Operating Plan

Solicit more participation in the TC meetings and publicize Web site for membership development. This is efficiently carried out through the technical review process of the submitted papers for each conference: we could send an announcement soliciting participation in the TC meeting to the relevant authors who work in this technical area.
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● Longer-term vision from 2-5 years out based on the ComSoc Strategic Plan:
This committee sponsors papers, participates in the organization of conferences, and promotes technical workshops on those aspects of communications that pertain to the innovation, development and application of algorithms and electronic and photonic devices or subsystems for generation, processing, storage, transmission, recovery, and presentation of communications signals. In so doing, the committee also has as a goal the professional development of committee members and other practitioners that work in the above areas. As for expanding the technical fields, the committee would like to attract more interest of signal processing technologies from the applications such as multimedia mobile and QoS-guaranteed multimedia on Internet.
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Working Policies and Procedures

● Definition of elected and appointed officer positions:
The committee has three elected officers: Chair, Vice Chair, and Secretary. Each position is for two years. The Chair reports directly to the VP-Technical Activities, in accordance with the ComSoc Bylaws. The Chair represents SPCE to TAC and to any COMSOC committee or board, provides endorsement for technical conferences that require technical co-sponsorship to COMSOC. Vice Chair support the Chair and take responsibility of the Chair in his/her absence. The Secretary will take care of membership list and keep meeting documents and meeting minutes.
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If a TC officer position becomes vacant before normal conclusion of his/her term, the remaining term shall be filled by special election of the TC. If such a special election is not held before or during the next regularly scheduled meeting, the VP–TA, in consultation with the President, shall appoint someone to serve the remaining term.
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Positions filled shall be for completion of the interrupted term.
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(At the discretion of the TC, there may be additional elected or appointed (non-officer) positions. In no case shall there be more than 8 elected officers; there may be as many appointed positions as is necessary for proper operation of the TC.
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● Nomination and election policies and procedures:

