Wednesday, February 3, 2010

APA Suggestions

I have two simple suggestions for changes to benefit the APA and its members, but I don't actually know how to go about making these suggestions to the people in charge. If anyone does know how ordinary members can officially propose changes like this, please let me know.

Change 1. Adopt an exclusively PDF-based distribution scheme for Proceedings and Addresses, with hard copies of the issues containing Division meeting programs available at the Division meetings. Or, if not, adopt a principally PDF-based distribution scheme, and allow people to opt-in for receipt of paper copies. Or, if not, at least make PDF access available to any member, and make it very easy for individual members to opt out from receiving a paper copy.

I know I am not the only person to think that there must be a better way for the APA to use the resources that go into producing and mailing hard copies out to all of the APA members, but even if, somehow, eliminating the paper copies doesn't save money, it would still enormously less wasteful, right?

Change 2. Allow members to sign up for e-mail notifications/reminders about deadlines for Division meetings. Since the deadlines for APA meetings are usually pretty far in advance of the meetings themselves, it is easy to forget when the deadlines are coming up (for instance, the last Eastern Division meeting occurred less than two months ago, but the submission deadline for next years is in under two weeks). In principle, the cost of setting up such a service would be negligible, so even if it is only moderately helpful for APA members, it still seems like a good idea.

2 comments:

打麻將 said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Clayton Littlejohn said...

I second both of these measures!