Action: 

• 24 Nov 2015: 

• • Heidi Ullrich to contact ICANN staff with regard to professional survey creation and report back to the RALO secretariats with regard to the progress

• 09 Mar 2016 (secretariat meeting - ICANN55): 
  
  • Humberto Carrasco and Siranush Vardanyan to collaborate with Staff and lead the effort developing professional survey for RALOs. A working group, with one representative from each RALO, may need to be formed.  
    

Notes: 

All RALOs completed a Professional Expertise Survey (APRALO Survey  was a bit different with more questions and analytical results included ). This work was consider a very good start to map the current professional expertise.

AFRALO Result

APRALO Result

EURALO Result

LACRALO Result

NARALO Result

Below is the result analysis from LACRALO Chair and Secretariat

24 Nov 2015: 

• It is important to prepare a new survey to obtain more detailed information from At-Large members, professional help may be needed. 
• The survey should not only include ALS representatives but also other members in the ALSes. There is issue of openness of the survey. Some ALSes are tremendously large with lots of members. The survey needs to be more widely distributed with certain cap. 
• If we open the poll of survey respondents, the results may be complicated, as certain large ALS respondents may skew the results. 
• Ask ALSes themselves to provide the range of their members' knowledge, skills, and competencies that they can offer ICANN. 
• Professional survey creation is needed; ICANN may have in-house expertise to create professional surveys. Heidi Ullrich is following up on this action item. 

21 Jan 2016 (secretariat meeting)

• EURALO is working to form a taskforce to review the past survey and to add further questions for new survey; this taskforce will build the database of EURALO ALS expertise 
• LACRALO is waiting for the professional help re building the survey, also to learn about the number of members in the ALSes is important (e.g. some ALSes may have tens or hundreds of members) 
• NARALO had very little participation in the first survey with little impact. Similarly, an IEEE event held an extensive survey but only a handful of people responded. Survey may not yield the desired result as response rate could be low. Alternatively, RALO Chairs and Secretariats probably should contact ALSes directly instead of waiting for responses to surveys. 
• All RALOs should use the same survey, so it may be better to wait for professional help 
• APRALO: the idea of calling ALSes does not work in APAC region. The response rate in the previous APAC survey was high, and the result was clear with regard to professional expertise. Since new ALSes have joined, it would be valuable to do a new survey. 
• The last survey was only asking the ALS representatives, although the target is ALSes (e.g. members). Target audience needs to be defined clearly this time. 
• Survey that is short and sweet may get better response rate. 
• To find ways to promote the survey and encourage people to participate (e.g. amazon gift card for filling out the survey) may be needed. 
• Several ways need to be used to reach out to ALSes, and survey itself can be administered in different ways (e.g. emails, polls, calls) to be effective. The list of questions used in the survey need to be consistent across RALOs. Professional help may be useful in defining the survey questions. Each RALO can decide how to promote and inform the ALSes to take part in the survey

18 Feb 2016 (secretariat meeting) 

• The EURALO At-Large Structure Engagement Taskforce has been established. It will be looking at ways to engage EURALO At‐Large structures better.  

09 Mar 2016 (secretariat meeting - ICANN55)

• Heidi Ullrich: There does not appear to be any particular expertise on survey development within staff. There have been some staff resources allocated to a personal survey in terms of staff being able to reach out and call the ALSs and the identified representative of each ALS. And we are hoping to use this Staff resource in the context of the ALS Criteria and Expectations Task Force. It would be great if there is collaboration between the efforts in the Cross RALO Secretariat Group as well as the ALS Criteria Task Force. 
• Alberto Soto: ALSes should have the flexibility to provide the number of contacts for completing the survey, but we should demand at least a minimum of three contacts from each ALS.
• Humberto Carrasco, Siranush Vardanyan, and Heidi Ullrich need to first discuss and agree on the content of the survey. A small working group should be formed for this effort, with at least one representative from each RALO. 
• The purpose of the survey needs to be clarified and whether all RALOs need to do the survey needs to be discussed, as RALOs differ from each other. 
• Such survey can be an opportunity to update RALOs' database on ALS primary and secondary contacts. Such survey can also ask questions how RALO leadership can help further engage ALSes and make them more active.  
• 2010 ALS survey can be a good reference. It asks about ALSes' areas of interest, questions related to the At-Large improvements, and a subset of questions that Rudi Vansnick made on some ccTLD issues. After the survey, RALO Secretariats and Chairs did an analysis of each of their RALO’s results and then that was reported back. 
• To have a database of the actual knowledge that we have within our community – and not only just the ALS representative, but also within the At-Large Structure – would be useful, especially in soliciting specific penholders to draft ALAC Statements in response to public comments. This approach would be much better than sending a flood emails, among which public comment related ones often get lost. 
• The survey result can potentially feed into ATLAS II Recommendation 26 about the policy management process system improvements, which is a long-term goal. Rec 26 aims to scale up the policy advice development process by creating an automated system, for example, that would send the right information to the right people according to key words, etc. 

