The second meeting of the 2008 IEEE TAB Periodicals Committee was held on 19 June 2008, at the Grand Hyatt Denver, in Denver, Colorado, USA. Leung Tsang, IEEE TAB Periodicals Committee Chair (2008-2009), called the meeting to order at 1:15 pm MDT. A list of attendees is attached.

REVIEW AND ADOPTION OF AGENDA Motion VI I was withdrawn from the agenda. It will come back in November 2008 for review. Otherwise, the agenda was approved as presented.

APPROVAL OF FEBRUARY 2008 IEEE TAB PERIODICALS COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES The minutes of the 14 February 2008 IEEE TAB Periodicals Committee meeting were approved as written.

CHAIR’S REMARKS Leung Tsang had no remarks and moved on to the business of the meeting.

REPORT OF VICE PRESIDENT– IEEE PUBLICATION SERVICES AND PRODUCTS BOARD (PSPB) John Baillieul, Vice President of the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board (PSPB), discussed several issues that PSPB is working on, including open access and new business models for publishing. IEEE has literally reinvented the publishing business – just 10 years ago IEEE was starting to provide some papers electronically as PDF files and now electronic publishing is becoming the industry standard. Access models continue to be discussed. IEEE has a vast archive of information available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week which is a huge service to the worldwide community. IEEE also partners with other publishers. Issues for electronic commerce include deciding what you can charge for and what you cannot charge for and what people are willing to pay, especially when the perception of the internet is that most of the information should be free. IEEE is currently looking at different models for access that could result in needing to change other traditional IEEE policies including page charges.

MOTIONS TO TAB

Endorsement of the following IEEE TAB Periodicals Review Committee reports which have completed the entire review process: IEEE Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Society, IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society, IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration Systems, and IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine

Steve Yurkovich, IEEE Periodicals Review Committee Chair, presented the above reports for endorsement by this Committee. The motion passed.

Endorsement of the update to the Reprint Voluntary Page Charge/Overlength Paper Charge (VP/OPC) listing Laura Creighton, Senior Periodicals Product Manager, briefly discussed the list. It was noted that the voluntary page charge is mandated the same across all societies, but the overlength page charges are set individually by each society, if applicable. Creighton also noted that there is a TAB ad hoc committee that will discuss page charges that plans to meet before the November Meeting Series. The motion passed.

Endorsement of IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society's new periodical proposal (phase two approval of full business plan - 2009 launch) for IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine Rakesh Kumar, IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Treasurer, presented the proposal.

The scope is as follows: Like the quarterly SSCS Newsletter, each issue of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine is envisioned as a self-contained resource for fundamental theories and practical advances within the field of Integrated Circuits (ICs). Written at a tutorial level and often in a narrative style, the Magazine will feature articles by leaders from industry, academia and government explaining historical milestones, current trends and future developments.

As a reflection of the Society’s field of interest, the Magazine will cover

. . . all aspects of solid-state circuits: the design, testing and application of circuits and subsystems, as well as closely related topics in device technology and circuit theory. . . focus[ing] on scientific, technical and industrial applications, in addition to other activities that contribute to the field, or utilize the techniques or products of the field, as the art develops.

Phase one was presented and approved in February. The plan is to convert the current IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society newsletter to a magazine and to include the recent past issues as a backfile in Xplore. It was noted that potential overlap with IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine was worked out. The motion passed.

Endorsement of IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation's (CEDA) new periodical proposal (phase two approval of full business plan - 2009 launch) for IEEE Embedded Systems Letters Rajesh Gupta, IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation Vice-President of Publications, presented the proposal. Phase one was presented and approved in February.

The scope is as follows: “The IEEE EMBEDDED SYSTEMS LETTERS (ESL) provides a forum for rapid dissemination of latest technical advances in embedded systems and related areas in embedded software. The emphasis is on models, methods, and tools that ensure secure, correct, efficient and robust design of embedded systems and their applications.”

Laura Creighton noted that the TAB Finance Committee (FinCom) had approved this periodical in their meeting the night before. Gupta noted that this title will reach out to a large, new community outside of IEEE that is international and consists of practicing engineers. The current needs for this type of journal are not being met (there are 800,000 embedded software developers world wide). The motion passed.

Endorsement of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) and IEEE Consumer Electronics Society's (CES) new periodical proposal (phase 1 and 2 approval of full business plan - 2009 launch) for IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development Jim Keller, IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Vice-President of Publications, presented the proposal.

