General NECC Timeline

Aug
Sep	Online call for participation opens Registration opens
Oct	Online call for participation closes
Nov	Housing reservations open
Dec
Jan
Feb	Program re-access
Mar	Super early-bird Registration deadline
Apr
May	Early-bird registration deadline
Jun/Jul	NECC

Deliverables

Aug	Answers to the following questions: Will your SIG host a forum at next year's NECC? If so, will you charge a fee? What date/time do you prefer? Will you have food and beverage? Will you limit registration to SIG members? Do you want your room set in rounds or theater?
Sep
Oct	SIG-Sponsored session proposals due
Nov	mid: SIG Forum titles and descriptions due
Dec
Jan	late: SIG-Recommended sessions spreadsheet due
Feb	SIG Forum presenters and descriptions finalized in the database
Mar	early: Menu choices for SIG Forums and Business Meetings mid: special A/V needs for Forums
Apr	mid: giveaways/prizes/awards ordered and shipped
May	SIG Officer NECC schedules/contact #s submitted to ISTE
Jun	Come to NECC!
Jul	late: Submit reimbursements before July 30

How to sign in to your Presenters menu on the NECC Website
1. Visit http://www.iste.org/necc
2. Click on the "for Presenters" tab on the top right-hand corner
3. Type in your email address and press "Enter"
4. Type in your password (which will have been emailed to you by someone from our NECC Staff. Click on "Forgot your Password?" if you need help remembering) and press "Enter"

SIG Forums

General Information:

Each year Division SIGs and select Forum SIGs are given the opportunity to put together a 1-3 hour forum at NECC. SIG Officers (usually in consultation with their memberships) come up with forum themes and line up speakers.

Forum planning typically begins at the previous NECC. Many SIGs poll their members who attend the Annual Meeting or Forum to see what kinds of topics they are interested in having covered.

Deliverables:

Beginning in early August, SIG Officers must provide ISTE with the preliminary details of their forum. The following questions should be able to be answered by the end of August at the latest:
1. Will your SIG be hosting a forum at NECC next year?
If so,
2. What is your preference for date/time? (please note that first preferences cannot always be honored, but the NECC team tries their best to fill the slots as desired)
3. Will you charge a fee?
4. Will you limit registration or will the event be open to all NECC participants?
5. Will you serve food and/or beverage?
6. Do you prefer a room set in rounds or theater?

By November, SIG Forum topics should be nailed down. SIG Presidents will have to submit a title in the following style:

SIGXX Forum: Descriptive Title
*please note: The title that follows the colon after Forum may not contain another colon (as in: SIGABC Forum: Eating Cupcakes: The Dangers of). The Title cannot exceed the 10 word limit, including the words SIGXX Forum.

The Forum description should be a concise paragraph explaining the main topic of the forum. There is a 25 word limit on forum descriptions.

By February, any and all Presenters and descriptions must be entered into the NECC database (for SIG Forums). Registration re-access occurs in Februrary, so having finalized information in the database is important for promoting the forums!

In mid-March, SIG Presidents will need to choose menus for their SIG Forums (as applicable). SIG Presidents will be sent menus for that year's conference center, as well as a suggestion for the amount of food they should order.

By early April, SIGs will need to submit any orders for gifts/raffle prizes/t-shirts/etc for NECC. By this time, SIGs should work with the SIG Program Manager to choose an item, have it branded, and figure out when to order/ship the item. For branding reasons, ISTE will be coordinating the purchase of all items of this type. Reimbursement will not be granted for items purchased without ISTE's coordination.

Forum presenters: If a SIG plans to pay or reimburse a speaker for their participation in a forum, a contract must be drawn up between the presenter and ISTE. Please discuss your plans for reimbursement with ISTE staff before making agreements with presenters.

SIG Annual Meetings

SIG Annual Meetings take place each year at NECC. They are an opportunity for Division and Forum SIG officers and members to get together and reflect on the past year of activity as well as plan for the upcoming year. Topic SIGs do not hold Annual Meetings (see: Birds of a Feather Sessions below). SIG Annual Meetings are a great opportunity to recruit new potential SIG leaders and volunteers. The contacts you make at these meetings very well may be the next group of members to step up into an officer role.

Each SIG has a $300 budget for annual meeting food and beverage. This is part of the SIG base budget.

In mid-March, SIG Presidents will need to choose menus for their SIG Annual Meetings. SIG Presidents will be sent menus for that year's conference center, as well as a suggestion for the amount of food they should order.

By early April, SIGs will need to submit any orders for gifts/raffle prizes/t-shirts/etc for NECC. By this time, SIGs should work with the SIG Program Manager to choose an item, have it branded, and figure out when to order/ship the item. For branding reasons, ISTE will be coordinating the purchase of all items of this type. Reimbursement will not be granted for items purchased without ISTE's coordination.

