The third meeting of the 2007 IEEE TAB Periodicals Committee was held on 15 November 2007, at The Westin Copley Place, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Phil Laplante, IEEE TAB Periodicals Committee Chair (2006-2007), called the meeting to order at 1:09 pm EST. A list of attendees is attached.

REVIEW AND ADOPTION OF AGENDA The agenda was approved as presented.

APPROVAL OF JUNE 2007 IEEE TAB PERIODICALS COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES The minutes of the 14 June 2007 IEEE TAB Periodicals Committee meeting were approved as written.

CHAIR’S REMARKS Phil Laplante noted that this is his last meeting as the TAB Periodicals Committee Chair and thanked Laura Creighton and Pam Attanasio for their staff support. Laplante noted that a few periodicals that are on the Periodical Watch List will be discussed during the New Business section of the agenda. Laplante thanked the Committee for their work and expressed appreciation for working with the Committee and he also wished Leung Tsang the best of luck next year.

REPORT OF VICE PRESIDENT – IEEE PUBLICATION SERVICES AND PRODUCTS BOARD

John Baillieul, Vice President of the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board (PSPB), presented some information about a strategic plan that will be voted upon by PSPB on Friday. The plan contains a number of principles, values and goals. This will be used going forward and every year or so the plan will be updated. RAB (Regional Activities Board), PSPB, TAB (Technical Activities Board) and EAB (Educational Activities Board) will be asked to vote upon publishing principles which will become the basis for IEEE’s public image. The plan includes IEEE’s position on open access – the idea that pubs should be freely available on the internet. Our position doesn’t oppose open access, but there are core values that must be maintained (peer review, copyright and archival value of material maintained in Xplore) that require that we conduct business in a way that revenue is protected so that the IEEE can carry out its mission. IEEE is doing a huge service by offering a large archive that is available 24 hours/7 days a week at an enormous cost to IEEE. Since IEEE is a publishing leader, libraries and other publishers are interested in knowing what IEEE’s position is on open access. Baillieul also discussed the next releases of Xplore and a new project, Scientific and Technical Information Exchange (STIX) Fonts, that IEEE collaborated on with other scientific publishers. STIX fonts are free, specialized fonts compatible with all web and software interfaces.

MOTIONS TO TAB

Endorsement of the following IEEE TAB Periodicals Review Committee reports which have completed the entire review process: IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society (DEIS) Steve Yurkovich gave his TAB Periodicals Review Committee report while discussing this motion. The DEIS report was well prepared and there were no issues with the periodicals and no real recommendations needed. The motion passed.

Endorsement of the update to the 2007 Reprint VP/OPC (voluntary page/overlength paper charge) listing There was discussion about possibly having a single voluntary page and overlength paper charge. As this is a complex issue, a motion was made.

MOTION/ACTION ITEM: The TAB Periodicals Committee recommends formation of an ad-hoc committee involving appropriate TAB/PSPB/IEEE Finance Committee representation to discuss the possibility of a single overlength and voluntary page charge for all IEEE journals. There was some discussion as to whether or not this meant that all journals would be required to have page charges, as some currently do not. A friendly amendment to the motion was made to mention a single rate structure, which could include no charges.

REVISED MOTION/ACTION ITEM: The TAB Periodicals Committee recommends formation of an ad-hoc committee involving appropriate TAB/PSPB/IEEE Finance Committee representation to discuss the possibility of a single overlength and voluntary page charge structure for all journals.

This new motion was passed with one abstention. The original motion to endorse the current VP/OPC listing passed as well.

Endorsement of IEEE Communications Society's (ComSoc’s) new periodical proposal (phase one approval of title, scope and sponsorship - 2009 launch) for IEEE Journal of Optical Communications and Networking Jack Howell, IEEE Communications Society Executive Director, presented the proposal. There was some discussion about the comments that were received in response to the proposal. IEEE Reliability Society had an objection to seeing reliability in another journal, but it is hard not to include reliability as it is seen as a critical and major part of the new journal. ComSoc will work to assuage all Society concerns. Cosponsorship must be finalized 45 days prior to the next TAB meeting (31 December 2007). Laura Creighton, IEEE Senior Periodicals Product Manager, noted that having used ComSoc’s IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications to gauge interest in this area was a great thing to do. Themotion passed.

Endorsement of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS), IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Consumer Electronics Society and IEEE Sensors Council’s new periodical proposal (phase one approval of title, scope and sponsorship - 2009 launch) for IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games Jim Keller, Vice-President of Publications for IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, presented the proposal. The focus of this new journal is intentionally broad and will seek to encompass many Society activities and to be cooperative across several Societies. CIS has a technical committee on games, there is a symposium series on the subject and there is strong support from other Societies. The new journal will legitimize the subject area and provide a home for peer reviewed articles. There is currently overlap in several IEEE journals. These articles are scattered so the hope is to focus them in one title. It was noted that the overlap is significant with some IEEE Computer Society titles and that they had requested a significant financial share (50%). Computer Society is supporting the title even though there is strong overlap. Discussion ensued and it was noted that there was not room in current CIS titles to handle these papers and CIS titles all have good impact factors but the time to publication is long. Keller noted that changes have been made in the process and progress has been made in that area. Laura Creighton noted the memorandum of understanding (MOU) must be finalized and included with the phase two proposal. The motion passed with one abstention.

Endorsement of scope change for IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B: Cybernetics IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) Society is interested in narrowing the scope of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B: Cybernetics. Part B is currently receiving a large number of submissions which results in a rejection of a large number of papers up front. Discussion ensued and there was strong support amongst the Committee for this direction. Steve Yurkovich noted that one of the recommendations from SMC’s PRC review from November 2006 was to look strategically at what the real scope is and have SMC determine what distinguishes Part B from the other titles. It was noted that more societies should consider narrowing their scopes. Scopes are now included in the PRC report which may trigger more scope revision.