The scope is as follows: The IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTONOMOUS MENTAL DEVELOPMENT (TAMD), published four times a year, publishes original papers of archival journal quality in computational Autonomous Mental Development (AMD). Recent advances in computational intelligence, cognitive science, neuroscience, and robotics have stimulated the birth and rapid growth of this new research field. Mental development is a process during which a brain-like natural or artificial embodied system, under the control of its intrinsic species-specific developmental program residing in the natural or artificially designed genes, develops mental capabilities through its autonomous real-time interactions with its environments (including the brain’s own internal environment) using its own sensors and effectors. The scope of TAMD includes:

• Computational modeling of mental development in perceptual, cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and all other mental capabilities that are exhibited by humans, higher animals, and artificial systems;

• Engineering applications of autonomous mental development such as mechanisms enabling highly complex capabilities by robots and other artificial systems.

Investigations in AMD are expected to improve our systematic understanding of the working of the wide variety of cognitive and behavioral capabilities in humans.

Since February, IEEE Consumer Electronics Society (CES) became a financial cosponsor and IEEE Computer Society (Computer) and IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) became technical cosponsors. In response to this Committee’s comments from February expressing concern that there were not enough papers to start a new journal, abstracts were solicited from the community and CIS received about 70 abstracts from 11 different countries. It was also noted that the marketing analysis was in favor of the cross disciplinary aspect of the journal, and that FinCom had approved the revised budget after Computer and RAS became technical cosponsors. Discussion ensued and focused on the potential paper flow. The motion passed.

Endorsement of IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society's (LEOS) new periodical proposal (phase 1 and 2 approval of full business plan - 2009 launch) for IEEE Photonics Journal Carmen Menoni, IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Vice-President of Publications, presented the proposal.

The scope is as follows: Breakthroughs in the generation of light and in its control and utilization have given rise to the field of Photonics, a rapidly expanding area of science and technology with major technological and economic impact. Photonics integrates quantum electronics and optics to accelerate progress in the generation of novel photon sources and in their utilization in emerging applications at the micro and nano scales spanning from the far-infrared/THz to the x-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

IEEE Photonics will be an online-only journal dedicated to the rapid disclosure of top-quality peer-reviewed research at the forefront of all areas of photonics.

The journal will be a hybrid open-access journal, so that authors can choose whether their papers will be open-access; in that case, they will be charged a mandatory fee to offset Xplore loss of income, and such papers will be tagged in the TOC.

Contributions addressing issues ranging from fundamental understanding to emerging technologies and applications are within the scope of the Journal. The Journal will include topics in:

• Photon sources from far infrared to X-rays

• Photonics materials and engineered photonic structures

• Integrated optics and optoelectronic

• Ultrafast, attosecond, high field and short wavelength photonics

• Biophotonics, including DNA photonics

• Nanophotonics

• Magnetophotonics

• Fundamentals of light propagation and interaction; nonlinear effects

• Optical data storage

• Fiber optics and optical communications devices, systems, and technologies

• Displays (such as flat panel) (REMOVED 19 June 2008)

• Micro Opto Electro Mechanical Systems (MOEMS)

• Microwave photonics

• Optical sensors

This will be an online journal dedicated to rapid publication of the latest and most significant developments in the photonics area. LEOS hired a consultant to determine if there was a need for this type of journal considering the current photonics journals being published. IEEE has traditionally been an important player in photonics. The focus on rapid publication will hopefully bring back authors to IEEE who had been publishing elsewhere due to long publication delays. While some overlap with existing IEEE journals is noted, many of the papers that would be considered for special issues would go to the new journal (and special issues are only published once every two years). The Editor-in-Chief (EIC) had not been selected yet but the LEOS Publications Committee is working on it. Discussion ensued and included queries on potential overlap with other IEEE journals not noted and the possibility of moving to an open access hybrid model at a later date. There was also an issue with CES. CES supports the journal and is interested in financial cosponsorship. LEOS had decided this was not in the best interest of the journal, but welcomed technical cosponsorship. Some heated discussion continued with LEOS not feeling financial cosponsorship was warranted and CES concerned about the recent decision not to offer financial cosponsorship and infringement on their field of interest (laser televisions). Menoni commented that television was not on the frontier of photonics research and not included in the scope. LEOS agreed to remove “Displays (such as flat panel)” from the scope. Ron Goldfarb, IEEE Magnetics Society Vice-President of Publications, noted that they have supported Councils which have pubs that overlap in their technical areas because IEEE is not our competition, outside publishers are. There is also increasingly a move to the view that articles are part of Xplore, and not part of any one title. The motion passed.

