AUTHOR: Chris Edmondson-Yurkanan, chris@cs.utexas.edu, +1 512 471 9546 DATE: last modified 6/10/2003 CONTENTS OUTLINE: 1. History of SIGCOMM student travel grants 2. Estimating expenses per person (and what expenses do we cover?) 3. Details on Student Travel Grants financed by NSF note: in 97 and 2000, the S.T.G. Chair's institution waived the overhead (Georgia Tech, U Mass Amherst)... 4. Details on Student Travel Grants financed by Corporate Donations 5. Grants from Other Governments' Research Institutions: note: EU support for student travel should be pursued at CEC but they need > 12 months notice 6. Acknowledging the Financial Support 7. Student Dinner 8. Example Letters ******************************************************************************* 1. HISTORY OF STUDENT TRAVEL GRANTS 1994 Ian Aykildiz (NSF $10k) 1997 Ellen Zegura (NSF, SIGCOMM the SIG?) 1998 Craig Partridge (NSF, SIG?) 1999 Jayanta Dey (?, SIG?) approx. 30 awarded. 2000 Brian Levine (NSF $25k, NOKIA $10k, SIG $20k) 97apps, 33 awards (16 students rcvd NSF awards, and 17 rcvd other funding, at least 6 were from non-US institutions) 2001 Christos Papadopoulos (CISCO, SIGCOMM) xx apps, 34 awarded 2002 Ion Stoica (NSF $20k, CISCO $5k, SIG $1950) 63 apps(47US,16nonUSbased), awards: 25 students from US institutions, 4 other (CN,NZ,2 EU) (7 women awarded, 26 different institutions awarded) 2003 Dan Rubinstein (NSF $25k, HP Labs $2.5K, NEC Heidelberg 1.5K Euros) (at most 57 apps, 46 in US, 11 outside of US) accepts: 20 at US institutions, and 4 other (2 EU, AU, Brazil) OTHER: 2001 IMW 2001 (SIG) 2002 IMW 2002 (SIG) 2002 HOTNETS-I Chris Edmondson/Larry Peterson (NSF $20k?) 2002 NetEd Workshop 1: Jim Kurose (NSF $20k?, award to 16 faculty) ------------------------------ 2. ESTIMATING EXPENSES PER PERSON (and what expenses do we cover?) Most of the following is based on the 2002 travel costs to Pittsburgh managed by Ion Stoica. * Registration: the grant covers the costs of student registrations, which means that ideally we should cover the REAL cost of an attendee (not the subsidized student registration). Note, we do ask the students to register for the event, and then be reimbursed. (Registration is NOT complimentary.) We fund only the conference registration, not tutorials or workshops. (Note for 2003, we certainly *want* them to register for at least a workshop, but we're not providing funds for it.) * Transportation: This should specifically be guestimated based on the student's location and will be the one variable in the formula. The rest of the amount will be the same for all students. This covers airfare (or train) and any bus transportation. Please refer the students to suggested sites for finding discount fares. Travel within Europe is apparently greatly discounted with the advent of "Southwest Airlines - style" companies/service. (and of course the train may be cheaper?) * Hotel Nights: When SIGCOMM's main venue was W/Th/Fri (until lunch) we covered 3 hotel nights (T/W/Th). Although cheap air fares in the US often require a Saturday night stay over. For 2003 though, with the venue: T/Th/F all day, then we might be obligated to cover: M/T/W/Th/F. ??? In 2002 sharing a room was encouraged but not required as follows: the student was allocated $ for 3 nights in the hotel for a single room or could use the same $ for sharing a room for 5 or 6 nights. By not requiring the student to share a room, Stoica said that it would be easier for him to manage. * Small Perdiem: Often there has been a small per diem but note that SIGCOMM does provide lunches and Reception and Banquet. But, it has been deleted when times/money are tight. * Be very careful about the currency that you want to use... $$ or the currency of the conference? * 2002 Details: Students were given a maximum amt to spend on hotel, maximum amount for airfare, registration, and nothing else. (See the sample invitation letters at the end of this web page). Here was the final justification for the 2002 strategy: >Also, this year we made some shortcuts to increase >the number of awards. In particular: > >- We cover only three nights at the hotel, >instead of five as initially proposed. If they >have to stay more (and they have to stay more if >they attend tutorials or need to stay over Saturday >night) they are supposed to share the room. > >- We have eliminated the $50 meals > >- With respect to the airfares we used the cheapest >airfare that we could find on the web in _each_ case. >In most of the cases we used expedia.com to get these >estimates, but in other cases in which the figures were too >high we did a more thorough search. For instance for China >we used flychina.com, and for New Zealand we used a combination >between the cheapest fair to LA and then from LA to Pittsburgh. >In _all_ cases we assumed a Saturday night stayover. ------------------------------ 3. Details on Student Travel Grants financed by NSF GRANT PROPOSAL: * In 97 and 2000, the S.T.G. Chair's institution waived the overhead (Georgia Tech, U Mass Amherst)... In the old days we erroneously thought that NSF wouldn't compensate the students for registration, and we thought that this support was only for International travel. Neither of these are true in 2003. * I have some of the older grant proposals if you want a copy. REIMBURSEMENT: * The institution who got the grant handles the reimbursement. And this institution MAY ask for SSN, etc. You'll probably use that institution's reimbursement form... ------------------------------ 4. Details on Student Travel Grants financed by Corporate Donations SOLICITING SUPPORT: * Here's an old solicitation letter, which would be a follow up to a phone call. Don't do any solicitation without coordinating with the