IEEE Signal Processing - May 2018 - 6

president's message
Ali H. Sayed | IEEE Signal Processing Society President | ali.sayed@epfl.ch

Galileo, Fourier, and Openness in Science

am always amazed at the speed at
which societal changes and behavior are happening in response to the
emergence of large Internet-based powerhouses such as Amazon (founded in
1994), Yahoo (1995), Netflix (1997),
Google (1998), Wikipedia (2001), Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), Twitter
(2006), Uber (2009), and others. All
these companies were founded after I
completed my Ph.D. degree in 1992 at
Stanford University. What a ride it has
been! Social communities have become
global, information is reached with the
click of a button, and news spreads at
the speed of light. Students graduating
today from college have grown up in
this new environment, surrounded by
an avalanche of online apps and material. Their interaction with information
is different from a generation before
them. For this younger generation, and
for many of us today, whether right or
wrong, our first stop when looking
for information has become the Internet. We expect information to be easily accessible and generally free. For
example, the dates in this article were
obtained online, mainly from Google
searches and Wikipedia.
There is so much good that can be
done in this new reality and also so much
harm when privacy, trust, and the equal
right to access are lost. Let us focus on
the positive aspects in this writing.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSP.2018.2809224
Date of publication: 26 April 2018

free, such as the BBC and CNN, among
It is time for the scientific community
others. Examples also exist of online
at large, and for professional organizapeer-reviewed journals that provide free
tions like ours, to embrace this openaccess to published articles, keep copyness more radically. Consider just one
right with authors, and do not charge
example: the current academic exercise
overlength page charges. Viable modof publishing scientific articles in archiels should be sought. The IEEE, given
val journals. In our field, the IEEE is the
its prominence and leadership, can and
leading organization in publishing refshould be playing a defining role in
ereed work with over 420,000 members
this evolution.
worldwide. These published works are
Many of us agree that the current
made available online through the IEEE
publishing process is moving toward
Xplore platform, which was launched
a bottleneck. The number of submisin 2000 and has exceeded 2 billion
sions to scientific journals is increasing
article downloads since then. The platexponentially, the size of many editorial
form has been a step in the right direction
boards is inflating, and the quality of
and has facilitated access to published
the reviews is somescience. This access,
times questionable.
however, is only availit is time for the scientific
Is this serving the
able to institutions and
community at large,
advance of science?
members in return for
and for professional
We need to embrace
a subscription fee.
organizations like ours,
the online medium
The IEEE has not yet
to embrace this openness
and its potential for
embraced the full poinnovative solutions
tential of the Intermore radically.
more creatively. More
net revolution to make
open platforms should be developed
scientific information more accessible to
to allow the participation of a broader
hundreds of thousands of researchers
pool of certified reviewers and the free
worldwide, including those who cannot
and wide sharing of manuscripts, data,
afford it. The same is true for other puband code. The platforms could also allow
lishing houses that argue in favor of subfor open discussions on drafts and even
scription fees to cover publication costs.
provide collaborative mechanisms for
I believe that more can be done, espepools of researchers to work together on
cially since many organizations today
open problems. The online medium can
have been able to find innovative ways to
and should be exploited more forcefully
offer users free access to services online.
to promote new modes of generating,
One example is news organizations with
assessing, and sharing science. There
expansive online presence where readare laudable efforts in this direction, with
ers can access news and even videos for
IEEE Signal Processing Magazine

May 2018

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