Among the services that LEOS provides to its members are the range of publications produced by LEOS staff and members – starting with this very Newsletter you are holding in your hands, ably edited by Peter Delfyett. Or perhaps you are not holding anything – perhaps you are reading it on your computer via the LEOS web site (www.leos.org). The fact that you have these two transmission media available to you – paper, Web, and perhaps others in the future – is indicative of some of the changes, challenges, and opportunities that the LEOS team has before us in providing the best combination of service and value to you, our membership.
Before going into those new opportunities, let’s look back over the past year at some highlights. LEOS Publications have thrived over the past year under the capable leadership of outgoing VP Publications (and incoming LEOS President-Elect), Phil Anthony. Our journals continue to be leaders in their field – and with the explosive growth of internet-fueled telecommunications based on lasers, electrooptics, photonics, and other optoelectronics – their relevance and value will continue to grow.
LEOS’s flagship publication, Journal of Quantum Electronics (Gary Eden, Editor), regularly receives one of the highest citation ratings of any IEEE journal. Under the capable leadership of Gary, the Journal maintains a consistently high quality of papers and in 1998, ranked first among all IEEE publications in citation ratings. In 1998, our LEOS staff implemented several changes in how papers are handled in the reviewing process, leading to a significant reduction in the paper cycle time over the past year, and one that we hope will continue in the future. Like all of our publications, JQE depends both on good submissions and qualified reviewers and timely reviews. The Editors of all our journals are always looking for willing and capable reviewers, so if you’d like to be considered, forward your name and area of expertise to the LEOS staff or any of the journal editors.
The Journal of Special Topics in Quantum Electronics (Alan Willner, Editor) grew significantly in 1999, from 121 to 192 papers published. JSTQE is unique among our journals in that every issue is something of a one-time event, chosen by topic for relevance and timeliness. For the first issue of 2000, JSTQE combined with Journal of Lightwave Technology (Rod Alferness, Editor), to produce a joint issue on Integrated Optics. (JLT is jointly managed with the Optical Society of America.) The topics lined up for JSTQE for 2000 range from integrated and fiber optics to sensors, and, this year being the end of a millenium, will include a special issue on the past, present, and future achievements of LEOS technologies. JSTQE’s “impact” ratings place it in the top 15% of all journals in electrical engineering – quite a feat, considering its relative youth as a journal.
LEOS’s letters journal, Photonics Technology Letters, continues to grow at a steady rate and has become one of the preeminent letters journals in the industry. With the retirement of Joe Weller, Nadir Dagli has taken over as Editor for the next 3 years. The desirability of publication in PTL has unfortunately brought an all-too-common practice of double-submission to PTL and other journals; as a reminder, simultaneous submission is against policy of LEOS (and generally of the other journals as well) and is grounds for rejection of the submitted paper.
As I said at the beginning of this article, we have changes and opportunities before us. The LEOS VPs, Board of Governors, and LEOS staff are looking into new ways of using electronic media to provide value to LEOS members, and one of the most exciting to me is a change starting this year: all LEOS members receive on-line access to all LEOS journals automatically with their LEOS membership! Access is through OPeRA, LEOS’s on-line system for access to publications; all you need is a Web browser to gain access to all of the LEOS journals. In addition, also new for 2000, the 1999 LEOS CD-ROM will be made available free of charge to all LEOS members as well, providing instant access and search capability to LEOS journals.
I’m particularly pleased that we can offer these new sources of technical information. For many of our members, journals are their primary – and in many cases only – means of keeping up with the changes in a fast-changing field. The challenge for us over the next year is: how can we provide more of value to you? Some interesting ideas have been suggested: instant access to conference proceedings, continuous publication on the Web (instant publication after acceptance of a paper). There’s no better way to solve a problem than to have a thousand bright minds looking into it, so I ask you, our members: what would you like to see out of Publications? How can we improve our service? Please feel free to call or email me (or even write an old-fashioned letter). I look forward to hearing from you, and to working for you over the coming year.