DRAFT
5.0
CHARTER FOR IEEE RAS
TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES
Revision
History:
This
(DRAFT) Charter summarizes the roles, objectives, duties, and
procedures of the RAS Technical
Activities Board, including its
officers, Technical Committees, and
Distinguished Lecturers. It is
intended to expand on the RAS Bylaws. Some aspects, such as the
revised role of Distinguished Lecturers, are
provisional until
approved by the TAB and Adcomm.
Working
with the RAS Boards of Publications, Conferences, Membership,
Industrial
Activities, and Finance, the Technical Activities Board
(TAB)
focuses on the research content of the Robotics and Automation
Society,
tracking technical developments and encouraging innovation
in: applications, theory, models, metrics,
experiments, architectures,
products, initiatives, and other technical
areas.
The
TAB is chaired by the Vice-President of Technical Activities
(VP-TA)
[provisional: and two Associate-VPs]. The TAB includes the
Chairs
and Co-Chairs of all Technical Committees, the Editors-in-Chief
of the Transactions and Magazine, the VP for
Conferences, and up to
five additional members appointed by the VPTA.
The
TAB reports to the RAS President and Adcomm and
coordinates the
RAS
Technical Committees (TCs) and the RAS Distinguished Lecturer(DL)
program.
The TAB maintains a website with links to the TCs
and DLs.
For
the purposes of evaluating progress of TC's and their
research
areas, the VPTA collects reports from each
TC and DL semi-annually and
provides summary reports to the Adcomm. The VPTA
also coordinates the
annual Young Professionals Lunch at ICRA.
RAS Technical
Committees
The
role of each TC is to serve as a focal point for research in a
specific area.
TCs encourage research in their area by
forming a
critical mass of researchers (via meetings, webpages, and email) and
organizing and promote
Activities (including meetings and publications
as summarized below) that foster dialogue on and
experimentation with
new results.
TCs also evaluate and communicate new
developments and
advise RAS officers on technical matters as
requested. TCs
advise
Conference
Chairs on potential sessions, workshops and tutorials,
plenary speakers, and other technical aspects
of conference content.
Technical
Committees are usually created in response to emerging
topics, methods, or applications, and can
also be created to
coordinate and encourage new
research on established topics, methods,
or applications.
See Appendix I: Establishing New Technical
Committees, below. According to the RAS Bylaws, TCs are evaluated
every 4 years in a sunset process whereupon
they are retired or
renewed.
See Appendix II: Sunset Review of Technical Committees
Each
TC is defined by a "scope" that describes its technical focus,
motivation, and areas of primary
interest. Each TC maintains a
membership list that includes
email contacts of those who have
requested membership (it is not necessary to be
an RAS member to be a
TC member).
Each
TC is led by a Chair (who is responsible for prompt communication
via email see below), and up to two Co-Chairs. TC
Chairs and Co-Chairs
are recommended by the TAB and approved by the
RAS President Elect.
Chairs
and Co-Chairs can serve a maximum of 3 consecutive 2-year
terms, and become eligible again after a
lapse of 2 years. TC Chairs
must be responsive to email from the VPTA and from
current and
prospective members. TC Chairs can be replaced by the VPTA after a
4
week warning if they are unresponsive to
communication.
TCs must be unbiased, open to different views,
and cannot be used to
promote commercial products or research
without clearly acknowledging
conflicts of interest and possible risks and
limitations of products.
"Technical
Activities"
Semi-annually,
each TC reports the "Technical Activities" that have
occurred in their area during the past six
months. In this context,
"Technical
Activities" relate to the TC research area and include:
1)
Publications (books, PhD theses, special issues or sections of
journals or magazines)
2)
Meetings (special workshops, tutorials, sessions, or symposia).
3)
other activities
Duties of the VPTA
The
Vice President of Technical Activities (VPTA) is elected by the
Adcomm and serves a 2 year term.
1. Encourage RAS Research
and Technical Activity
2. Organize and Chair
semi-annual TAB meetings
3. Coordinate TC Activity
4. Administer DL Program
(and funding requests)
5. Organize the annual
Young Professionals Lunch at ICRA
6. Serve as a reliable
point of contact for the TAB
7. Attend Excomm and Adcomm meetings
8. Administer budget for
TC promotion and website improvement
9. Administer budget DL
budget (check the amount)
10. Administer Annual Most
Active TC Award
11. Administer Annual Most
Active DL Award [provisional]
12. Coordinate and promtly submit semi-annual reports to the Adcomm
13. Maintain the TAB
website
14. Communicate at least
twice a year with TC Chairs
15. Promptly respond to
inquiries from fellow researchers and the press
16. Alert President about
major research developments
17. Propose New
Initiatives to the TAB, President, and Adcomm
18. Recommend TC Chairs to
the President-elect
19. Recommend
Distinguished Lecturers to the President-elect
20. Recommend two
Associate VPs TAB (one per region)
21. Recommend new TCs to the Adcomm
22. Recommend retiring TCs to the Adcomm
Duties of TC Chairs
Every
2 years, the incoming RAS President appoints TC Chairs and
Co-Chairs. TC Chairs and Co-Chairs serve for 2 years and
their term
is renewable for up to 2 additional terms
(eligible again after a
lapse of 2 years).