12 May 2016 (secretariat meeting) 

• Some RALOs have little interest in the survey (e.g. NARALO), APRALO also conducted similar surveys in the past, hence very little progress in this task.
• 2 options for moving forward: 1) Humberto can move forward with Staff on the survey; 2) there will be additional staff resource to help catalog ALS information for a centralized database, and this staff resource can reach out to ALSes individually and ask targeted questions regarding their expertise, not only the ALS representatives but other members. 
• One or two multiple choice questions can be developed to explore ALS expertise. Staff to work with Olivier Crepin-Leblond, Humberto, Siranush to develop the question based on the policy taxonomy and taxonomy of other categories. 

Notes: 

• 30 Sep 2015: 
  
  • TTF has worked on a template on Confluence for RALO Secretariat Report 
  • The news page in the revamped At-Large website will incorporate template that can be potentially used for reporting purposes; login for community members will be worked on after the Beta site launch 
• 05 Oct 2015: 
  • RALO secretariats may be able to use a form-based template to provide updates via the new At-Large website 
    
    

Input from Social Media Working Group: 

• RALO and Liaison reports seem to fulfill the request of this recommendation
• Explore options of generating a template (e.g. online form, google doc) for RALOs, Liaisons, and Working Groups so that they can file reports in an efficient manner
• Follow up with RALO secretariats on the status of the RALO report templates
• 24 Sep 2015: 
  
  • RALO Secretariat reports should use a template that is easy for social media sharing. 
  • Community members have made an effort to create that template. 
  • New At-Large website redesign will also incorporate that Secretariat Report template design in the future; the reports can be tagged in order to show in the news feed of future RALO pages. 

Input from Technology Taskforce: 

• The TTF looking to syndicate RALO topics across all RALO wiki pages using the Confluence’s wiki capabilities.
• Wiki addons such as Confluence Questions (http://bit.ly/1EUah6O) & group chat applications may allow for such crowdsourcing of topic discussions; TTF to continue evaluation
• To ensure regular updates from RALO chairs and secretariats in a form suitable for sharing, a template to standardise the information collected from RALOs is being developed
• 23 May 2016
  • A template has been created in wiki for RALO secretariats to fill out and track topics of interest. The template is not viewable to the public at the moment 
  • The new At-Large website has features to automatically organize public comment proceedings and news articles based on policy topics, but this only partially satisfies the recommendation 
    
    

Actions:

• 24 Nov 2015
  
  • Social Media WG and Technology Taskforce to continue their investigation of better tools 
• 09 Mar 2016
  
  • RALO leaders to use the policy section on the new website and provide feedback on how it could help ALSes to participate in the policy advice development process 
• 18 Feb 2016
  
  • Technology Taskforce to discuss Rec 31 during its next teleconference 
• 20 May 2016 
  
  • After social media WG and TTF complete testing of lumio, liquidfeedback, trello, and other tools, report on the testing results and mark this recommendation complete 
• 23 May 2016 
  
  • Jimmy Schulz and Dev Anand Teelucksingh to organize a special purpose session to demo/test kialo.com; Jimmy will invite a rep from kialo.com to do the demo. 

Notes: 

• Fatima Cambronero to email Dev Anand Teelucksingh about the tool for Statement drafting collaboration
• 24 Nov 2015 (secretariat meeting) 
  • SLACK is one of the tools for investigation 
  • Technology Taskforce will provide a summary of their investigation so far and what does and what does to be published on a wiki
• 21 Jan 2016 (secretariat meeting)
  
  • Potential public comment period needs to be made aware to RALOs, as public comment period may be brief and RALO members cannot engage in time; ALAC members need to closely collaborate with RALO members with regard to this process; capacity building of public comment proceedings is also needed 
  • ALS Criteria and Expectations Taskforce has been working on figuring out a suitable way that ALAC and Staff to feed ALSes information of policy. RALOs need to take the initiative to confirm interests in obtaining such information. 
  • It may be useful for subject matter experts to provide an overview of public comment, instead of just stating the procedure related matters, during RALO calls. 
  • LACRALO has worked with GSE and ALAC members and invited speakers to educate ALSes about certain public comment topics during teleconferences. 
• 09 Mar 2016  (secretariat meeting - ICANN55) 
  
