Administration and Communications Subcommittee Report, AGM2013

Report to the MeCCSA AGM, 10 January 2013

Administration and Communications Subcommittee

For 2012 the committee has comprised of:

Einar Thorsen (Convenor), Bob Franklin, Stephen Lax, Karen Ross, and Sue Thornham.

This year the committee has concentrated primarily on the newsletter, website and mailing lists. Other administrative concerns have been addressed either by individuals (e.g. Karen Ross for finance and Sandra Harris for membership), or through special working groups that are reported upon separately and therefore not included in this document.

Newsletter

• Two issues published in 2012, issue 18 in April 2012 and issue 19 in November 2012.
• The newsletter is now simultaneously published as PDF and HTML.
• Three-D Issue 18: 28 pages; Focusing on media reform and HE challenges; In total 22 authors involved in writing for it.
• Three-D Issue 19: 35 pages, longest issue ever published; Focuses on academic publishing with 6 contributions from academics, and 4 from publishers; In total 38 authors involved in writing for it.
• The newsletter continues to be based on a template design, with cost of production for each issue at £300 (adjusting template and photographs). This represents a significant cost-saving and more predictable expenditure over previous arrangement.

 

Website

• Significant content has been added throughout the year, including news and events.
• MeCCSA Statement of Research Ethics now online.
• Studying Media, Film and Communication at University leaflet now online.
• Open Conference System (https://ocs.www.meccsa.org.uk/) has been implemented to handle abstract submission and review for MeCCSA conferences. The system is indexed by Google Scholar, so accepted conference submissions will show up there.
• The Postgraduate Network journal has been migrated successfully to the main MeCCSA website (https://ojs.www.meccsa.org.uk/networkingknowledge).
• Joe Flintham continues to provide technical support for the website and ad-hock development such as the OCS and OJS work mentioned above.
• British Library now includes the MeCCSA website in its UK Web Archive (https://www.webarchive.org.uk/).

 

Mailing lists

• Posts to the MeCCSA mailing lists are now promoted throughout our website, by displaying the 5 most recent messages where relevant.
• The Discussion List page now contains our acceptable usage policy and links to the full JISCMail Acceptable Use policy.
• MeCCSA list currently has 2,333 subscribers
• MeCCSA CCES Network, currently has 124 subscribers
• MeCCSA Disability Studies Network, currently has 87 subscribers
• MeCCSA Policy Network list has 179 subscribers
• MeCCSA Postgraduate Network list has 592 subscribers
• Lists for MeCCSA Women’s Media Studies Network, Postgraduate Network, and Radio Studies Network (this existed prior to merger) are managed by each respective group.