To see Pre-meeting Email Discussion click here.
To see Minutes of the Meeting (including Motions considered and acted upon) click here.
These reports were presented for the 2008 Summer Policy Council Meeting and are listed alphabetically by the last name of the reporter. Reports are Acrobat (.pdf) files and can be read using Acrobat Reader available from http://www.adobe.com. Supplementary material may be provided.
Andersen, David VP Finance Report (Please see report.) Report
Andersen, Deborah Report of the VP for Publications (This report highlights the publication initiatives of the Society over the course of the last year and provides contact information for projects and individuals who work in publications.) Report
Campbell, Deborah VP Member Services Report (The VP Member Services office (Deb and Agata Sawicka, AVP) has a role on several current projects, including the dues structure, the nominating committee process, the conference fee structure, and the conference review process. This Policy Council meeting, we propose some new projects. The SIGs and the Diversity Committee fall under this office as well. An update on each of these is provided in the following report.) Report
Campbell, Deborah 2008 SIG report (Reporting (or lack there of) is becoming an issue. Thanks go to the three (out of nine) SIGs who reported on time this year: the Security SIG, the iSIG, and the IINC SIG. See the report for a summary of their activities, plus five individual SIG reports.) Report
Dangerfield, Brian Report of the Executive Editor of System Dynamics Review (My report for the Summer Policy Council to be held at the Athens Conference is attached.) Report
Eberlein, Robert VP Electronic Presence Report (The web submission system supports multiple conferences. Some adjustments have been made to electronic voting. The System Dynamics Wiki is open for editing.) Report
Groessler, Andreas Report of VP Meetings for summer PC meeting 2008 (See file for information about the upcoming SD conferences and related issues.) Report Supporting
Haslett, Tim Russian Chapter Report (Report from Russian Chapter is supplementary material to the Chapters Report) Report
Haslett, Tim 2008 Chapter Report (We continue to experience problems with reporting from the chapters. This year's response rate is half of last year's. There has been significant activity in Europe and South America.) Report
Hovmand, Peter Diversity Committee Report (This report provides an update to the 2004 analysis of membership demographics and summarizes several initiatives planned for the 2008 Athens Conference. Overall, diversity in the System Dynamics Society (SDS) is increasing along dimensions of gender and country of residence. Procedures for tracking demographic trends implemented in 2005 are yielding results consistent with previous analyses. Several areas are identified for further discussion and consideration. These include issues related to the selection of conferences and concerns about underrepresentation of younger members in SDS membership. For the 2008 Athens Conference, two activities are scheduled: "Diversity in the System Dynamics Society Roundtable" and "Sharpening Soft Skills for Better Modeling" workshop. We are also looking for new members to join the committee and would welcome any suggestions from the nominating committee or Policy Council.) Report
Miczka, Switbert German Chapter Report (please find the annual report of the German Chapter ) Report
Pugh, Jack Webmaster's Report (Last fall I replaced the left navigation column with a horizontal navigation bar with drop down menus. These allow more places to be reached directly from any page with the new menu bar than could be reached with the old scheme, plus they take less space. Currently I am studying the latest method of web development using css rather than tables. What this will contribute to our web site I don't foresee at this moment. Also I am looking into a site map. The current number of pages is huge and an inventory of them would be useful.) Report
Rahn, R. Joel Strategy Development Committee Report (Activities since Winter 2008 PC meeting) Report
Russel, Graham 2008 SDR Publisher's Report (Report on year 2007 including stop press to show the recently released Impact Factor number for SDR. )
Saeed, Khalid SDS Curriculum Committee Report 08 (A new curriculum committee was formed at the Winter 08 policy council meeting to substitute a similar committee created in 1999, which has been inactive for some time. Khalid Saeed was asked to reconstitute the committee, which was given the remit of defining the skill set needed for practicing system dynamics and delineating essential elements of curriculum at various levels for developing this skill set. Following colleagues have agreed to serve on this committee: Khalid Saeed (Chair), Pal Davidson, George Richardson, John Morecroft and Oleg Pavlov (Secretary). A web site has been created for the committee deliberations, although it has yet to begin its work. )
Saeed, Khalid SDS Awards Committee Report 08 (The SDS Awards Committee was created at the Winter 08 Policy Council meeting held at Worcester, MA., to oversee the increasing number of awards being administered by the Society. It is a standing Society committee. Its roles include formulating general policies for awards administration, recommending appointments to the specific awards committees, monitoring the prestige and quality of existing awards, approving new Society awards, and resolving issues related to awards as they arise. Following members were appointed by President Jim Lyneis to serve on the committee: Khalid Saeed (chair), David Andersen, Andy Ford, David Lane, Erling Moxnes and Kim Warren The committee has since conducted on-line deliberations and also created a blackboard site for extended discourse. A face-to-face meeting has been planned for Athens. Current issues under discussion include the following: 1. Maintaining prestige of the awards 2. Assuring quality of awards 3. Financial support for awards 4. Society responsibility for awards 5. Ceremonies for society administered and other awards 6. Policies and procedures for awards administration 7. Future role of the awards committee The committee hopes to finalize its preliminary recommendations on above agendas at the Athens meeting. )
Spencer, Roberta 2008 Athens Conference Report Report
Spencer, Roberta Annual Report on Home Office Operations for Fiscal Year 2007 (Final report uploaded 9/2/08.) Report
Warren, Kim Society Strategy Development (Please see SUMMARY Report for details and links to other documents.) Report
Zagonel, Aldo Albuquerque 2009 Conference Status Report to the Summer PC Meeting in Athens, Greece (A brief report was submitted on June 30th to the VP Meetings with a promise that this more detailed report would be uploaded. We look forward to your feedback and support, particularly with respect to the conference program (p. 2), special K-12 activities (p. 4), and action items (p. 5). We are seeking proposals for new program threads, particularly dealing with climate change, infrastructure resilience, emergency preparedness, and challenges of terrorism. We need help identifying interest groups within the Society who would like to hold special meetings on the "spillover" day (July 31st). We would like your input and help on offering paid tours to regional attractions.) Report Supporting