  • Siranush Vardanyan: The Document Development Program may encourage ALSes to participate in policy development and to participate in public comment process and comment on those policy developments we need. Whenever there is a policy up for comment, we would need some one-page, simple language, non-technical, just explanation – what is this policy, how it can influence to end users – to be sent to us and to share with our ALSs and encourage them to come and comment. 
  • Glenn McKnight: TTF has been testing different tools, such as SLACK and Buffer. Besides these, TTF is addressing accessibility issues concerning people who are using Linux or people who have problems using Flash; Judith Hellerstein: TTF also works to make sure which tools meet the standards of W3C on web accessibility.
  • Ariel Liang: the new At-Large website includes beginner-friendly information about public comment and ALAC advice development process; this may be helpful for the ALS to participate in the policy activities 
  • Alberto Soto: Short public comment period is a challenge. Longer public comment period, such as the one on the Final Report Recommendations of the Geographic Regions Review Working Group, allows RALOs to identify penholders and draft response, as well as to invite subject matter expert to provide further information on the topic. 
• 12 May 2016
  
  • Technology Taskforce has been exploring different tools (e.g. Lumio) and will continue this ongoing effort, as the mandate of the TTF is to evaluate and review Information and Communication Technologies that can help the ICANN At-Large Community (including the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC)) better able to accomplish their role in ICANN activities.
  • Crowdsourcing is a non-starter as it is not the way that At-Large works. 
• 23 May 2016: 
  
  • Lumio has been tested but it does not satisfy this recommendation 
  • Several discussion tools need to be tested, such as Liquid Feedback, Trello, SLACK, etc. 
  • Jimmy Schulz has recommended kialo.com and he has been using it for discussions. He has also used Liquid Feedback and Ahocracy (https://adhocracy.de/) but they are not very intuitive compared to kialo and have a lot more features than needed. 

Input from Social Media Working Group: 

• Dev Anand Teelucksingh to list the tools investigated:https://community.icann.org/x/QaM0Aw
• 24 Sep 2015: 
  
  • The challenge for social media is that can we have a conversation on policy via social media? Current policy conversation is taking place on Skype, mailing list, and calls/meetings. 
  • It would be useful to monitor different social networks to see what has been said about certain policy topics/reports. 
  • ICANN should task certain staff members in following social media conversations about policy topics. 
  • This recommendation is also related to Outreach & Engagement Subcommittee. It talks how to get people engaged in public comment periods, etc. 
  • Social Media Working Group can ask question to get people involved in public comment. 
  • Break down the questions and encourage people to answer questions in small bits. 
  • Use particular hashtag to group the conversations around certain policy topic. 
  • Task an At-Large Working Group to experiment with this method and ask/answer questions about policy topics. 

Input from Technology Taskforce: 

• The TTF is to review tools such as Liquid Feedback ( http://liquidfeedback.org/ )
• The TTF is currently evaluating Loomio (https://www.loomio.org/) an online tool for collaborative decision-making
• 08 Aug 2016: A guest speaker demonstrated Kialo (https://www.kialo.com/) to the TTF and showcased its capability that allows a group of people to discuss and debate on various issues. TTF has concluded that Kialo may be good for the Community to form broader positions on potential Statements in response to ICANN public comment proceedings than doing detailed document editing work. TTF would suggest the ALAC to trial this tool and see how it would be used to form the arguments in ALAC Statements. 

Actions: 

• ALAC to give the Board a heads-up and push the Board to agree with the AFRALO and EURALO GA this year
• 09 Sep 2015:
  
  • Olivier Crepin-Leblond to develop a timeline for the General Assemblies (how many GAs per year and where the GAs should take place) and ATLAS III prior to ICANN 54. This timeline, once approved by the ALAC and the Finance & Budget SC, should be shared with Rinalia Abdul Rahim, Steve Crocker, and Board Finance Committee and also be discussed with the Board in Dublin. 
    
• 16 Sep 2015: 
  
  • Cheryl Langdon-Orr to provide Olivier Crepin-Leblond the dates and details of the 2 APRALO GA in the 'prehistorical' days in At-Large (prior to Mexico) 
  • Olivier Crepin-Leblond to send the spreadsheet to the ALAC Finance & Budget Sub-Committee and the ALAC to review before passing on to the ICANN Board 
• 30 Sep 2015: 
  
  • Olivier Crepin-Leblond to include a preamble recognizing that there are other meetings/gatherings of ALSes facilitated/funded by ICANN before or up until when RALOs formally signed the MoU with ICANN (prior to ICANN 34 Mexico); these meetings/gatherings include 1-2 APRALO meetings  
  • Olivier Crepin-Leblond to give a heads up to Rinalia Abdul Rahim on Sunday before approaching the Board Finance Committee re GA matters. Olivier Crepin-Leblond to send the spreadsheet to Rinalia Abdul Rahim and Cherine Chalaby to start the discussion well before the Board meeting. 
  • Staff to note the LACRALO meeting in Puerto Rico in 2007 on the RALO General Assemblies page. 

