expressed thanks to the University
of Maryland, which provides service to administer the net.
Results of Election
David expressed contgratulations to the newly-elected members of the
Executive Committee. They are as follows: Chair-elect--Donald Rubin; Program
Chair-elect--Betsy Martin; Secretary/Treasurer--Lars Lyberg; Publications
Officer--Chuck Proctor, and Council of Sections Representative--Colm O’Muircheartaigh.
New Fellows
Serveral SRMS members were inducted as new ASA fellows. They include
Mike Brick, Gerry Gates, Phil Kott, Ken Pollock, Poduri Sam Rao, and Clyde
Tucker. Thanks to Jon Rao for chairing the nominating committee. Barbara
Bailar will chair next year’s nominating committee. She would welcome any
suggestions for new fellows.
Continuing Education
It was reported that there was one SRMS-sponsored Continuing Education
(CE) course this year, on list-assisted telephone surveys, taught by Bob
Casady, Jim Lepkowski, and Clyde Tucker. However, Donna Brogan noted that
she taught one on the selection of random samples for surveys, that was
not advertised in the Newsletter. (NOTE: it was later determined that Barry
Graubard, a member of both SRMS and Biostatistics, proposed Donna’s course
as well as one on SUDAAN, which was given by Rick Williams and Vince Iannacchione).
There was a discussion about the funding mechanism for CE courses. There is a new mechanism in place for next year, which will lessen the likelihood that proposed sponsored courses will be rejected by the CE Committee. Sections will have a choice of sponsoring a course or not. If they choose to sponsor, they take a risk of losing money if the courses don’t turn a profit (generally, about 25 people). If they choose not to sponsor, they take no risk and accrue no profit. An alternative would be to sponsor workshop, either 1/4 day or ½ day. This involves less work by ASA, and the Section gets no profits.
The Section could take a role in making sure the courses are successful.
One way would be to co-sponsor courses with other sections. Then both sections
could share the risk as well as the profits. Anyone with ideas for courses
should contact Steve Miller or Clyde Tucker.
Conferences
The InterCASIC Conference will be held in San Antonio, Texas in December.
The preliminary program has been mailed to all Section members. There will
be 31 monograph papers, 87 contributed papers, 12 demonstrations, 48 technical
papers, and some workshops. The SRMS website is also advertising the conference,
and David encouraged members to attend.
A conference, which would be the next in the series, has been proposed
on the topic of nonresponse in surveys. Planning is in the very preliminary
stages. The Executive Committee expressed its confidence and support in
principle, and has requested more information before making a financial
commitment.
Strategic Planning
The ASA is promoting the idea of strategic planning. They have formed
a Strategic Planning Committee, and are seeking input toward deciding the
future of ASA in five to ten years from now.
Other Business
Wendy Alvey noted that the Board of Directors has approved a membership
survey. Anyone with ideas should contact someone on the Membership Committee.
Anyone interested in providing comments on the ASA constitution should
get in touch with Rod Little.
A question was raised from the floor about the process of identifying topics for the What Is A Survey? brochure series. The idea is to piggyback onto the work of Section members, people who have or are close to completing a project. The next one to come out will be on pretesting questionnaires.
Kirk Wolter, the incoming SRMS president, commended David for his work
during the past year. He noted that David has put lots of energy into furthering
the interests of the section this year.
Meeting adjourned: 7:30 p.m.