IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2011 - 4

FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK *

News from the Front
By Peter Corke

've just returned from the annual
IEEE Panel of Editors meeting, which
brings together the editors-in-chief of
all journals and magazines as well as
the IEEE staff who support the whole
publishing operation. Open access and
authors posting portable document formats (PDFs) on their Web sites were
the major issues this year.
First, the IEEE supports open access,
and some papers can be open access
through Xplore-they will be marked
with a special
* icon, and anyThe advertising
body can download them for free.
income has nearly
The upfront fee
doubled, and this
for the author is
US$3,000, which
makes a handy
flows through to
contribution to
the Society.
Second, the
our Society.
IEEE has recently
* changed its policy
regarding posting of the PDF files on
your personal or organizational Web
site. It now allows posting of only final
submitted PDFs and not those downloaded from Xplore. This is not retroactive but applies from January 2011 and
brings the IEEE into line with most
other scientific publishers. There was

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2011.941624
Date of publication: 14 June 2011

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

JUNE 2011

very vigorous debate about
this change, freedom to
disseminate research versus
income to societies that are
significantly funded by
download fees.
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine undergoes a formal
review this year by the IEEE Technical Activities Board Periodicals Committee. All IEEE publications are
reviewed every five years, primarily
not only to ensure that IEEE guidelines are being followed but also to
check on the general health of the
publication. Reviews are always a bit
of a concern, and there is a large template to be completed. However, looking at our report for the previous
review, in 2006, it is interesting to see
how far we've come in the five years.
In 2006, we were ranked sixth for the
impact factor, while for the last two years,
we've held the number one spot. Our
readership has continued to grow. The
advertising income has nearly doubled,
and this makes a handy contribution
to our Society. In 2010, our average
time for a decision was 2.8 months,
and the average time to print was 5.4
months. In 2009, our acceptance
rate was below 40%.
The topic of this special issue is
robots and the World Wide Web.
Today, robots are increasingly networked, and we are now able to

explore issues about how
they can access the vast
information resources of
the Web just as we do, for
example, the navigational
resources of applications
such as Google maps. Robots
can also share the information that
they create with humans or other
robots.
The "Student's Corner" column reflects just some of the activities of our
current student activities committee.
They have a very active wiki on the
IEEE Robotics and Automation Society's Web site; check it out. They have
been busy organizing many student
activities at 2011 IEEE International
Conference on Robotics and Automation, which will be discussed in the
next issue.
In this issue, we conclude the twopart tutorial on motion planning by
Steve LaValle. The next tutorial will
be on visual odometry.
This issue is our fourth digital
edition of this magazine. We would
like to hear your impressions and
opinions as whether you prefer the
traditional print or digital for your
publications.
All this and more within! As always,
enjoy the issue and keep articles coming my way (peter.corke@ieee.org).

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2011