Notes: 

• 09 Sep 2015: 
  
  • AFRALO, EURALO, and NARALO made the special FY16 budget request to host General Assemblies, only EURALO's request has been approved for FY16. AFRALO's request has been declined because of a high level meeting for Ministers as well as the Next-Gen program that will take place in Marrakech (the number of grants needed are increased as a result). However, AFRALO and NARALO will be given priority to host GA in FY17.
  • ALAC/At-Large shall continue pushing for more RALO GAs and remind ICANN Finance Dept and the Board Finance & Budget Committee on the rotation of RALO General Assemblies; Rinalia Abdul Rahim has been pushing for more RALO GAs. Especially in light of the new meeting strategy, the ALAC shall come up with proposals that clearly indicate how many GAs should be held and where to host the GAs in the next three years at least, otherwise we may end up with one GA per year, which is unacceptable. 
• 16 Sep 2015: 
  • At-Large Funding Roadmap v2.xls
  • Olivier Crepin-Leblond thinks that it is unlikely to hold GA or ATLAS during a B Meeting; Sebastien Bachollet suggests to still keep B Meeting as an option and task ICANN Staff to find out whether it is feasible to have a facility with enough space to hold a GA or ATLAS III. 
  • In 'prehistorical' days, APRALO benefited from ICANN funding and held its first GA during an APNIC (?) meeting in Indonesia (?); it was the founding meeting for APRALO. There was another a small meeting of the APRALO Leadership Team funded by ICANN; that meeting was held in Hong Kong outside ICANN meeting but during a technical meeting dominated by industry players. 
• 30 Sep 2015: 
  • RALO GAs: RALO General Assemblies
  • This recommendation needs to be clarified, as it can be interpreted as At-Large wants to hold general assembly for each RALO every year (i.e. 5 GA / year). 
  • Should we add 'on a rotating, multi-year basis' at the end of the sentence to clarify? 
• 24 Nov 2015:
  
  • The idea is to present a proposal of RALO General Assemblies and At-Large Summits with geographic rotation. However, there has been different understanding with regard to the frequency of GAs and At-Large Summits, as there is concerns with regard to time for preparation, logistics, and costs. 
  • The idea is to remove the special budget request for general assemblies and incorporate the GAs in ICANN's FY budget. The limitation of ad-hoc request is that the number of GAs won't be consistent through years (e.g. FY16 only has 1 GA approved). However, we cannot be overly ambitious to organize too many GAs (e.g. 3 GAs in one FY) due to limitation from Staff resources. 
• 21 Jan 2016:
  
  • General Assemblies and Summit Table: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11e1U8ZzOoqwUVG-VSVw4COnj5MxrD13tWi15gnMTYlc/edit#gid=2081016939
  • Proposal for multi-year budget planning of ALAC and RALO Face to Face meetings
• 09 Mar 2016 (secretariat meeting - ICANN55):
  
  • Recommendation will be put on hold until At-Large receives a green light for having the multi-year budget
• 30 Apr 2016
  
  • The Proposal for Multi-Year Planning of At-Large RALO Face-to-Face Meetings has been submitted to the public comment on the Draft ICANN FY17 Operating Plan & Budget and Five-Year Operating Plan Update. ICANN Finance is reviewing the Proposal. 
    
• 12 May 2016 
  
  • Once the Proposal for Multi-Year Planning of At-Large RALO Face-to-Face Meetings is approved by the ICANN Board this recommendation can be marked completed. Board decision will be made in June 2016. 
  • If the Proposal is approved, there will be no need for RALOs to submit special budget requests for GAs; exception is FY16/17. 

