Policies & Procedures Manual and Operations Handbooks: Section 15

15.1 MEMBERSHIP The Fellow Evaluating Committee (FEC) chair shall be appointed by the Board of Governors upon recommendation of the president-elect for a one-year term. Chairs shall not serve for more than two consecutive terms, where each term is one year. Vice chairs shall be appointed by the Board of Governors upon recommendation of the president-elect and in consultation with the FEC chair.  The number of vice chairs should be approximately equal to the average number of received nominees the past three years divided by 15. Each vice chair shall not serve for more than three consecutive terms, where each term is one year. The chair and vice chairs over the years shall be chosen from different technical areas in the Computer Society’s fields of interest, and shall represent a diversity of geographic regions, gender, and employers. The chair shall determine the number of committee members required to meet IEEE requirements for Fellows evaluations. Each nominee shall receive at least five evaluations, as per the IEEE Fellow Committee Operations Manual. Each Society evaluator will be asked to evaluate approximately eight nominees. All members of the FEC, including the chair and vice chairs, shall be active IEEE Fellows and Computer Society members. Additional eligibility requirements for FEC chairs, vice chairs, and members are specified in the IEEE Fellow Committee Operations Manual, see section 9.5.5.1 and section 9.5.6.1. 15.1.1 Appointment of Committee Members The chair, in consultation with the vice chairs, shall start the selection and appointment process of the members of the committee no later than October and complete the process no later than 31 January of the following year. Appointing members of the committee as early as possible is critical since they may not nominate or serve as references for any candidate to be evaluated by the committee. Members shall not serve for more than three consecutive terms, where each term is one year. By 31 January, the president shall provide the IEEE Fellow Chair and IEEE Fellow Activities staff the name of the chair and the complete FEC roster. 15.1.2 Coverage of Technical Scope Committee members who serve as evaluators of Fellow candidates should be chosen so that as a group they provide sufficient coverage of current technical topics likely to match with the expertise of current Fellow candidates. In selecting the evaluators, the chair is strongly encouraged to seek recommendations from the Society’s vice presidents and technical committee chairs. 15.1.3 Balance of Background Members of the committee should have a diverse background of experience so that candidates in all Fellow nomination categories (Application Engineer/Practitioner, Educator, Research/Scientist, Technical Leader) may be fairly evaluated. 16.1.4 Length of Service No member of the committee, including the chair and vice chairs, shall serve for more than five consecutive years, regardless of the position held. 16.2 RESPONSIBILITIES As specified in the IEEE Fellow Committee governing documents, the goal of the Society FEC is to provide the IEEE Fellow Committee with a critical technical evaluation and an assessment of the degree of qualification of Nominees referred to that Society by the nominator. This evaluation shall be performed by the Society FEC by completing the Society Evaluation Form. 15.2.1 Responsibilities of Committee Members Committee members must determine whether the work of each candidate is recognized and considered outstanding in the field of activity of the IEEE Computer Society. Second, they must provide a succinct statement of the candidate's outstanding contribution which qualifies him/her for Fellow grade. Third, they must rate the candidate's contributions relative to the contributions of IEEE Fellows. The IEEE Computer Society FEC shall limit its evaluation to the technical contribution of the candidate. Other contributions, such as professional activities, are taken into account by the IEEE Fellow Committee. The FEC members do not receive the Fellow Grade Reference Forms completed by the referees. These forms are viewed by the IEEE Fellow Committee only. 15.2.2 Responsibilities of Chair The chair and vice chairs shall be responsible for assigning committee members to evaluate nominations in their areas of technical expertise and experience. The chair shall not perform evaluation nor score nominees, but vice chairs are allowed to perform evaluation and score nominees. The chair shall conduct a meeting of the vice chairs in Executive Session to review the initial ranking of all candidates. The initial ranking and scores of all nominees should be shared with all evaluators to compensate for the fact that each evaluator assesses only a small percentage of nominees. The goal would not be to get a formal approval from the evaluators, but to give an opportunity to evaluators to flag potential mistakes or clarify disagreements so that chair and vice chairs could decide if additional evaluations for individual candidates may be needed. The vice chairs should take into account the comments of evaluators but the final decision on scores and ranking rests with the vice chairs. With the approval (simple majority) of the vice chairs, the numerical score and ranking of a nominee can be changed. The chair shall submit the vice chair approved final ranking and evaluations to the IEEE Fellow Committee by the deadline specified by the Fellow Committee (typically, mid-June). The scoring program shall then automatically forward the submitted forms to all evaluators. 15.3 COMMITTEE CALENDAR Each year the chair and vice chairs shall determine the calendar of FEC deadlines for assignment of nominations to committee members for evaluation, initial ranking of candidates and final ranking of candidates, and communicate the calendar to the FEC. Recommended Fellow Evaluation Process Calendar July -August   - Board of Governors approves chair and vice chair appointments upon the recommendation of the president-elect. September  - Chair receives committee guidelines and IEEE Computer Society PPM section from Society staff. September  - Identification of potential committee members is started by chair and vice chairs. October  - Invitations to committee members are initiated by chair and vice chairs. November  - Chair submits information about Fellows program to be published in Society communications and website. January  - Selection of committee members is completed. President reports the name of the chair and the full list of FEC members to the IEEE Fellow Chair and IEEE Fellow Activities staff. 1 March, midnight ET  - Nominations due to IEEE Fellow Committee. Mid March  - All nominations are made available to the Society FECs, and assignments of nominations to evaluators can start. Early-to-mid April  - Chair and vice chairs can start assigning nominations to committee members. Mid-to-late May  - Evaluations completed by committee members.  Vice chairs review the evaluations for completeness and consistency, create the initial rank and score of candidates, and share it with evaluators for feedback. Chair and vice chairs meet in executive session to review initial ranking of candidates.  Vice chairs evaluate feedback of evaluators, finalize rank and scores of nominees, and approve it by simple majority Mid June  - The vice chair approved final rankings and evaluations are submitted to IEEE Fellow Committee by chair. PPM home>