IEEE Leadership Wire
4 March 2008
The IEEE LEADERSHIP WIRE is a report for top-level IEEE volunteers about IEEE affairs and organizational information. It is intended specifically for members of the IEEE Board of Directors, key Board committees and the six major operating boards. The newsletter is sent the first week of each month.
CONTENTS:
*FEBRUARY BOARD MEETING SERIES HIGHLIGHTS
*WEB TEAM COMMUNICATIONS SECTION LAUNCHED TO REPORT IEEE WEB PRESENCE DEVELOPMENTS
*IEEE EXPRESSES INTEREST IN COLLABORATING WITH INTERNATIONAL CONSORTIUM ON OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING MODEL
*IEEE AWARDS BOARD SEEKING MEDALS AND RECOGNITIONS NOMINATIONS
*FUTURE CITY COMPETITION WINNERS ANNOUNCED
*CALL FOR 2008 IEEE EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES BOARD AWARD NOMINATIONS
*APPLICATION NOTES NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH IEEE XPLORE
*SALES OF IEEE PRESS BOOKS UP IN 2008
*IN THE NEWS
**FEBRUARY BOARD MEETING SERIES HIGHLIGHTS**
The following are highlights from the February Meeting Series in Louisville, Ky. The IEEE Board of Directors approved:
- the authorization of up to US$1 million in funding to support IEEE’s 125th Anniversary Celebration planned for 2009, which will be launched at Sections Congress, September 2008;
- the authorization of the launch of the Public Visibility program
- the establishment of the IEEE Biometrics Council;
- two new initiatives – Nanotechnology for a Wider Audience, and the Humanitarian Technology Challenge.
The IEEE Executive Committee also approved the following IEEE Milestones in Electrical Engineering and Computing:
- Pinawa Hydroelectric Power Project, 1906 – (Winnipeg Section)
- Largest Private (DC) Generating Plant in the U.S.A., 1929 – (New York Section)
**WEB TEAM COMMUNICATIONS SECTION LAUNCHED TO REPORT IEEE WEB PRESENCE DEVELOPMENTS **
The IEEE Web Team has launched a Web section designed to provide updates on IEEE Web-related plans and activities. The newly-formed IEEE Web strategy is a greater push toward user-centered design, so that users can accomplish their tasks faster and with less frustration. The section will include project descriptions, updates and deliverables, as well as a feedback mechanism and contact information. The Web team will also issue a quarterly eNewsletter that will provide an overview of recently completed projects. Access the IEEE Web Team Communications Web section using your IEEE Web account. Contact Candace Beach, Web Presence Manager, with any questions at c.beach@ieee.org.
IEEE announced that it will participate in the SCOAP3 initiative, a global effort to develop an open access publishing model that will make peer-reviewed research articles in the high energy physics field available to online users at no cost. The IEEE agreed that relevant articles from one of its journals, the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, may be used to develop the new publishing model proposed by SCOAP3 (the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics). A letter signed by the IEEE expressed interest in the initiative, provided it will result in “sustainable” funding and business arrangements to support open access publishing.
IEEE’s decision to work with SCOAP3 followed its Board of Directors’ decision in November to adopt the IEEE’s Principles of Scholarly Publishing in order to provide a framework to evaluate new publishing models. Read the full press release and full text of the IEEE Principles of Scholarly Publishing.
**IEEE AWARDS BOARD SEEKING MEDALS AND RECOGNITIONS NOMINATIONS**
The IEEE Awards Board is seeking nominations for IEEE Medals and Recognitions and encourages the use of its online Potential Nominee Form. This form allows a preliminary review of a nominee by the selection committee and an opportunity to obtain feedback prior to submitting a full nomination. The Potential Nominee Form is available on the IEEE Awards Web Page.
The deadline for submission of complete nominations for IEEE Medals and Recognitions is 1 July 2008. For questions concerning the Potential Nominee Form, please contact awards@ieee.org.
**FUTURE CITY COMPETITION WINNERS ANNOUNCED**
Queen of Angels Catholic School of Roswell, Ga., won the Best Essay Award at the National Engineers Week Future City Competition National Finals held last week in Washington, D.C.
IEEE sponsored the essay competition, which featured the 36 Future City regional-winning middle school teams that advanced to the finals. This year’s essay topic was "Keeping Our Future City's Infrastructure Healthy: Using Nanotechnology to Monitor City Structures and Systems." Read the entire Queen of Angels’ essay.
Other winners included:
- IEEE-USA Best Communications System Award – Harding Middle School, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
- Overall Future Cities Competition Award – Heritage Middle School, Westerville, Ohio
The Future City Competition debuted during Engineers Week in 1993. Conceived in part by IEEE-USA, the competition is designed to encourage the future generation of engineers. More than 1,100 schools and 30,000 students from across the United States competed during the 2007-08 season; pilot programs are also underway in Egypt, Sweden and Japan. A spin-off, “Future Cities 2020,” has started in India. More information is at the Future City Web site.
**CALL FOR 2008 IEEE EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES BOARD AWARD NOMINATIONS**
The IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) is seeking nominations to recognize and honor individuals, companies and IEEE Sections for their contributions to engineering and technical education. The deadline for 2008 nominations is 30 April 2008. Review award descriptions and nomination details. Contact eab-awards@ieee.org with any questions.
**APPLICATION NOTES NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH IEEE XPLORE**
More than a million documents containing practical and applied information on engineering topics are now available through the IEEE Xplore digital library. Known as application notes, the documents have been published by organizations to explain, illustrate or promote their technologies and products. While the documents are not peer-reviewed or created by the IEEE, the application notes provide relevant articles, product specifications and other technical information. Links to the application notes are displayed alongside Xplore search results. For more details, read The Institute article.
**SALES OF IEEE PRESS BOOKS UP IN 2008**
The Wiley Publishing sales team reports that IEEE Press books posted sales 24 percent over forecast in January 2008. Additionally, book sales at the International Solid States Circuits Conference, Feb. 3-8 were more than double that of last year’s conference, reaching US$28,000. Read more about IEEE Press.
The IEEE, its members and its products and services are mentioned frequently in journalists’ reports on technology and the engineering profession. Here are just a few recent references.
29 February – OPEN ACCESS NEWS – Peter Suber, a prominent independent policy strategist for open access to scientific and scholarly research literature, wrote that IEEE expressed interest in joining the SCOAP3 project and linked to the IEEE announcement (see news item on announcement earlier in IEEE LEADERSHIP WIRE). Read Suber’s blog. The story was also posted at SMARTMONEY.COM and THE CENTRE DAILY TIMES, among others.
February – CANDADIAN HEALTHCARE TECHNOLOGY – An advance article on The IEEE Workshop on Adverse Responding Monitoring, organized by the Ottawa Section, appeared in the publication. The workshop, where experts from around the world discussed technical solutions to patient safety risks including illness and deaths from adverse drug reactions, was held 21- 22 February 2008. Read the full article.
20 February – EMBEDDED COMPUTING DESIGN – The online publication posted an announcement on the initiation of work on the IEEE P24748, "Systems and Software Engineering - Guide for Life Cycle Management” standard. Read the full article.
14 February – WIRELESS DESIGN ONLINE – The article discusses how 2008 will be decisive in the development of WiMAX (based on the IEEE 802.16 family of standards), as a result of the major setbacks encountered in 2007. Read the full article.
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IEEE LEADERSHIP WIRE staff contact:
Francine Tardo
IEEE Corporate Strategy and Communications
Tel: +1 732 465 5865
Mailto: f.tardo@ieee.org
IEEE. Fostering technological innovation and excellence
for the benefit of humanity.
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