VOLUME 1, ISSUE 3, JUNE 2007
PUBLICATION NEWS Publication Strategies and Customer Satisfaction When I accepted the nomination for the position of VP Publications of the Circuits and Systems Society (CASS) I prepared a statement with my vision and pledges. That is something that is always required and done but, typically, the normal day-by-day activity is so overwhelming that the initial “crisp” targets lighten, and just become general “fuzzy” guidelines. I would like to reverse (or try to reverse) that “normal” evolution by recalling and re-affirming my statement and goals. They were (and are): Increasing the quality and scientific recognition of our publications (including the IF and II improvement). Increasing the subscription to CAS Publications by suitable e-mail and paper advertisements and publicity at conferences. Favoring the effectiveness of the reviewing process by improving the reviewer database, the reviewing assignment, the web submission system. Reducing the review/publication time and backlog. Promoting Special Issues based on top quality papers presented at CAS Conferences, also aiming at increasing quality and quantity of conference contributions. Attracting interest from industry to enhance cross-fertilization between scientific contributions from production world and academia. Regaining room on scientific and technical areas that are core of CAS but have suffered of the competition other Journals. Sustaining the launch and the growth of the CAS Newsletter, assuring the success of the Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems and favoring inter-society activities including the launch of a new Journal on special issues. As you see the goals are in line with an obvious concept of marketing: satisfied customers warrant loyalty and friendship. At present, the above objectives are very important because the value of being affiliated to a definite Society is becoming paler. Indeed, being just a member of IEEE without any affiliation to one or more Societies is an increasing trend, also favored by the on-line availability of all the publications of all the society. The customer, pleased by the great benefit of having information with just a click, looses the interest for becoming a member of a community and slowly becomes isolated. I strongly believe that belonging and being an active part of our scientific community, the IEEE CASS, is very valuable and it is vital to improve the quality and the added value of our membership for keeping and increasing the number. Namely, I deem that the challenge in front of us is to be able strengthening the links between scientists in different fields of the wide spectrum covered by the CASS and favoring the proper interactions of academia and industry. Obviously the above involves all the kind of services offered by the CASS to our members and, actually, the first impression is that scientific publications seem to be instruments with a low strategic value: the channelled message is on paper (or in electronic format) and does not require human interaction! That is true, but if you think a second, you realize that publications are essential for creating the background of reciprocal knowledge and confidence that is the basis for a technical and scientific community. Therefore, I believe that the goals of the bulleted list aiming at increasing the customer satisfaction are also in line with the more general expectations of our members. Do you think that view and statement are coherent? If you have suggestions, comments, please e-mail your thoughts to me. Thank you for the valuable support to IEEE CAS Society. Franco Maloberti, VP Publications, IEEE CAS Society (Email: franco.maloberti@unipv.it) mailto:franco.maloberti@unipv.itshapeimage_3_link_0
IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems Launched
The inaugural issue of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits Systems was published in March 2007, featuring 8 invited papers contributed by international experts in the area. These Transactions will be published quarterly and the Editor-in-Chief is Prof. Tor Svende (Bassen) Lande of the University of Oslo, Norway. Bassen can be contacted at bassen@ifi.uio.no.