Endorsement of IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) and IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society's new periodical proposal (phase 1 and 2 approval of full business plan - 2009 launch) for IEEE/OSA Journal of Optical Communications and Networking (JOCN) Rich Linke, IEEE Executive Director of LEOS, presented the proposal and thanked the Committee for accepting the complete proposal for consideration just a few days prior to this meeting.

The scope is as follows: The scope of the Periodical covers advances in architecture and systems issues of large scale and complex optical communication networks. The Periodical addresses network architectures, performance, protocols, and algorithms as well as complex system issues in the following areas of optical networking:

• Circuit- and packet-switched all-optical and electro-optic networks

• Optical network architectures, algorithms, performance, and management

• Network aspects of terrestrial, undersea, free-space optical, satellite, wireless, and cable networks including their architecture, control, design, and performance

• Protection and restoration mechanisms, architectures, and performance

• Wavelength routing, assignment, changing

• Scheduling and arbitration of optical networks

• Grooming architectures and algorithms

• Network security and reliability

• Signaling and routing algorithms

• Network architecture designs resulting from performance limitations of components, subsystems and systems

• IP over Optical and Optical Ethernet architectures and performance

• Economic implications of Optical Network Architectures

• Optical data networks within and between computers

JOCN was a fairly complex arrangement to work out because of the merger with the existing OSA journal, Journal of Optical Networking, and addition of ComSoc material (in 2003, ComSoc launched the Optical Communications and Networking supplement to the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications). As LEOS and OSA were in negotiations to bring JON into the IEEE family and ComSoc wanted to bring forward their own proposal, Laura Creighton encouraged LEOS, ComSoc and OSA to work together to bring forward one proposal. There were numerous details to work at as the scopes were similar but the operating methods were different and all the details were worked out and the Memorandum of Understanding finalized just a few days prior to this meeting. There had also been a concern with the scope as expressed by the IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology EIC, Connie Chang-Hasnain, which was also worked out. There are also two types of papers, theoretical and practical, and it was determined that it would be best to have two paper flows. It was noted that FinCom had postponed their decision until Friday night, due to confusion on page charges (a formula in the budget had accidentally been overwritten), but there wasn’t concern that it wouldn’t pass. Discussion ensued with the confirmation that OSA will provide electronic files to ComSoc for them to produce the print copies needed. The motion passed.

Endorsement of TAB Periodicals Committee guidelines and metrics for both a Periodicals Watch List and improvement of the timeliness performance of TAB periodicals.A trial period, beginning January 2009, will be set in motion using the specified metrics and implementation plan. The data for evaluation will become available in early 2009. The TAB Periodicals Committee will closely monitor the Watch List and in the future, after an appropriate period of evaluation, will (i) revisit the issue of whether any actions should be taken against candidates placed on the Watch List, (ii) make any necessary adjustments to this Plan, and (iii) terminate the trial period and instate some form of this Plan. Steve Yurkovich, Chair of the ad hoc committee on timeliness, briefly explained that timeliness was increasingly becoming an important issue across the IEEE. PSPB also has a task force on this topic. The ad hoc committee came up with a plan with metrics and suggested implementation that was presented to the Panel of Editors (POE) meeting in April 2008. The ad hoc was tasked with developing a plan while being sensitive to EIC’s understanding of the use of Manuscript Central data, and taking into account two timeliness motions passed previously by TAB. The ad hoc adds a graduated scale and establishes further criteria for the periodicals watch list based on the metrics (clarification – criteria for the periodicals watch list refers to journals only, not magazines). Implementation is to start in January of 2009, when the data needed will be available. In March of 2009, candidates will be identified and in June 2009 at the TAB Periodicals Committee meeting, there will be a vote to enter candidates onto the periodicals watch list. It was noted that there will be a trial period determined by the TAB Periodicals Committee, who will also consider additions and deletions to the list. Those on the list must provide written reports, and any title on the list for more than two years (clarification – for new titles there will be a three-year start-up grace period where the new titles will not be put on the watch list for not meeting the set criteria, though status updates will be asked for), will be recommended for action (to be determined at the time). POE feedback was that the sensitivity to the use of manuscript central data may have been overstated, as editors felt that if the information was available, it should be used, and while there was not an overwhelming endorsement of the plan, it was endorsed by the POE. Their main concern is that they were not sure it would achieve the desired results. Discussion ensued as to why IEEE journals would meet these metrics for placing on the watch list and there could be a number of reasons – backlog, problems with the review process, editor delays, and increasing number of submissions. There could be ways to improve the length of the review process, as long as quality is not compromised, such as getting time commitments from reviewers first and allowing only one revision, instead of two or three. While this doesn’t please everyone, it would be helpful to do a trial period and see what happens. Timeliness is an issue affecting IEEE’s overall competitive position, so we are now taking concrete steps to improve it. The motion passed. Follow-up Note: This motion was presented to TAB on Saturday 21 June 2008, but it failed.