Action: 

• 22 Feb 2016:
  
  • presented to the At-Large ALS Criteria and Expectations Taskforce, per recommendation of the At-Large Regional Secretariats Meeting 2016-02-18
• 09 Mar 2016: 
  
  • Heidi Ullrich to check with ICANN Staff with regard to whether Adobe Connect rooms has built-in 'dial-out' capability to make calls at a low cost
• 12 May 2016
  
  • Silvia Vivanco to contact Humberto Carrasco to ask about their progress on this recommendation and report back to the Secretariat mailing list; progress will be noted on this page.
• 14 Jun 2016: 
  
  • ALS Criteria and Expectations TF to provide an update on this recommendation in ICANN56 

Notes: 

• 24 Nov 2015
  
  • NARALO is working on this Rec. NARALO did a survey with regard to ALS engagement, and NARALO leaders have reached out to ALSes to personally encourage their participation. 
  • RALO calls that conflict with regular work time of members is one of the factors of the lack of engagement. NARALO is in process reviewing timezone rotation options for its calls. 
  • The time conflict with work issue does not seem to apply to LACRALO. 
  • Voting is less a problem, but active participation is an issue. 
  • Since  November  we have  been  calling and emailing all the  NARALO ALS to participate 
  • Seven ALS  decided to become decertified
  • Planning to have interactive webinars for the NARALO webinar 
• 21 Jan 2016 (secretariat meeting) 
  
  • Inactive ALSes will likely be decertified in an automatic process 
  • In 2014, EURALO had to decertify 4 ALSes, meanwhile there are 3 candidates in the list and will likely be decertified in 2016 
  • NARALO is about to decertify 4 ALSes (they have explicitly stated that they'd like to be decertified); the other inactive ones have not yet responded 
• 18 Feb 2016 (secretariat meeting) 
  
  • The ALS Criteria and Expectations Taskforce will be reviewing those minimal participation requirements. The upcoming At-Large Review will also visit this issue and identify problems. 
• 09 Mar 2016 (secretariat meeting - ICANN55) 
  
  • The At-Large ALS Criteria and Expectations Taskforce has been looking into this issue 
  • NARALO leadership (Judith Hellerstein and Glenn McKnight) have been working diligently to engage their inactive ALSes through calls and emails, finding out who they are and what their interests are, and steering them in a direction of a Working Group. Their conversations are beyond the minimum participation requirements, which only concern with voting and attendance at the moment. The result has been positive, with 14 or 15 people on average per monthly NARALO call. 
  • Some ALSes that have not participated in any calls over the last year said they are no longer interested and asked for decertification. 7 NARALO ALSes are in the to-be-decertified list. Some other inactive ALSes would like to continue engaging in At-Large but do not really understand ways to get involved. NARALO Leadership is work with Silvia Vivanco to create special webinars to explain the process to these. 
  • One discovery of this process is that the contact person of an ALS has changed and the new one doesn’t get the information on how to engage, so they’re just like a new ALS. 
  • NARALO is also setting some minimum standards of participation. 
  • Timezone issue is a challenge for participation. 
  • If NARALO has reached out to ALSes and is able to actually bring some good results on this, it could be something other RALOs can do. But in some regions, high cost related to calls may be a barrier. RALO leaderships may need to get some funding for this, or advanced tools that can initiate 'dial-out' to reach ALSes. 
  • RALO has its own Adobe Connect room to make calls.
• 12 May 2016
  
  • APRALO collected the particiaption metrics for the last two years in monthly meetings, APAC Hub-APRALO joint webinars, working group calls, and so on. APRALO leadership also sent private messages to 8-9 ALSes to ask whether they are still interested in continuing their engagement. Those ALSes will be given a couple of months to respond and come back to participate. Final notification of decertification will be sent to the ALSes that do not respond or are no longer desired to be in At-Large. 
  • NARALO has been working on the decertification of ALSes and analyzing participation metrics with regard to monthly meetings and other platforms in At-Large. Many ALSes that NARALO leadership reached out to expressed their desire to discontinue their engagement in At-Large. There are some issues with regard to Rules of Procedure, as meeting participation is not really a requirement in NARALO RoP. 
  • AFRALO created a working group 2 years ago with 8 ALSes participating, and they are mandated to work on RoPs (e.g. decertification, accreditation). One of the tasks is to analyze participation metrics, but the work progress is stalled due to the IANA transition. Nevertheless, 3 quarters of the AFRALO ALSes participated in the last meeting. One particular issue about AFRALO is that some countries have many ALSes and are over-represented; some countries have no ALSes. To strike a balance of ALS representation is a goal. Rules of Procedure are a topic for the AFRALO to work on, as the unbalanced representation of ALSes may impact vote outcome. 
  • EURALO is in at an early stage of redrafting/refining the EURALO Charter. EURALO held a F2F GA in ICANN53 and mobilized members to participate; these meetings are good opportunities to update contact points. Two ALSes did not respond or participate and are subject to potential decertification. EURALO has also established a taskforce on ALS engagement and its work will start soon. 
• 16 May 2016 
  
  • LACRALO: Maritza Yesenia Aguero Minano provided an update on the LACRALO activities related to this recommendation via the RALO Secretariat mailing list https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/private/secretariat/2016q2/001179.html.