▐ SERVICE STATEMENT

My approach to the service component is to be responsible and contribute something useful to the department, the university, and the research community.  Here I outline the basic strategies that I have taken.

First, if I am assigned to a departmental committee, then I try to contribute and produce something useful.  This is motivated by my strong desire of wanting to help improve our department.  Further, I would like to improve how the department operates in some areas, or address things that the department has not been doing.  For example, the standardization of technical report series, the creation of a database for all colloquia, talks, and defenses, the renewal of the department newsletter, and the annual CSE award ceremony and reception are good things for a department to have, outreaching to a wider audience for recruitment and fundraising, giving a sense of belongingness to the students, and acknowledging faculty, students, and staff who have done well, and so on. 

Second, in terms of outreach activities, especially those involving meeting with parents and high school students, if the department does not have someone to help out with those activities, I tend to volunteer.  This is because I want to help present our department well to potential students coming to our department and their parents. 

Third, for most of the services that I have contributed to the department, I have tried to put in place procedures or tangible outcomes that can be institutionalized at the department level or adopted by those who will be involved with these services in the future.

Fourth, I have participated in campus-wide activities.  I was a proposal reviewer for the National Center for Information Technology in Education (NCITE) in 2003, a proposal reviewer for the Initiative for Teaching and Learning Excellence in 2005, a member on the Instructional Technology Advisory Committee (ITAC) of the Office of Academic Affairs in Fall 2004, and a faculty member of the Instructional Technology and Internet-Based Education Faculty Group at the College of Education and Human Sciences.   

Fifth, I have tried to be involved in international conferences and journals as program committee members and reviewers.  Further, I have organized international workshops as chairs, and served on an NSF review panel.

Sixth, I have tried to be responsible and timely.  If I agree to be on a committee, I will contribute.  This has been true in my services.  I also try to be timely such that things get moving. 

Departmental Service

In terms of departmental services, I have contributed to the CSE department rather significantly, for which I was awarded the Special Department Chair Award in 2004.   Here I highlight some of my contributions.

·         CSE Technical Report Series: I created an online standardization scheme of the department technical report series such that faculty can publish their technical reports online and the technical reports are numbered automatically.   The software was co-developed by the system administrators at CSE.

·         Colloquia Database:  When I was the colloquium committee chair, in addition to arranging for colloquium speakers, I also created our colloquia website, and the corresponding database.  This database was filled with information of all talks since around 1995 (including all M.S. and Ph.D. defenses, faculty candidate presentations, and colloquia).  Later, working with the system administrators, we also created an upload page.  After designing the database, at that time, with no helpers, I personally manually entered information (title, abstract, speaker, sponsor, speaker affiliation, date, time, venue, etc.) for all talks held between 1995-2003 (including colloquia, MS and PhD defenses, faculty recruit talks, etc.).  This database and the upload page have been incorporated into the CSE web management process. 

·         CSE Department Newsletter:  In 2002, I renewed the CSE Department Newsletter.  Before this renewal, there had been a roughly 10-year absence of the newsletter.  After discussions with the department chair and comments from the department, with the help of the secretarial staff, we designed the template for the newsletter.  I also served as one of the editors of the newsletter between 2002-2005.  This newsletter allows us to keep in contact with our alumni, other universities, and both students who are here already at the university and those who might be thinking about attending our department.  However, the publication of the newsletter has stopped since Spring 2005.  An e-version of the newsletter is due to come out Fall 2006. 

·         Annual CSE Award Ceremony and Reception:  In 2003, I initiated the award ceremony as a venue through which the CSE department would be able to recognize and appreciate the graduating students, and honor the faculty, staff, and students who had performed well in the previous year.  With help from the secretarial staff and input from the department chair, we designed the ceremony and the reception, from the brochures to certificates, to CSE special tokens, and to the award nomination and selection process.  My goal is to have this ceremony as part of our CSE traditions. 

·         Outreach Activities:  As part of outreach activities, I have participated in CSE Day, Regional ACM Programming Contest (was Assistant Coordinator in Fall 2004), Big Red Roadshows, Lincoln Public Systems workshops, visits to local high schools, meetings with parents and high school students who visit the UNL campus, meetings with high school teachers, and so on.  

·         Key Departmental Committees:  I was a member of the Graduate committee (2002-2003) and have been a member of the Curriculum committee (2002 – present).  These are key committees at CSE that each has significant and immediate impact on the department.  I have also been on two Ph.D. Qualifying Exam committees (Artificial Intelligence; Database and Information Retrieval).  These are time-consuming committees.  For example, members of the Graduate committee have to review hundreds of graduate applications; members of the Curriculum committee have to review course specifications and make changes to the curriculum.

·         Advisor:  I have been faculty co-advisor for the UNL ACM Student Chapter since Fall 2004.  This is an important responsibility.  It is beyond simply supervision and providing advice.  It is also about helping students grow and encouraging them to do something for the good of a community, not just for themselves.  The UNL ACM Student Chapter’s website is at http://acm.unl.edu

·         Director of the National Center for Information Technology in Education:  I was appointed Director of this center or NCITE in Fall 2005.  Since then, I have re-organized NCITE in terms of personnel structure as well as the goals and vision.  I have also re-vamped the content of NCITE’s homepage.  I have also tried to strengthen the relationships between NCITE and the College of Education and Human Sciences.  I have also submitted internal and external proposals to seek sponsorship for NCITE activities.  The NCITE website is at http://ncite.unl.edu. 

University Service

I am a faculty member of the Instructional Technology and Internet-Based Education faculty group of the College of Education and Human Sciences.  The group’s goal is to bring Information Technology into the classrooms and how to do it to benefit both teachers and students in terms of pedagogy, curriculum, and management.  We have designed and put in place graduate programs in instructional technology and internet-based education at the College.  I also served on the University’s Office of Academic Affairs’ Instructional Technology Advisory Committee (ITAC) and helped review the proposals for the Initiative for Teaching and Learning Excellence in 2005.  I have also been co-advisor for the Malaysian Student Association (NUMSA) at the University since Fall 2005.  This is a very active student organization on campus.  Please refer to http://www.numsa.org.  I was one of three finalists for the UNL Student Organization New Advisor of the Year in 2006.

Professional Service

I have been a reviewer for 14 journals, including IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, IEEE Transactions on Education, and IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering. 

I am a reviewer and on the program committee of 12 conferences and workshops.  I have also chaired two AAAI Workshops and served on the organizing committee for an AAAI Fall Symposium Series workshop.  These organized workshops are:

·         Organizing Committee, 2001 AAAI Fall Symposium Series: Negotiation Methods for Autonomous Cooperative Systems

·         Chair, Organizing Committee, 2002 AAAI Workshop on Coalition Formation in Dynamic Multiagent Environments at 18^th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI’2002)

·         Chair, Organizing Committee, 2004 AAAI Workshop on Forming and Maintaining Coalitions and Teams in Adaptive Multiagent Systems at 19^th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI’2004)

The above workshops have played a significant role in the multiagent systems research in the area of forming coalitions in dynamic environments.  Each workshop had 10-12 papers and about 20 participants.  Each workshop resulted in a published volume of the workshop papers.  

I was on the 2005 National Science Foundation Course, Curriculum, Learning and Instruction (CCLI) Program’s proposal review panel.  I also reviewed proposals for the National Center for Information Technology in Education (NCITE)’s seed grants program and Ireland’s Science Foundation (2000-2001).

Related to CS education, I was also on the SIGCSE Subcommittee on Discrete Mathematics (2003) and ITiCSE Working Group on Concept Inventory for Discrete Mathematics (2006).