The motion passed.

FOLLOW-UP ON ACTION ITEMS FROM JUNE 2007

Ad-Hoc Committee to be formed to investigate practice of conference papers being printed in journals Phil Laplante briefly reviewed the background of this action item (there was concern expressed that the practice of printing conference papers in transactions could be a quality issue) and noted that the people that had agreed to be on this committee had discussed it. Several other issues came up during the discussion and it was decided that this was a much larger issue. PSPB asked for this issue to be discussed in PSPB, so the ad-hoc committee was dissolved.

DISCUSSION/INFORMATION ITEMS

Journal timeliness research project Fran Zappulla noted that this report was written by Jon Dahl, IEEE Staff Director of Marketing and Sales. During the June 2007 series, the Marketing and Sales Oversight Committee tasked Jon Dahl with gathering information on the best way to compete for better authors, and some felt that improving the submission-to-publication timeline would be key. An outside consultant was hired to conduct a survey on the sub-to-pub time of competitors. Some areas being investigated include whether paying Editor-in-Chiefs, Associate Editors, or reviewers might provide a competitive edge to improving timeliness in the editing and review process. The survey results will be ready for review during the February 2008 IEEE Meeting Series.

Co-sponsorship of the 2008 launch IEEE Journal of Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing Phil Laplante reviewed the background. This title was approved during the June 2007 IEEE Meeting Series and the sponsoring IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) wanted to share financial responsibility with an IEEE Committee, which doesn’t have a financial structure to handle revenue or expenses. It was decided by IEEE TAB Finance Committee that GRSS would have full financial responsibility.

Xplore handling of co-sponsored joint special issues Laura Creighton gave a presentation on how to handle jointly sponsored special issues in Xplore. The hope is that the improvement in Xplore handling of these types of issues could possibly circumvent the need to develop new periodicals.

Beta test to pay reviewers (Mercy Kowalczyk) Mercy Kowalczyk, IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) Executive Director, reported that the Society plans to participate in a beta test on paying reviewers. At a recent Society meeting, SPS decided to join a test that is being done by EURASIP (European Association for Signal Processing). This is an author pay model that results in the editor and reviewers receiving a portion of the author fee. Authors could also recoup some of their fee by performing reviews on other papers. Possible positive outcomes of this test would be that people who receive a fee would be encouraged to conduct a faster review and could also encourage the establishment of a larger and faster reviewer pool to choose from which is important with the fast growth in signal processing. Possible issues include that the papers may go to titles that are publishing faster and since IEEE is not the fastest, we may lose some good papers. There were numerous issues discussed and it was noted that this was the best way to see how a potential system like this would work.

IEEE TAB Finance Committee list of Actions and Motions Backup documentation is available online.

Opportunities for Speed and Boosting Citations Laura Creighton made some recommendations for a number of IEEE titles that could boost publishing speed and citations. These recommendations include having forthcoming articles posted in Xplore and including a manuscript submission link on the title’s home page. The suggestions will be sent to the appropriate editors for their information.

REPORTS

Transactions/Journals/Magazines/Newsletters Report Fran Zappulla, Staff Director of Publishing, discussed a plan to create an incentive for motivating reviewers. PSPB will be asked to endorse the IEEE staff putting together a plan to provide limited access to Xplore for reviewers.

IEEE TAB Periodicals Review Committee Report Steve Yurkovich, PRC Chair, gave this report while discussing the PRC motions.

IEEE TAB Transactions Committee Report Nothing to report at this time.

IEEE TAB Magazines Committee Report Nothing to report at this time.

IEEE TAB Newsletters Committee Report Nothing to report at this time.

NEW BUSINESS

Periodical Watch List – ACTION ITEM – Make the Periodical Watch List a regular agenda item for every meeting. Laura Creighton discussed a few titles that have some timeliness issues that are significant enough to mention in terms of the Periodicals Watch List. One title is IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, which is behind in the number of issues for the year. Discussion ensued as to whether or not some kind of standing motion be employed if a periodical misses a number of issues. The motion, after wordsmithing, is as follows:

MOTION – Endorsement to direct staff from Technical Activities and Publications Operations that if a periodical misses two consecutive issues (when issue "n" is not ready by the end of the month during which issue "n+1" was due to mail) it triggers a communication from staff to the Editor-in-Chief, Society leadership, and the TAB Periodicals Committee.

The motion passed.

Charlie Backof, IEEE Vehicular Technology Society President, commented that magazines should always have a high level of support by IEEE Pubs built into the proposal.

IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine was also noted as not having any issues to date and it is a 2007 launch.

MOTION - Tab Periodicals Committee requires the submission of a IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine action plan in February 2008 with specific deadlines to be met or a recommendation for termination will be made

The motion passed.

A few others were also placed on the Periodical Watch List (IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems – behind in issues, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems – behind in issues).

There was further discussion that while there is a process to propose, there is no process to trigger termination of a title.

ACTION ITEM – Ad hoc committee to be formed to determine what the trigger mechanisms for termination would be (besides the Society requesting to discuss termination) and developing a formal termination process.

The periodicals on the watch list will be contacted and will be asked to provide feedback on their action plan before the February 2008 meeting of this Committee.

The next meeting of the IEEE TAB Periodicals Committee is scheduled for Thursday, 14 February 2008, at The Louisville Marriott Downtown, in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

ADJOURNMENT – The meeting was adjourned at 4:54 pm EST.