Report of the WebmasterThe Webmaster was mostly concerned with keeping the website timely; i.e. posting news, making additions and changes as circumstances dictated etc. A reasonable amount of work went into reorganizing things on the site so that finding relevant information is somewhat easier for members. This was in response to feedback from members. Also a Search Engine has been added that allows searches restricted to the site to be carried out. There was a reasonable amount of interaction and coordination with the webmaster for ISBA 2000 and the Proceedings of this meeting and this worked out well.There is good evidence that the site is proving useful as usage has steadily increased. Currently we are receiving about 1200 visits per month. A big project this year was setting up an online election facilty. Two votes were conducted using this to select a new logo for ISBA as well as the annual ISBA election. This worked quite well with only minor problems that were quickly and easily sorted out. Software has been written (in Perl) to carry this out. If the site moves from its current home at utstat.utoronto.ca it will be easy to install this on a new host machine. A new webmaster won't be required to do any programming but will need a bit of advice from systems personnel. The site still requires more material providing background information on Bayesian statistics for the general public. Rob Kass's committee made a number of recommendations along these lines and the webmaster enthusiastically supports these. One of the recommendations was that a new position of Web Editor be created to oversee this in addition to the webmaster. The current webmaster feels that the webmaster position should be an appointment by the Web Editor and serve for the term of the Web Editor rather than being an independent position. This will ensure that the site is run with a uniform set of standards and will avoid any conflict over who is in charge. The current webmaster has served in the position for three years and it is probably time that somebody with a fresh set of ideas and initiatives take over the site. I will be happy to continue to maintain things until a new structure is in place but I think this should be an early inititative for the new Executive Committee as a response to the Kass Committee report. Mike Evans |