Birds of a Feather Sessions

Birds-of-a-Feather sessions are opportunities for like-minded educators to engage in discussion; they are not formal presentations.

Topic SIGs meet as Birds of a Feather groups for their first 2 years. They are guaranteed a spot on the BOF list (however, they must submit their topics on the NECC Website by the BOF deadline, typically in March), and they can use their wikis leading up to the NECC meeting to plan for additional conversation.

Topic SIG leaders are responsible for organizing their Birds of a Feather sessions including distributing information and coordinating volunteers. Due to the variety of SIG and membership events at NECC, ISTE staff members typically are not on hand to assist during BOF sessions.

Session Review

Each year, SIGs are invited to participate in the SIG review process. SIGs are asked give feedback to the lecture and panel sessions submitted for the themes/strands relevant to them. In late August or September, the National Program chair e-mails the president of each SIG to obtain one or more proposal review chairs (depending on the typical number of proposals submitted for each strand). The general guideline is no more than 40 proposals per chair. The review chair chooses a committee with the guideline in mind that three people review each proposal. The chair is given a number of proposals to recommend for acceptance and the final scores provide a ranking for the rest of the submissions for the category. (The Regional Program Chair provides review chairs for the themes/strands not covered by SIGs.)

Please note: The SIGs' recommendations do not guarantee sessions' acceptance. The National and Regional Program chairs make the final decisions (except for one "accept" for each SIG if the SIG itself has chosen to plan and submit a session proposal -- see below). The chairs use additional data such as prior year evaluations and room counts, the number of accepts for other categories, and other information they may have such as presenter's reputation at the regional level.

SIG-Sponsored Sessions

SIG-sponsored sesions are planned, submitted, and implemented by a SIG. This is optional, and SIGs are not required to propose and implement a session. However, each SIG is guaranteed one accepted SIG-sponsored session.

SIG-Sponsored Workshops

SIG-sponsored workshops are planned, submitted, and implemented by a SIG. This is optional, and SIGs are not required to propose and implement a session. SIG-sponsored workshops are not automatically accepted. They need to go through the review process along with all the other workshops.

SIG Picks

In late January, SIGs will have the opportunity to browse the entire list of accepted sessions and "flag" 20 sessions they think their membership will find most interesting. These selected sessions will be tagged in the NECC database and are searchable by SIG. SIG members just have to check the box next to their SIG in the Program Search and the query will bring up all the sessions that were tagged by that SIG's leader.

Post-NECC Review

SIGs will be asked after NECC for feedback in all areas in which they participated -- forums, workshops, sessions -- in terms of the events' planning and implementation. SIGs will also be asked to comment on the conference strands. All this information will be utilized to plan for the following year's conference.

Traveling to NECC

For most SIGs, NECC is the one time a year when officers and members can meet face-to-face to discuss the SIGs’ plans and direction. It is expected, therefore, that one officer from each SIG – no matter the SIG’s level -- attend the conference in order to run the Annual Meeting. For Forum and Division Level SIGs, this is a requirement, and in order to make sure this is possible, SIGs at these levels will receive a budget for officer travel to the conference. Currently, support for one officer is budgeted; beginning in Fiscal Year 2010, for Division Level, we hope to be able to provide support for two. As it is the responsibility of the Chair or the Chair-Elect to facilitate a SIG’s Annual Meeting, typically this funding will pay for that individual’s travel.

For this fiscal year, up to $1000 is budgeted for each SIG in order to support this officer’s travel, to be reimbursed following the conference. As per ISTE policy, there are certain restrictions and maximums dictating how this money can be spent. Up to $40 per day can be reimbursed for meals. Hotel and food can be reimbursed for days/nights associated with SIG business.
Itemized receipts must be submitted for anything requiring reimbursement. This is particularly important for meals as ISTE does not reimburse for alcohol.
The Membership Development Department’s budget also contains an additional allotment to pay for officer travel to the SIG Leadership Meeting, held on the Saturday prior to NECC. This money is designed to help cover the cost of additional nights’ stay in hotels for two officers from each Division Level SIG who attend the meeting. For NECC 2009, this is up to $450 per person.

Forms:
Expense Reimbursement Form:  ISTE+Expense+Reimb+Form.xls


Forms must be faxed or mailed to ISTE NO LATER THAN 2 WEEKS AFTER NECC:

Fax: 541.302.3780 [c/o Audrey Watters]

Mail: ISTE c/o Membership)
180 West 8th Avenue Suite 300
Eugene, OR 97401-3003