conference's fund raising volunteer, and typically they do the fund-raising for you. http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/chris/sigcomm/conf/planning/student.travel/solicit.letter * Currently, the ACM SIG Program Director for (our SIG) SIGCOMM (not the Program director for our conferences) is ACM's contact with the corporation once they have agreed to fund our conference with a student travel grant donation. They can send any paperwork the corporation needs, usually a Purchase Order (PO)..... and will acknowledge the gift once the check is received. REIMBURSEMENT: * For industry money, the chair of the student travel grant should handle the trip reports (receipts etc) and confirm that the amount requested is <= to the amount granted. The grant chair tells ACM to whom to send the checks (incidentally, for these trips we use the ACM trip report forms so this all flows through the ACM trip reimbursement process). * I think that the same person who handles the donation handles the reimbursement, but maybe wrong. See the following URL: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/chris/sigcomm/conf/planning/student.travel/acm.info.txt * if these students are at US institutions, then they will need to fill out an ACM form.... * For the international students, we need their U.S. social security numbers (some may have them from working in the U.S. at some point) or the tax ID where they pay taxes and their address. (If they do not have a tax id, I need an email or note saying they do not have a tax id.) ------------------------------ 5. Grants from other Government's research arm: note: EU support for student travel should be pursued at CEC but they need > 12 months notice ------------------------------ 6. Acknowledging the Financial Support As chair, please make sure the following happens: * main sponsor web page (sometimes we divide it up into sponsor and student travel grant sponsor, but I don't think that's necessary???) * student travel web page * student travel invitation letter * proceedings sponsor logos * proceedings general chair letter * advance program * final program Sample wording JM Smith: E.g., "We would like to thank the U.S. National Science Foundation for their support of the student travel award program. This support significantly improves student participation in SIGCOMM and ensures the membership of the next generation in our research community." ------------------------------ 7. Student Dinner/Mixer Many SIGCOMMs have provided a student mixer on one of the free nights of the conference... sometimes after the reception, but there's been some variability. The Student Dinner started as a dinner for the few students who received a student travel grant, and grew in 1998 to a dinner for all students, plus the Program Committee were invited, and the Sigcommex... The conference paid for the dinner out of corporate donations. Note: some of our older/ex students have said that it was so useful, that they would gladly pay for the dinner themselves. In 1998 the group walked to a Chinatown restaurant in Vancouver (after the Tues reception); in 1999 the group walked to an Indian restaurant in Cambridge on Wed eve (since the social event was on Tuesday that year). In 2000 the dinner was also on Wed. since the Wasa could only be scheduled on Thurs. In 2001 the group went to a restaurant across the street from one of the 2 conference hotels (after the Tues reception): Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery. In 2002 we didn't have a dinner. In 2003 the dinner was on Tuesday (after the first day of the conference) - and students took the tram to a German brewery. In 2004, dinner was Monday after the reception. The Student Travel Grant Chair has often been the planner of the event and "host", coordinating the details with the conference committee. Goals: * pick one of the first nights of the conference - so that students can meet each other early on. * Publicize it in the Adv Prog if possible. (In 98 and 2003 we did not make the decision until after the Adv Prog was distributed.) * Pick a place that's easy to mix in. * When PC members come, it's often the case that one PC member sits at each table. Note - some PC members feel over scheduled with activities, and so use this night for private discussions. * Beer and wine have been provided * Example invitation to the non-students: SIGCOMM TAC, Executive Committee, and '04 Program and Executive Committees, We'd like to invite you to attend the student dinner at SIGCOMM'04. The dinner will take place at the Greek Cusina Restaurant in Portland, starting at 7:30pm on Monday August 30, toward the end of the welcome reception that runs from 6-8pm that evening. The dinner is a great opportunity to interact with the many students attending the conference. I'd like to encourage you to attend and to mingle with the students (resisting the urge to catch up with old friends, in order to make new ones!). This is a wonderful way to help build a sense of community and connection with the newest players in our field, so please do try to attend. The dinner is complimentary for you, but we'd appreciate if you'd e-mail Wu-chang Feng (wuchang...... ) if you're likely to attend, so he can have an accurate head-count for the evening. See you in Portland! -- Jen ------------------------------ 8. Example Letters SIGCOMM Conference Letter: (official letter for 2002, with sample travel value) http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/chris/sigcomm/conf/planning/student.travel/invite.sigcomm2002.txt HotNets Workshop Letter: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/chris/sigcomm/conf/planning/student.travel/invite.hotnets2002.txt ------------------------------