On September 15, 2008, the Council of Communication Associations (CCA), of which ICA is a member, met in Washington, DC, to discuss a number of issues of importance to our association and our field as a whole.
CCA is an umbrella organization composed of eight different communication associations that is designed to pool resources, coordinate field-defining efforts, and offer a sounding board for executive directors and presidents of the member associations (http://www.councilcomm.org).
Pressing issues have been the National Research Council (NRC) report on doctoral programs in North America and the ISI listings and impact factors for communication journals. I'd like to provide an overview of what ICA is doing in concert with CCA member associations. Sam Luna and I represented ICA at the September 2008 meeting.
With regard to the NRC, the reports and data release have been delayed again. At this time, the methodology report is being released to institutional (e.g., graduate deans and directors) representatives in late October 2008. The reporting process promises to be challenging for the field of communication, which is being analyzed using several different program headings (e.g., mass communication). The NRC will rank schools by quartile. NRC continues to plan for a symposium on the results, perhaps in the first few months of 2009, and CCA will have a representative there.
CCA has sponsored two task forces designed to analyze data and prepare institutional profiles, baseline data, and other reports. It is exciting to be able to obtain data about our programs since we have not yet had this kind of snapshot of our field. Initial analyses of the data should provide profiles of different communication programs and then specific indicators and predictors of quality programs. Ed Fink, U of Maryland, has agreed to oversee data analyses for these two committees.
With regard to ISI journal listings and impact factors, CCA representatives' meetings with ISI personnel have been very productive. Right before our September 2008 CCA meeting, Linda Putnam (ICA), Mike Roloff (NCA), and Charles Self (AEJMC) had a very productive meeting with James Testa (Director of Editorial Development for Thomson-ISI) and other ISI staff on Friday, September 12, 2008. There are currently 53 communication journals in the ISI database with anticipated further additions (see CCA website). Linda Putnam has agreed to continue as point person for CCA in working with ISI to enlarge the communication journal list through new additions and through cross-listings.
CCA also is in the process of putting together task forces to review the ISI Scope statement for our field (i.e., ISI's determination of journal content) and to provide indicators of quality in humanities journals. ISI documents will be posted soon on the CCA website.
As President of CCA, I'd like to thank Linda Putnam, U of California at Santa Barbara, for her work on the NRC and ISI initiatives over the year and her continued support of CCA and our own association. Further information about these initiatives and specific task force members and work will be noted in future ICA Newsletter columns.
