from ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 4 Issue 3 (pp.5-7)
The Student and Young Member Presidential Group
By Jennifer Nicks, Ph.D. (Co-Chair, ISSMGE SYMPG)
The Student and Young Member Presidential Group (SYMPG) was created by ISSMGE President Jean-Louis Briaud to get input and ideas from students and younger members (S/YM) across the globe. The group originally consisted of a total of 18 members (3 members from each of the 6 regions) who were nominated by each regional Vice President (and approved by the President in November 2009). The members are either students or younger members (< 35 years old). Since the formation of the group, the group has dropped to 16 members while waiting for 2 new nominations. The current members are (in alphabetical order by surname):
Mahnoosh Biglari (Iran)
Joost Breedeveld (Netherlands)
Lucy Coe (New Zealand)
Silvia García (Mexico)
Erdin Ibraim (UK)
Daniel Jirásko (Czech Republic)
Young-Hoon Jung (Korea)
Baribeop Kabari (Nigeria)
Samuel Laura Huanca (Peru)
Xiojun Li (China)
Marcos Montoro (Argentina)
Edwin Moreno (Colombia)
Jennifer Nicks (USA)
Suzanne Powell (Canada)
Imen Said (Tunisia)
Brendan Scott (Australia)
The first task of the group was for each member to come up with some ideas on how to make ISSMGE more attractive to S/YM and get them more involved in the organization. From the long list of ideas, we narrowed them down to 4 that we are currently working on within the group. The 4 ideas are:
1) Continue to develop the ISSMGE Website
2) Improve communication between the ISSMGE and S/YM
3) Increase YM involvement in Technical Committees
4) Develop and increase S/YM Membership in ISSMGE
To undertake these ideas, 4 subgroups were created within the SYMPG. The subgroups are tasked with the what/why/how to implement the broad ideas set forth by the SYMPG. The chairs of each subgroup prepared a paragraph to describe these activities and future plans:
Subgroup 1: Continue to develop the ISSMGE Website (Chair: Dr. Xiojun Li)
Subgroup 1 has identified some problems of ISSMGE website from the perspective of student and young members. These problems can be classified into three categories: ease of use, contents and functionality. Subgroup 1 has also proposed some solutions for these problems:
» Introduce more professional resources into website. Also, it will be beneficial to spread ISSMGE unique culture and attract more young people if we can introduce the masters of ISSMGE from the beginning to now. A more vivid introduction of the branches of our association, such as organization structure, research directions, key leader’s video introduction, great achievement, milestone event and so on will be equally important.
» Add popular functions, such as RSS news subscription, members’ blogs and forums, into ISSMGE website. Visitors of ISSMGE webpage should have an opportunity to get automatically generated news that could be sent by e-mail. Subscribing for the newsletter could be done easily through the web form and through submitting emails.
» Ease of use of website, such as page layout, color design and interactivity, plays an important role in a site’s quality. Improvement on these aspects will have positive effects. On the home page up to date news in format of short articles may be included. For example newsletters from the society, scientific articles, invitations for upcoming events etc. However, it would be challenging for webmasters to update a homepage regularly.
Subgroup 1 contacted GeoForum.com co-founder Dr. Rainer Massarsch for possible collaborations in improving the ISSMGE website. Dr. Rainer Massarsch agreed that young geotechnical engineers are interested to learn, to ask questions and to get competent responses. He provided very valuable comments in addition to the ideas presented above. His comments are: (1) Discussions need to be monitored by trustworthy experts. ISSMGE TCs could monitor discussion covering their respective area. Also, to host a successful discussion forum, one needs to develop a sustainable concept. Common problems include fake questions, a lot of spam and web engines trying to highjack e-mail addresses; (2) a lot of information in the form of youtube or other videos which could be organized according to specific topics (earthquakes, liquefaction, landslides, ground improvement etc.) can be added to an area of website; and (3) Geo-commercial companies and their activities can be linked to other area of the website. These companies may have privilege of publishing information about their company.
Subgroup 1 also consulted ISSMGE Secretary General Prof. Neil Taylor on how the ISSMGE website works. Prof. Neil Taylor said they are thinking of ways in which the website can be improved and he said the work of Subgroup 1 is very helpful.
Future plans include keeping a close contact with Prof. Neil Taylor and Dr. Rainer Massarsch, interacting with the Innovation and Development Committee and working out a proposal for the improvement of ISSMGE website.
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