1. Serve as a reliable
point of contact for the TC via email
2. Coordinate and promtly submit semi-annual reports to the VP-TA
3. Submit one TC
Technical Progress Slide (see Appendix IV)
4. at least 4 weeks prior
to ICRA each year
5. Define and annually
update the TC scope
6. Maintain the TC
website
7. Maintain the TC
membership list (including email addresses)
8. Recruit new members
9. Attending semi-annual
TAB meetings (or sending a representative)
10. Communicate at least
twice a year with TC members via group email
11. Encourage research in
their area
12. Advise junior
researchers in their area
13. Track major
developments in their area
14. Promptly respond to
inquiries from fellow researchers and the press
15. Alert VP-TA about
major research developments
16. Evaluate new results
and initiatives when requested by the VP-TA
17. Recommend reviewers
when requested by EICs
18. Attend the annual
Young Professionals Lunch at ICRA
19. Self-evaluate progress
and consider retirement of the TC
If
a TC Chair will be away from email for more than 2 weeks, he or she
shall set up appropriate auto-reply messages
and appoint a Co-Chair to
handle communication during this period. TC Chairs can be replaced
after a 4 week warning by the VPTA if they
are unresponsive to
communication.
The
RAS Distinguished Lecturer Program
The
Distinguished Lecturer Program promotes the field of Robotics and
Automation
to the broad engineering community and to the public at
large. Five DLs
are appointed per geographic region (Asian and
Pacific,
Distinguished
Lecturers are proposed by the TAB and appointed by
the RAS President Elect and serve for a two (2)
year term, renewable
only in cases of exceptional performance. A budget is available to
support air transport when DLs
arrange speaking engagements with local
IEEE Chapters.
Duties of a
Distinguished Lecturer
1. Serve as an Ambassador
for the RAS, promoting the field of R&A
2. Arrange and Present at
least 1 Public Lecture per year
(Public Lectures are
aimed at non-specialists,
and can be given in
high-schools, senior citizens homes,
science fairs, science
museums, etc, ideally
3. DLs will present several
such talks per year)
4. Present other
lectures, for example to local IEEE Chapters
5. Attend annual Young
Professionals Lunch at ICRA
6. Respond to Press
Inquiries
7. Interact with relevant
RAS Technical Committees
8. Encourage young
students and RAS membership
9. Promptly submit
semi-annual reports to VPTA on lectures given
========================================================================
Appendix I:
Establishing New Technical Committees
It
is not difficult to establish a new RAS Technical Committee. The
first step is to submit an application with
the information below to
the VPTA.
This is then reviewed and brought before the TAB. If the
TAB
approves, it is presented for a vote at the next Adcomm
meeting.
Application for Establishing a New
Technical Committee
1.
Proposed Title
2.
Proposed Scope (under 200 words)
3.
Motivation (under 200 words)
recent technical developments, growing number of papers,
4.
Relationship to existing TCs (under 200 words)
(be specific, why
is it not possible to coordinate this topic
under an existing
TC?)
5.
Goals within 2 and 4 years (under 100 words)
6.
Proposed Chair and Co-Chairs (with affiliations and contact info)
7.
Confirmation that the Proposed Chair and Co-Chairs
have reviewed the
TAB Charter and are prepared to accept
the associated
Duties.
8.
List of 5 or more confirmed founding members other than co-chairs
Appendix II: Sunset
Review of Technical Committees
According
to the RAS Bylaws, TCs shall be reviewed at least
every 4
years by the TAB. The details of the review process include a
report
of all activity over the past 4 years, growth in
membership, and an
honest evaluation of the TC by TC Chairs on
the potential for retiring
the TC. TCs will be retired based on voluntary request by the TC
Chairs, or due to inactivity or
unresponsiveness of the TC-Chairs.
Appendix III:
Requirements for TC Websites
Each TC Website must contain:
1.
Title
2.
Scope statement (under 200 words)
3.
Current Number of Members
4.
Names and Affiliations of Chair and co-Chairs
5.
Contact Info for TC Chair (and others willing to be listed)
6.
List of Activities with links
7.
Links to related initiatives, labs, events
8.
Links for more info on results presented in
most recent TC
Technical Progress Slide (see Appendix IV)
9.
Archive of past TC Technical Progress Slides
10.
Optional: links to key papers and PhD theses
11.
Date when last updated
Appendix IV: TC
Technical Progress Slide
Each
year, EACH TC prepares an annual Technical Progress Summary that
is a one-page powerpoint
slide from the Technical Committee
illustrating examples of technical
progress in their area. This slide
is submitted to the VPTA at least 4 weeks prior
to ICRA each year, and
will be presented to the Adcomm
meeting associated with ICRA, at the
Young
Professionals Lunch, and may be printed and handed out to
attendees.
The purpose of the Technical Progress Slide is to increase
awareness of the TC, attract members, and inform
the RAS community
about interesting developments.
The
powerpoint slide should
clearly indicate the Technical Committee
name, URL, and Chair's email (in fonts that can be
read when printed 3
to a page).
The slides should graphically illustrate at least one
technical development (a new theoretical result,
application, product,
book, etc) (with appropriate citation). Further details on the
technical development should be available
through a link on the TC
home page.