IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2019 - 6

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Open Access: How Best to Prepare
to Master This Challenge
By Wolfram Burgard

P

ublishing results is a cornerstone
of our scientific evolution, as it
enables us to present and do-
cument our findings and results
and provides the basis for innovation
related to previous work. Our journals
and conferences as well as IEEE Ro-
botics and Automation Magazine play a
key role in this. The current model
for our publication process is that
members of our Society generate the
documents describing their work;
organize the conference, journal, and
magazine reviewing process; and also
pay to access the papers. While this has
worked out for many years and made
our IEEE Robotics and Automation
Society (RAS) strong, there is now a
substantial push to change this model
and provide open access for all our
publications-funded largely by public
agencies-to everyone.
This effort dates back to September
2018, when a group of research funding
organizations, the Coalition S alliance
(mainly based in Europe), announced
the launch of a strategic initiative to vig-
orously promote full and immediate
open access to research publications.
This initiative, called Plan S, envisages
that by 2021 all publications related to
research projects funded by the agen-
cies that joined the Coalition S alliance
shall be open access and freely available
without any embargo (https://www
.coalition-s.org/).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2019.2933651
Date of publication: 5 September 2019

6

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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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Open access journals do
not require subscription fees
from organizations or indi-
viduals and consequently
they can make all published
papers immediately and freely
available to the whole research
community. In most cases, open ac-
cess journals, however, do require fees
from the authors for each published
paper. These so-called author process-
ing charges are expected to lie in the
range of US$1,000-2,000.
Thus far, all the journals sponsored
or cosponsored by our Society, includ-
ing this magazine, have been using a
hybrid model, which allows authors to
freely select their preferred option for
accepted papers: fully accessible open
access publication (with author process-
ing charges) or regular publication (with-
out charges but accessible to subscribed
researchers only).
Unfortunately, this policy is not
compatible with Plan S. Also, Coalition
S does not allow the creation of so-
called mirror journals, which have the
exact same organization and name as
the original journal but publish only
in the open access format. Creating
entirely new journals, however, intro-
duces an enormous organizational bur-
den. In addition, it will require time to
establish key performance indices such
as impact factors for these new media.
Our Society is faced with a complex
situation, which made me decide to
bundle our strongest forces and estab-
lish the RAS Ad Hoc Committee on

SEPTEMBER 2019

Open Access Publication Strat-
egies, chaired by our Vice-
President for Publication
Activities Eugenio Gugliel-
melli and including me, Seth
Hutchinson (RAS president-
elect), Yasushi Nakauchi (RAS
vice-president for financial activities),
Venkat N. Krovi (RAS treasurer), and
all editors-in-chief (EiCs)/immediate
past EiCs of our flagship journals. This
committee is also joined by key repre-
sentatives of IEEE publication gover-
nance: Laura Creighton, director of
IEEE Society Products and Audience
Engagement-Technical Activities
Operations, and Peter Luh, chair of the
IEEE TAB Periodicals Committee. The
aim of this committee is to develop the
best strategy for our Society and a con-
sequent action plan that is not only
fully compliant with Plan S but also
supports the further development of
our publication portfolio in terms of
quality, accessibility, attractiveness,
and sustainability.
In the coming months, we will work
with passion and enthusiasm to tackle
the potential issues associated with the
required transformation to ensure that
our Society continues to offer high and
inclusive quality standards with respect
to publication services to our Society.
All members are welcome to contact
me or the members of the ad hoc com-
mittee to provide us with suggestions
and support.
https://www.coalition-s.org/ https://www.coalition-s.org/
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2019

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