Computational Intelligence - February 2017 - 4

Society
Briefs

Jim Keller
University of Missouri,
Columbia, USA

IEEE CIS VP-Publications Vision Statement

ello from the New Kid On The
Block. Hmm, or is it The Old
Guy Who Keeps Popping Up? I
have the privilege to serve you as Vice
President for Publications for the IEEE
Computational Intelligence Society.
Publications within the IEEE are my
passion so I'm happy to have this
opportunity. But, I've been here before
(that gave rise to the "old guy" comment). I started volunteering for IEEE,
like most, by refereeing papers. When
IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems was
created, I became an Associate Editor,
and then when Jim Bezdek's term as
Editor in Chief (EiC) ended, I was
appointed as EiC and spent 6 years in
that role during a time of large changes
to the process of publishing journal
papers. When I started, authors were
sending 6 hard copies of a manuscript
through the mail-believe it or not. At
least this was after carving on stone
tablets. We moved to e-mail pretty early
in my tenure and I set up Manuscript
Central for my successor, Nik Pal. After
that stint as EiC, I was elected VP Pubs
for CIS for the next two terms (I was
all excited even after I found out that
"Pubs" stood for Publications). During
my time in the distant past, CIS successfully launched the Computational
Intelligence Magazine, the IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development (now IEEE Transactions on
Cognitive and Developmental Systems)
and the IEEE Transactions on ComputaDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCI.2016.2627664
Date of publication: 6 January 2017

tional Intelligence and AI in Games. I finished my term as VP Pubs in 2008.
You might think, why do it again, 8
years later? I stayed active in CIS as an
elected Adcom member for a while, but
in 2010 I had the opportunity to experience IEEE publication issues at another level. Since then I have been a
member of the IEEE Periodicals Committee (PerCom) as Chair of the IEEE
Technical Activities Board (TAB) Transactions Committee, and a member of
the Publication Review and Advisory
Committee (PRAC). I continue to gain
a much deeper appreciation of the
strength and variety of IEEE publications by participating in the activities of
those two IEEE Committees. On
PerCom, we oversee the full life cycle of
IEEE Periodicals from the creation of
new publications to the occasional termination, as well as dealing with all
other issues coming up around the publication activity of the IEEE. Recently,
there is much concern about IEEE's role
in the Open Access arena. There have
been a variety of initiatives in IEEE
with respect to Open Access, and we are
monitoring their impact within our
community. Every publication of the
IEEE is reviewed every 5 years, and it is
PRAC's responsibility to conduct the
review process. The two pillars for IEEE
publications are timeliness and quality.
The former deals with the overall flow
of manuscripts through the pipeline
from submission to final decision to
publication. Quality primarily refers to
adherence to the IEEE policies and best
practices regarding the running of the

IEEE ComputatIonal IntEllIgEnCE magazInE | FEbruary 2017

publication: the makeup and terms of
the editorial board teams, paper processing sequence, and the review process. If
you want an in depth look at current
IEEE policy regarding publications,
check out http://www.ieee.org/
documents/opsmanual.pdf. There are
many cultures within the IEEE and
many, many smart and dedicated people
who create topic visions and who guide
our papers through the process. I have
seen (and continue to see) a multitude
of best practices regarding all aspects of
journal and magazine editing.
So, this brings me to the current
time. The IEEE, and more specifically
IEEE CIS has been good to me in both
my career and my life in general. I think
of all the friends I've made all across this
planet of ours. I'm a strong believer that
you should always give back; service is a
key element of any worthwhile career.
Nik Pal was finishing up his second
term as VP Pubs for CIS. Much like the
IEEE in general, CIS is also composed
of a variety of cultures with many
shared values and ideas. It hit me that I
now have a collection of unusual experiences that I could bring back to this
position, and so, I ran for the job to see
if I can help out with this new tool set.
And here I am. Our publications, the
Transactions and the CI Magazine, make
up one of the most visible faces of the
Society. Strong reputation as quality
publications enhances the value of
membership in CIS, making our activities that much more visible. The strength
and viability of the publications certainly impact the desirability of our

http://www.ieee.org/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Computational Intelligence - February 2017