Term:
The nominal term for Chair, Vice-chair(s) and Secretary shall be two years. Any officer can be elected to the same position for one additional, contiguous term (i.e., continuously serve in any particular officer position for a maximum of four years). TC officers can be elected to a different officer position, but in no case shall one person continuously serve as a TC officer within the same TC for more than eight consecutive years.
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Nomination:
To facilitate the election of officers, the TC establishes an ad hoc Nominations & Elections Committee, made up members of the TC. The N&E Committee shall come into existence at the TC meeting first preceding the actual election and shall be dissolved after the election and installation of officers.
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The members of N&E Committee consists of past chairs and other TC members assigned by the current Chair and the number of the N&E Committee members should be more than 3 and less than 5.
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The purpose of the N&E Committee is to offer candidate names for officer positions. It is desirable that the N&E Committee identifies at least two candidates for each officer position.
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Eligible candidates for an officer's position are those who have already been voting members of SPCE. (A definition of voting members is given in another paragraph below.)
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The N&E Committee shall announce its slate of candidates at least two weeks before an election is to be held. Such announcement shall be via email (preferred) or "snail-mail." At any point, members shall be able to submit nominations via email/snail-mail by communicating to the current Chair, Vice-chair, Secretary, or directly to the TC N&E Committee. Such "write-in" candidates should receive at least three supporting "signatures."
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During an election, actual nominations from the floor shall also be invited. All candidates, however they are identified, will have consented to being nominated and will have shown a willingness to serve, if elected. Again, it is desirable that extemporaneous, from-the-floor nominations, receive support from three or more members at the meeting.
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The TC election may be held electronically (e.g., email). Approval of this measure is by simple majority. It is necessary to register to vote and two-thirds of those registered must vote. ADDITIONALLY ELECTRONIC VOTING IS LIMITED TO TC VOTING MEMBERS. An officer of the TC shall take responsibility for conducting the election and reporting election results to the TC membership, VP - TA, Secretary of TAC, and ComSoc headquarters in New York City.
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It is desirable that biographies and position statements of candidates be available to members. Candidates shall be permitted to "advertise" their candidacy on the TC email distribution list. All candidates shall be informed of election results and be permitted to appeal the outcome.
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Election:
TC elections shall be administered by the TC Chair, or in his/her absence, any other elected officer.
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In the case of two candidates for a position, election is by simple majority. For the case of more than two candidates, selection proceeds through a series of elections: at each stage, the individual garnering the fewest votes is eliminated, until only two remain. In the event of a tie, votes shall again be cast until the tie is broken. If that is not possible, the TC person running the election (any of the elected TC officers) shall cast a tie-breaking vote.
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TC elections will normally be open. However, upon the request of any member, the election shall proceed by a secret ballot. Votes will be counted by at least one officer of the TC and any other member (officer or not). A record of votes cast must be retained for post-election audit purposes.
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Voting:
A TC voting member shall be any individual who has: 1) "attended" (physically present, by teleconference, or via electronic means for virtual TC meetings) two or more of the prior five regularly scheduled TC meetings; or 2) contributed substantially to the TC activities. The voting member of the second category should be recommended by TC members and should be approved by the TC Chair.
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(The TC Secretary shall maintain an attendance list for each such meeting. That attendance list shall be part of the Meeting Minutes prepared and issued by the Secretary. Understandably, for TCs who have not maintained attendance lists in the past, the provision cannot be instituted until five meetings have elapsed. In that case, a TC shall specify an interim definition of membership and send that information to both the VP–TA and Secretary of the TAC. A list of members shall also be maintained and appended to Meeting Minutes.)
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A TC voting member shall be permitted to vote electronically for a specific individual and position. (This has obvious limitations if live elections are held and the list of candidates changes during the course of the meeting.)
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Proxy voting shall be permitted. Each person asking another to vote on her/his behalf shall inform a TC officer of this arrangement prior to the election. An actual voter shall represent no more than three proxies.
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● Conducting TC meetings:
Meeting is usually scheduled in the evening of the first day of technical sessions during ICC/GLOBECOM, twice a year. Meeting announcement is delivered through e-mail to the members. Any one among the people who visited SPCE's home page in COMSOC WWW who would be interested in the committee's activity can attend the meeting announced.
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Our meetings, twice a year, are advertised at least 6 months in advance on the web and again via the email list shortly before ICC/GLOBECOM. It is desired that the TC secretary invite new members who will present papers at ICC/Globecom to the TC meeting. An advance notification will be possible since the TC knows the accepted papers related to the TC technical areas in advance through the representative to the TPC.
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● Budget and expense policies and procedures:
Any officer shall make a proposal for an expense when he or she thinks that the TC needs budget to accomplish its mission. If the proposal was seconded then the TC Chair solicits discussions among TC members. If there is no objection, the proposal will pass the TC discussions. If there is any objection, TC members vote and simple majority is adopted as a policy of decision. If the proposal is passed, then the Chair finally approves the proposal and submits it to the VP-Technical Activities. The expense procedure is based on the COMSOC procedure. The TC secretary shall keep the expense report and record.
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● Maintaining membership list:
The TC Secretary maintains the SPCE TC membership list. Entries in the list are generated from two primary sources: 1) the attendance sign-in list at TC meetings at ICC and Globecom conferences, 2) e-mail received from links at the TC web page. The TC does not actively protect privacy since the membership list is available to all at the TC web page. Anyone who does not wish to have his or her information listed on the web site may have it removed promptly by notifying the TC Secretary. Updates to the list are generated mainly by the same method as the initial entries. Periodically the TC Secretary may request assistance from IEEE ComSoc staff to update e-mail addresses through IEEE membership records.
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● Information dissemination activities:e. The secretary or other designated member maintains it.

SPCE has WWW site. The secretary or other designated member maintains it.

URL is: http://www.comsoc.org/socstr/techcom/spce/