IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - October 2015 - 15

communities. Now the big publishers
have woken up and are investing in technology to address these new communities and their specialized needs.
So, how big does a technical publisher
have to be these days? Well, it must be big
enough to be a one-stop shop for its customers and end-users. Today, technical
publishers need to make ongoing investments in technology to stay cost-competitive and to create the social networking
infrastructures that will continue to
engage new customers-active authors,
editors, and a community of readers. They
also need to have the resources to move
quickly to acquire new innovative startups, as we saw recently when Elsevier
acquired Mendeley.

find two to three willing reviewers for
some journals. This can be partly due to
challenges in matching reviewers with
manuscripts in their field of expertise,
but it is also a sign of recent rapid growth
and, to some extent, of the health and
activity level of the research community
gathered around a particular publication.
A key question moving forward into
2016 and beyond is how the peer-review
system will adapt to handle the growing
volumes of manuscript submissions. This
is something that we can all help with by
encouraging our junior and graduate
researchers to consider engaging in peer
review and contributing to review work in
relevant journals. During my tenure as
vice-dean in my university, I also included review work as one of a number of

field. New research tools, such as Mendeley, combine practical tools for citation
management with back-end capabilities
that encourage users to set up groups
around specific research topics. This trend
toward groupware tools is likely to continue, and IEEE Colabratec is an excellent
example of a hybrid of social media integrated with a citation and knowledge-management back end, which draws on
Mendeley for much of its inspiration.
Throughout 2014 and 2015, scholarly
publishing continues to grow. The number
of journals and published peer-reviewed
articles has grown dramatically, which
puts increasing pressure on peer reviewers.
If you are an active associate editor,
you will have noticed this over the last
two years-it can take a long time to

FUTURE VISIONS
FOR IEEE PUBLICATIONS
Today

Price or Technology

High

Medium or
Average

Global Society
Publishing
* US$10.2 Billion
* 33% of Global STM
Market
* 1,000 Professional
Associations and
Learned Societies

14.9%
SpringerMacmillan,
Wiley, Kluwer,
Thomson Sci,
Informa and
IHS

Elsevier
(RELX)
10.2%

2.5%
ACS and IEEE

Low or
Standard

2.1%
ASME, IET, IOP, AIP, ACM, ASCE,
APS, SPIE, AIAA, and OSA
Narrowest

Breadth of Product Line
(a)

Broadest

Possible Future
High

Price or Technology

As with all keynotes speeches, the talk
ended with some future visions for
IEEE publications (Figure 6). One
aspect looked at the changing nature of
technical publications-we no longer
rely on the written paper, as electronic
media, data sets, and other multimedia
assets become part of the publication
itself. Social media also leads us toward
an era where it is increasingly common
to collaborate and coauthor with people
you have never met in person.
Another aspect of the future focused on
the marketplace changes. We've already
discussed these in detail, and I mentioned
that IEEE publications are actively working with other professional societies to create a working alliance of professional
organizations that could be large enough
to challenge the market domination of a
handful of large for profit corporations.
This "uber-institute" would have the ability to marshal resources and investment to
compete with today's large corporations.
Another consideration when looking to
the future of publishing is how the form
and structure of technical publications is
changing and evolving. One trend is toward
more use of social media and the growth of
research forums and online communities
centered around specific research topics.
There is also a trend toward researchers
keeping public blogs to record and express
their thoughts and opinions on new
research activities and publications in their

Medium or
Average

Low or
Standard

14.9%
Springer-Macmillan, Wiley,
Kluwer, Thomson Sci,
Informa, and IHS

Elsevier
(RELX)
10.2%

Rest of the Society
Global Society
Publishing Market
10%
UBER-INSTITUTE
(IEEE, ACS, ASME,
IET, IOP, AIP, ACM,
ASCE, APS,
SPIE, AIAA,
OSA, and Others)
Narrowest

Breadth of Product Line
(b)

Broadest

FIgURE 5. (a) and (b) A look at price of technology versus breadth of product line.

october 2015

IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine

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