NPSS President
THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FACING NPSS IS THE “MEMBER VALUE PROPOSITION”…
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| Peter S. Winokur NPSS President |
The first NPSS AdCom meeting of 2001 was held March 3 in Annapolis, Maryland. I took that opportunity to provide a State-of-the-Society presentation with a goal of defining key challenges facing NPSS and (collectively with the AdCom) setting some priorities for next two years. Our first priority is maintaining the vitality of NPSS conferences and the scientific quality of our publications. On the financial front NPSS is strong, but it will be difficult to increase our reserves in the next two years with a volatile stock market and corporate initiatives. Fortunately, NPSS reserves are exactly where they need to be thanks to the stewardship of Ed Lampo and to the chairs of our technical committees that oversee a great set of conferences. We strongly support the international nature of our Society and look forward to more overseas conferences like the exciting and highly successful NSS/MIC in Lyon. I’m pleased to announce the formation of an NPSS Benelux Chapter, which joins our French and Ukrainian Chapters in Region 8.
Clearly, the biggest challenge facing NPSS is the “member value proposition” – Why join IEEE? Why join NPSS? We need to do our best to answer that question at a time when a societyless IEEE is a concept that can’t be summarily dismissed. Under the chairmanship of Peter Clout, our newly formed Communications Committee is preparing a 2001 NPSS Brochure to communicate the benefits of IEEE and NPSS membership. The brochure does a wonderful job of promoting NPSS conferences, publications, educational programs, local activities, and awards. Although we’re a small society with just under 3000 members, NPSS is truly one of the most active in IEEE and can be proud of its accomplishments past and present. The Communications Committee is also working on an improved web interface and displays for membership booths at our many conferences.
I attended the TAB (Technical Activities Board) meeting in Albuquerque on 14-17 February. Of course, the hot topic of discussion was finances and the 12% reduction of Society reserves. The reserves were reduced to pay for institute-wide initiatives like IEEE Xplore™ and infrastructure costs. This wasn’t contentious in and of itself, but the desire of the Board of Directors to run a deficit budget in 2001 that may further reduce reserves is troubling. At this time, IEEE reserves are $100M, which is approximately one-half of yearly expenditures. This is a healthy state of affairs, but a significant budget shortfall this year will alter that balance and reduce corporate reserves too much. Consequently, it is important to move quickly to resolve the problems that led to the shortfall, and communicate the recovery plan to TAB and the membership. There are two solutions to this problem that are under our immediate control – spend less or make more. With regards to the former, there isn’t a lot of fat to cut. At this time, all new initiatives are being closely scrutinized and many initiatives on the drawing boards were scraped. We can do the latter but, once again, we need to keep our eye on the “value proposition” for our members. Fortunately, IEEE makes most of its money from non-member subscriptions to its journals through the IEL (Integrated Electronic Library) and ASPP (All Societies Periodicals Package). We typically give members a great deal on conference registration fees and subscription rates to journals. Needless to say, our membership provides the intellectual property that is the core of IEEE’s business, so they deserve a great deal! In addition, IEEE dues haven’t been raised for 5 years. It’s obvious to all involved that we need a new financial model to avoid a substantial and uncontrolled reduction in reserves. I’ll get a progress report on IEEE finances at the summer TAB meeting.
An interesting issue raised at the TAB meeting was the complexity of IEEE’s business rules. IEEE could be losing millions of dollars on custom pricing of journals to its members. For example, NPSS is considering a dues structure that will offer TNS and TPS for $15, the Sensors Journal for $19, and TMI for $24. And NPSS is considering different prices for print versus electronic access. Custom pricing creates a large overhead to assure authenticated access to Xplore™. We need a simpler pricing scheme, keeping in mind that IEEE really makes its money on non-member subscriptions.
On the publishing front, I think we’ll be able to launch a Part B of the Transactions on Nuclear Science (TNS) that will focus on papers in nuclear medical imaging and sciences. There was a meeting at TAB between EMBS (Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society), SPS (Signal Processing Society), UFFCS (Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society), and NPSS to lay the groundwork for our new publication and alleviate concerns that it will negatively impact TMI (Transactions on Medical Imaging). I’d also like to see our page count increase in TPS and Steve Gitomer, our Editor-in-Chief, is actively working this issue. IEEE Publications was overwhelmed in December by last-minute submissions needed to qualify for ASPP distributions and bonuses. Societies need to review their periodical production reports and provide a steady flow of work to IEEE Publications. IEEE Publications has a significant challenge in electronic publishing without our adding to that burden.
The December 2000 issue of TNS was the first conference-related issue of TNS to provide electronic files rather than camera-ready copy to IEEE for production of the publication. The issue was prepared using IEEE’s mid-level editorial service, which is significantly less expensive than their fully edited service. Numerous problems traceable to the limitations of mid-level editorial service were experienced in the quality of this issue that greatly detracted from the image of TNS as a high quality, archival technical publication. To address this concern, the AdCom approved a motion to upgrade the editorial services that IEEE provides for conference-related issues of the TNS from mid-level, fully electronic service to Fully Edited Service. This service will provide much greater editorial oversight of the process at IEEE, provide page proofs to the authors to insure adherence to the authors’ intent, and implement corrections/changes as requested by the author before printing.
I want you to know you are well represented at the higher levels of IEEE, with Hal Flescher as TAB Treasurer, Ed Lampo on TAB FinCom, and my role as a Society President. If you’ve got issues or concerns, speak to us and we’ll bring the matter up with the appropriate contacts at IEEE.
I welcome your comments, suggestions, and feedback. Please drop me a line or call me using the contact information below.
Peter Winokur, NPSS President, can be reached at Office of Senator Reid, 528 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, 20510; Phone: +1 202 224-3542; Fax: +1 202 224-7327; E-mail: p.winokur@ieee.org .