State of the Journal

Abstract

I is both an honor and pleasure to report that IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC) has enjoyed yet another successful year in 2009 and, justifi ably, it continues to be recognized as one of the fl agship publications of the IEEE Computer Society. Our motto “Leading worldwide innovation and technical excellence in computers” defi nes our mantra with respect to our glorious past (2010 will be the 59th year of publication) and an ever bright future. In 2009, we have seen the continuation of the growth pattern as experienced over the last few years: The number of submissions is in excess of 650, while maintaining a time-to-fi rst decision at just above three months (93 days to be precise). Overall, the acceptance rate is nearly 30 percent and TC has successfully published numerous Special Sections (SSs) on areas of interest to the readership. Additionally, the 2008 impact factor of TC stands at 2.61, i.e. at its highest level as per IEEE CS records and in the top 10 percent of all ISI-indexed journals in computer-related areas. The publication queue of TC remains healthy, albeit as Editor-In-Chief I have experienced an increase in the number of submissions that are clearly out-of-scope; I invite potential contributors to make themselves familiar with the goals and objectives of TC, thus avoiding a likely disappointment upon notifi cation due to an early administrative rejection. While every effort is being made to match expertise in the Editorial Board with submissions, this may not always be possible and makes an early decision fair to all parties involved. Hence, do not hesitate to visit the IEEE Computer Society Web site and, in particular, the newly redesigned TC web page (http://www.computer.org/tc). A further feature of TC is the rigorous and effi cient process of manuscript review; the unabated objective of this publication remains the dissemination of results of the highest quality and technical impact. Hence, acceptance is very competitive and can be recommended only upon positive recommendations from all reviewers. As such, revisions are pursued only when supported by public and private comments from reviewers and Associate Editors (AEs); hence a revision is recommended only if a manuscript is considered to have the likely potential of a fi nal acceptance. It is my responsibility as EIC to ensure that while maintaining fairness, the review process proceeds on a timely basis by not incurring unnecessary delays due to either clearly poor quality in incoming submissions and/or the requirement of an excessive delay due to a lengthy revision. In some cases the “Revise and Resubmit” decision is used to alert the authors of the defi ciencies of a manuscript early on, while enticing them to further pursue an additional submission of their revised work. In my opinion, acceptance criteria will continue in the future to be more stringent, thus further increases in the paper rejection rate should be expected. The role of an EIC is certainly not an easy one; as the number of submissions to TC increases, my load and commitment have also increased. Throughout my appointment I have replied to authors with celerity to clarify their concerns, while preserving the confi dentiality of the review process; however, do not hesitate to directly contact the AE in charge of your manuscript if a more detailed assessment of its status is required. Recently, the IEEE Computer Society has undergone major restructuring in operation to ensure that the continued satisfaction of all parties will be preserved in the future as we shift to an even more electronic dimension for all facets of publication activities. During 2009, the Editorial Board of TC has been enlarged in both scope and expertise. Many of our outstanding AEs have completed their terms and, on behalf of the IEEE CS, I would like to thank the following individuals for an outstanding job: Valmir Barbosa, Guiseppe Lipari, Alessandro Mei, C. Siva Ram Murthy, Bharadwaj Veeravalli, Cho-Li Wang, Zhiwei Xu, and Xiaodong Zhang The following colleagues are the new members of the Editorial Board of TC and their biographies can be found in the next pages: D.R. Avresky , Jianer Chen , Rajiv Gupta, Lizy Kurian John, Ethan Miller, Behrooz Parhami, Micheal Raynal, Jon Weissman, Cheng-Wen Wu, and Jie Wu I look forward to working with them to further enhance the standing of TC among our technical community and better serve you in the months ahead. I have the uttermost confi dence that 2010 will be yet another stellar year for TC and as always, do not hesitate to contact me at lombardi@ece.neu.edu for help and clarifi cation related to your manuscript.