IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2015 - 9

EDITORIAL

Katina Michael

Reflecting on the
Contribution of
T&S Magazine
to the IEEE

t's always important to stop, take a
breath, and reflect
on the activities one
is engaged in. Sometimes we do this reflection willingly,
and at other times there are formal
structures within which we have to
work that trigger the requirement
periodically. It is always a good sign
when a Committee knocks on your
door asking for certain bits of data,
and you are more than willing to
share your learnings, with enthusiasm, and not just for the sake of
the least amount of effort required
to respond to a standard pro-forma.
This March, the IEEE Periodicals
Review and Advisory Committee
(PRAC) requested detailed data
about the periodicals of the IEEE
Society on Social Implications of
Technology (IEEE-SSIT), providing
three months for a written report
to be submitted. The PRAC Review
happens every five years and is an
opportunity for IEEE to consider
the contribution and validity of all
its periodicals. For the Society in
question, it is a chance to receive
valuable feedback from experienced colleagues, look for areas to
improve, consolidate, or expand,
consider what was done well, and
brainstorm on the opportunities
that lie ahead.
The PRAC report that was submitted to IEEE in Fall 2015 was

I

a bout 50 pages long. K atina
Michael, Ter r i B ook ma n, Joe
Herkert (by teleconference), Greg
Adamson, and L ew and Bobbi
Terman met with the PRAC Committee in New Jersey. We managed all the questions put to us
by PRAC, and later received written feedback on our report, and
responded accordingly to queries
and clarifications.
It is now time to look at the
next five years of IEEE Technology
and Society Magazine, but before
doing so let us celebrate the milestones we've achieved together,
and also spell out what we need
to do better to keep growing and
developing, as well as some of the
measures we've put in place to
overcome some significant issues
as we've gone through a rapid
expansion phase.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2015.2494238
Date of publication: 17 December 2015

December 2015

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

Content
The first thing we would like to do
is thank all the authors who have
published their research with us
in the last five years. It is such a
privilege to work with professionals who sincerely care about how
technology is impacting the world
around them. We conducted a content analysis of paper titles since
2010 and generated the concept
map in Figure 1. It is so encouraging to see diagrammatically that
we are fulfilling the mission of our
Society, with papers published in
humanitarian engineering, engineering education, engineering
ethics, sustainability, social implications, the interplay between
technology and society, the role of
government, and the development
of systems to enrich our everyday lives with adequate energy.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2015