Endorsement of changes to Section 8.4 of the PSPB Operations Manual – Withdrawn

FOLLOW-UP ON ACTION ITEMS FROM FEBRUARY 2008

Compare data in proposals for member stats vs. actual in time for current phase one proposals –Not discussed due to time constraints - information provided on CD and agenda.

DISCUSSION/INFORMATION ITEMS

Periodical Watch List- Keep M-Nano on Periodical Watch List and continue monitoring the situation with an update expected in June (Motion from February 2008 meeting) (Laura Creighton)

Leung Tsang reviewed the criteria for being on the watch list. A motion would be needed to remove a title from the watch list. At the November 2007 TAB Periodicals Committee meeting, the following motion was passed:

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.

IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine will be kept on the Periodical Watch List (PWL).

Meyya Meyyappan, Managing Editor of IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine, provided an update on the status of the magazine. Meyyappan briefly reiterated the history that the original plan was to publish out of house but with the difficulty of getting the information TAB Finance Committee needed to approve, a late switch was made to publish in house. The first issue for 2008 mailed last week. Issues include no paid staff, content delay (product reviews, book reviews) and lead time required by IEEE Publishing. Suggestions included spacing out articles throughout the issues but Meyyappan noted that the articles are not the main issue, the fillers such as product and book reviews are more of an issue. IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine will remain on the PWL.

There are some issues with the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, including the process for editing papers with tables was difficult (a new process should help this) and content delays. Rapid posting in Xplore will start soon and it was noted that it would be helpful if the PWL included Xplore posting dates as well. Discussion ensued and included content delays, rate of submission (it’s stable), long review process and difficulty in getting reviewers as the community is not that big. IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering will remain on the PWL.

Ellsworth LeDrew, EIC of IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (J-STARS), gave an update on the status of the new title launching in 2008. Part of the issue is the plan for 4 issues in the start year, but the first issue was planned for late spring/summer. There are enough papers to fill issues for the whole year if they split papers planned for one issue into two issues, but they are not sure they want to do that. 2009 issues are planned and the move to Manuscript Central will help. (All new pubs are kept on the PWL for status update the first two years). There were no specific precise mailing dates for the 4 issues of 2008.

Sub-to-Pub Timeliness Report Due to time constraints, this item was not discussed. The presentation is available online for review. Steve Yurkovich briefly discussed the PSPB/TAB task force that is tasked with developing recommendations for cross-organizational programs that will improve IEEE’s competitive position in service, quality and timeliness. Suggestions from the task force include new forms of content and delivery of that content, backlog improvements, removing financial and accounting barriers to single article posting on Xplore, and several review process improvements.

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

REPORTS

Transactions/Journals/Magazines/Newsletters Report Due to time constraints, this item was not discussed.

IEEE TAB Periodicals Review Committee Report Due to time constraints, this item was not discussed.

IEEE TAB Transactions Committee Report Due to time constraints, this item was not discussed.

IEEE TAB Magazines Committee Report Due to time constraints, this item was not discussed.

IEEE TAB Newsletters Committee Report Due to time constraints, this item was not discussed.

NEW BUSINESS

The next meeting of the IEEE TAB Periodicals Committee is scheduled for Thursday, 13 November 2008, at Grand Hyatt New Brunswick, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.

Steve Yurkovich proposed a motion to address the issue of re-publishing conference papers in transactions.

MOTION: TAB Periodicals Committee recommends that the PSPB Documents Working Group consider tightening the language of the PSPB Operations Manual Section 8.4.2.F.1 regarding editorial re-use of previously published.

The motion passed.

ADJOURNMENT – The meeting was adjourned at 5:14 MDT.