CARLI User Group Committee
Report to the CARLI Board of Directors

December 5, 2005

Submitted by Belinda Cheek

Our committee has had two conference call meetings since my last report.  We have taken into consideration comments received from several individuals and groups within CARLI and are modifying and adding more detail to the draft ideas we shared at the Membership Meeting.  We have made one significant change since that original draft.  Originally we envisioned 5 separate I-Share User Groups, all reporting directly to the Coordinating Committee.  We decided to instead recommend one I-Share User Group that has the ability to create “sub-groups” as needed to address function/module specific issues.  By making this change we feel that we have made an improvement in two important ways.  First, the I-Share component of the User Group structure will have just one representative on the Coordinating Committee, rather than the five originally suggested.  We feel that this is more in line with the representation from other User Groups and SIGs.  Second, this structure will allow for cross-functional I-Share issues and planning to be dealt with at the I-Share User Group level rather than by the Coordinating Committee.  We felt that it would be more effective to continue to have one leadership group responsible solely for the coordination of all I-Share User Group activities, rather than expecting the Coordinating Committee, which should have a much broader focus, to take on this task.

Our committee will be meeting by conference call again on December 14, and we anticipate at least one additional meeting in early January.  We do feel that we are on target to have a final report to the Board by your January meeting.  It is my plan to attend your January 27th meeting to present this report and to answer any questions you might have.