RAS Journal Publications Provide an Open Access Option [President's Message

Abstract

To respond to the needs of its authors, the IEEE has recently moved to expand the options that it provides for open access to its more than 125 journals in the IEEE Xplore digital library. There are three basic options. The first uses a hybrid open access model with the author choosing at submission between traditional and open access options. Upon acceptance with the open access option, the author pays a fee to enable unrestricted public access to the article in IEEE Xplore. With the traditional option, the article is available on a subscription basis to members and libraries. In the second option for open access, there are several new fully open access topical journals such as IEEE Journal on Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine. These are offered in electronic form only, and they typically have a rapid review cycle. The final option is a multidisciplinary open access mega journal, IEEE Access, which spans all of the IEEE fields of interest. For our three major RAS publications - IEEE Transactions on Robotics, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, and IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM) - all have adopted the hybrid open access model. In fact, RAM is the only magazine within the IEEE to be approved for open access. On another note, it is reported that the IEEE/Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ) International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) was held in Vilamoura, Algarve, Portugal, 7-12 October 2012. This is the largest cosponsored conference for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS).