Nan:2006-09-01-eeg-rfd

From: Jim Kroger <jkroger@umich.edu>
Subject: RFD: sci.eeg
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, sci.med,
 sci.med.psychobiology, sci.psychology.research
Followup-To: news.groups
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 21:41:22 -0700

                      REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                       unmoderated group sci.eeg

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of the
unmoderated Usenet newsgroup, sci.eeg.


NEWSGROUPS LINE: sci.eeg

sci.eeg	Science, technology, and methodology of EEG research.


RATIONALE: sci.eeg

Many scientists, clinicians, and engineers around the world conduct
electroencephalograph (commonly referred to as EEG) research, but
have no common forum in which to discuss the science, technology,
and methodology of conducting EEG research.

Electroencephalographs are records of electrical field perturbations
coincident to interactions among neurons in the brain. For decades,
varieties of research fields have employed EEG to better understand
various aspects of neurological, psychological, and pathological
function. Recent advances in EEG (all appearing since 1990), including
high-density digital EEG approaches, independent component analysis
approaches, the study of synchrony and coherence, and wavelet
time-frequency analysis, have opened technically advanced but very
new methodological domains that call for a forum in which researchers
may provide mutual assistance.

The prevalence of such research is evident in the number of
professional, peer-reviewed publications appearing in professional
journals such as J. of Cognitive Neuroscience, J. of Neuroscience,
J. of Clinical Neuropsychology, J. of Topographic Mapping, Neuroimage,
and so on. The only online places for them to interact are the
EEGLAB mailing list, restricted to questions about the EEGLAB
software, various vendor- or product-specific groups set up on
Yahoo, restricted to users of those products, and the usenet
newsgroups sci.med, sci.psychology.research, and posts in assorted
usenet groups on Matlab, physics, and so on. The proliferation of
non-EEG related posts in these groups makes them too unfocused on
EEG to be useful to those seeking to communicate about the science
of EEG, and though numerous posts have appeared there, the frequency
is small relative to the volume of the groups. Yet, on the existing
newsgroups and forums, there are several posts asking about places
to interact and get technical help. A usenet newsgroup is an excellent
solution to meet these needs.

Naming the group sci.psychology.research.eeg or sci.med.eeg or any
other sub-grouping will be likely to exclude a large segment of
researchers employing EEG, who range from those performing diagnosis
of brain damage or pathology such as Huntington's disease in neurology
and neurosurgery as well as psychiatry, to neuroscientists studying
brain function, to psychologists doing brain and mind research, to
clinicians using EEG to diagnose psychological disorders, to those
using EEG in biofeedback treatment of various maladies, and engineers
using EEG in direct brain-to-machine interfaces for quadriplegics,
pilots, and other machine operators. The title of the group is
general in order to reach as many as possible of the broad EEG
research areas, which all share common technological, methodological,
and practical concerns.

An analysis of EEG-related posts on usenet was done by searching
Google with the following search:

eeg OR encephalogram OR encephalograph OR encephalography

and a total of 46,300 hits were found. These are spread over a wide
array of newsgroups, and even in the ones with greatest concentration,
constitute less than 1% of the posts there.


CHARTER:

This is a non-commercial usenet newsgroup for the purpose of
discussing the science, technology, and methodology of conducting
EEG research. The focus is to be on the techniques, mathematical
and statistical approaches, engineering issues, and research
methodology encountered in EEG research, with the aim of providing
peer-to-peer assistance in this field.  Commercially-related,
profit-motivated, marketing-related, and similar posts, such as
product or service promotions, whether related to EEG or not, are
in violation of the purpose of the newsgroup. Simple announcements
of available products or services from EEG-related organizations
or enterprises are welcome, as long as they are posted one time
only.  Announcements of research-related job announcements, books,
and conferences are welcome. Posting of published articles or
announcements about such, or of dissertations or theses, are not
permitted, in the interest of efficiency. Posting of binaries is
not permitted, with the exception of small digital signatures such
as PGP.





PROCEDURE:

For more information on the newsgroup creation process, please see:

  http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:creation

Those who wish to influence the development of this RFD and its final
resolution should subscribe to news.groups and participate in the
relevant threads in that newsgroup.  This is both a courtesy to groups
in which discussion of creating a new group is off-topic as well as the
best method of making sure that one's comments or criticisms are heard.

All discussion of active proposals should be posted to news.groups.

To this end, the followup header of this RFD has been set to
news.groups.

If desired by the readership of closely affected groups, the discussion
may be crossposted to those groups, but care must be taken to ensure
that all discussion appears in news.groups as well.



DISTRIBUTION:

This document has been posted to the following newsgroups:

  news.announce.newgroups
  news.groups
  sci.med
  sci.med.psychobiology
  sci.psychology.research


PROPONENT:

Jim Kroger <jkroger@umich.edu>



CHANGE HISTORY:

2006-09-01     1st RFD