Beckman Self Assessment H. V. Jagadish Univ. of Michigan

Publication Culture Lots that can be done. Lots we already have done – CIDR – PVLDB Easy to while away two days complaining. I propose only actionable items be discussed.

DB Education We need to revisit our fundamentals. I agree there is a pressing need. I have lots of opinions/ideas. But … Someone will write an influential textbook soon. Until then, not much point trying to invent a course by committee.

Big Data/Data Science We have a once in a lifetime opportunity. We must sieze it whole-heartedly. Lots more I can say. But I will hold off till later.

We Have Lost Our Way When the relational model was young, it served as glue as we each worked on different aspects of systems and theory. Today, there is no real central glue that binds us. – And to the extent this is still the relational model, or RDBMS, we have a narrow scope problem.

Common Purpose Our defining shared interest today, if anything, is size/speed/scaling. This is a bad way to define a field – It is boring. No wonder kids are more excited by ML.. – Industry has far greater resources than academia, and so sets the agenda. Researchers are playing catch up.

Solution?? My current proposal is to define ourselves as “information management” and to include as full-fledge members of our community, people who work on IR/GIS/Multimedia … Expands the scope of our field, but gives it meaning that we can explain. – Also plays well with data science Plenty of challenges we can define in IM, other than scale/speed/size.