The Association for History and Computing

	The Association for History and Computing
an organisation dedicated to the use of computers in historical research

The workshops of the AHC

What is an "AHC Workshop"?

Like many other smaller academic associations of self-organized interest groups, the international Association for History and Computing is organizing regular, more precisely: annual, international conferences, which attempt to bring the membership together and to produce for a for a wide, open minded and unbiased discussion of the area of interest for the association, i.e. History and Computing in general. The chosen field of the association, however, is currently in such a stormy development, that isolated annual meetings would be in danger to miss part of the ongoing intellectual discussion.

The international Association for History and Computing has, therefore, established a program of workshops, which shall lend permanence and flexibility to the intellectual efforts supported by the association. As a rule such workshops:

Will be announced at the Annual General Meeting of the AHC, when a member of the association notifies his or her intention to become a con ven or of such a workshop to one of the officers of the association, who in due course contacts the president of the association, who is to announce such an intention during his report on next year's programme.
Between any two annual conferences, a workshop may:
- Be "active". Such workshops are expected to produce volumes of c.100 printed pages in a conference of two days or more as material for discussion at the next annual international conference. Preparation of such a volume automatically guarantees the right (and the duty) for the convenor to organize a full 90 minutes session at the next annual conference, reporting on the work of the workshop.
- Be "corresponding". Such workshops are expected to organize academic discussion of their topic during the year between two annual conferences. At the annual conference they are expected to produce a 45 minute presentation, by at least two speakers of two different countries, covering the international development of their subject during the preceding year.
- Be "dormant". A workshop can remain dormant for only one year. As such it is expected to contribute nothing to the annual conferences, but will still be announced to be in existence to the membership.
- If a workshop has produced no tangible results for two successive years, it will be declared to be "disbanded" during the annual general meetings. It is assumed that convenors of disbanded workshops show specific reasons, why they should be entrusted with the organization of another workshop.
- If a workshop has been "active" for at least one year, the convenor may ask the officers of the international association to recognize it as having "fulfilled" its targets. Members active in a workshop having fulfilled its targets, will usually be acknowledged for their activities by a vote of thanks by the annual general meeting.
As a rule, the meeting of a workshop should have not less than six and not more than twelve participants. Rules are there to be broken: it is expected, however, that the convenor justifies such a neglect of rules while reporting to the annual conference.
As a rule, not more than 40 % of the participants may come from a single national or regional association; it is expected that a neglect of this specific rule is justified in writing to the officers of the international association at least one month before the international conference starts, at which such a workshop reports.
Convenors are expected to support members of the workshop in participating in the actual meeting, which is supposed to prepare the volume to be submitted to the annual conference. Usually it is assumed, however, that individual participants will find ways and means to contribute to their participation. "Local Hospitality", i.e., roughly covering the cost of local accomodation and possibly local meals, has generally been considered to be sufficient, however.
Convenors of recognized workshops will be expected to inform the organizers of the annual international conference at least four months before the start of the international conference, whether they will be active (i.e. organizing a full 90-minute session), corresponding (i.e. organizing a 45-minute session) or dormant during the year preceding the conference. Conference organizers are required to provide time-slots for activities announced properly in this way.
Convenors of workshops will generally consider members of the Association as participants in workshops: their primary duty, however, is to present a true picture of the current state of the art or discussion in a specific field; not to focus on placating individual members and their opinions. Reports prepared for the benefit of the membership by non-members are, therefore, accepable.
The officers of the international Association for History and Computing, represented in this case by the President of the Association, are required to make any reasonable effort to ensure that the proceedings of active workshops are being made available to the membership at the annual conference.
The President is expected to find an arrangement with the organizers of the annual conference to include at least the first volumes to be submitted in this way into the conference materials prepared for each fully paying participant of the annual international conference. How many volumes are made available, depends on the conference fee proposed by the organizers.