July 1, 2008:
Folks;
It is my immense pleasure to share with you
the following news: IEEE
TAB last week approved launch of "IEEE Embedded Systems Letters".
This completes the first phase of our effort that started with an email
discussion attached below. Our sincere thanks to the leadership
provided by the ad hoc committee consisting of Tim Cheng, Nik Dutt, Enrico Macii, S. Ramesh, Sandeep Shukla and Wayne Wolf for their patience and
diligence in going through the two phase process and working with the
IEEE marketing team. The first issue is slated to appear in March 2009.
The main purpose of this email is
to solicit community participation at all levels: authors, ed board members, to
journal leadership as EIC or associate EIC. In doing so, we are
looking for individuals with the enthusiasm and energy to contribute to
the emerging journal. In particular, we are seeking suitable content
that we can showcase in our first two launch issues of March 2009 and
June 2009. We are looking to recruit editorial board members who would
be willing to work with the leadership of the new journal to ensure
3-month turnaround guarantee on our submissions.
Following Council guidelines we are starting the process for the EIC
search. Formal guidelines for application/nomination will be published
later this month.
If you are interested in contributing to the new journal please feel
free to contact me or any one on the ad hoc committee. And yes, do feel
free to forward this note to your colleagues who may want to be part of
the emerging community associated with the new journal.
Sincerely,
Rajesh Gupta
VP Publications/IEEE Council on EDA 858 822 4391
encl:
More info on the ESL:
IEEE
Embedded Systems Letters (ESL) �provides a forum for rapid
dissemination of latest technical advances in embedded systems and
related areas in embedded software. The emphasis is on models, methods,
and tools that ensure secure, correct, efficient and robust design of
embedded systems and their applications.�
The journal submissions consist of no more four
pages or 2200 words.
A draft of authors guidelines can be found
at:
http://www.cesca.centers.vt.edu/shukla/IEEE-ESL/.
encl:
Thank you all for taking the time and pointing out
the pros and cons. I also received even more frank advice from you
directly and on the phone. As some of you already noted, this was not a
poll of the community due to a highly skewed sample set. So, the
opinions were sought for basic soundness and things that we need to
watch out, should we decide to change the status quo.
My takeaways from these discussions were:
a. first of all, such an overwhelming response, from everyone save 2 or
3 on the list, points to an active community that identifies itself as
being part of the embedded systems (at least, among the folks I
identified); this gives us a strong impetus to want to do something
that will meaningfully engage the community and advance our collective
presence as an intellectual discipline;
b. almost everyone was dissatisfied with the status quo -- either of
the publications or the way they are organized or being used; the
differences were in the suggestions re what to do about it. That said, some of the complaints re existing transactions
were in the nature of 'usual' dissatisfaction, certainly not major
shortcomings. The conclusion being that the new publication is not to
fill in a deficiency in TECS or TCAD or DAES.
c. the community is too promiscuous between ACM and IEEE that any
attempts to create competitive publications with ACM are likely to
backfire for want of volunteer bandwidth which is already not enough;
d. there were several issues pointed out with the need for stronger
(and perhaps fewer) conferences in embedded systems, in an attempt to
demonstrate impact, and educate our colleagues outside of the ES
community; this is a position, I closely identified with, nothing helps
us more -- in grant hunting, student/talent, promotion etc -- than
strongly identified forums that can gather mindshare of the broader
communities; there were also suggestions to improve the quality
and thoroughness of the reviews through innovations in how the reviews
are done, and/or combinations with online content;
e. while we are pursuing some of these innovative ideas in publications
(e.g., peer review as a postpublication
activity etc) this is outside of the scope of what we want to with the
specific proposal to build a new publication under the sponsorship of
IEEE;
f. even as build the self-identified community of embedded systems, we
should be open to research endeavors and community efforts that are
coming up and seek to expand beyond ES; in other words, do not use the
publication to sandbox the embedded systems community, instead overtly
drive to open it up by inviting contributors who do not routinely
identify with embedded systems;
g. the idea of a "letters style" publication fired up a lot of
imaginations -- there were as many suggestions and creative ideas as
there were concerns regarding how the quality control will be
maintained. Almost everyone with concerns also volunteered to help in
the process of building the publication.
As publication mechanics goes, it is somewhat easier for me to build
the case for letters style publication and find the budget for it. In
the grand scheme of things, your opinions, availability and
participation are much more important ingredients to a successful
launch than techno/political concerns which shall always remain
secondary. I am putting together an ad hoc committee to build the
proposal for the new publication and will keep you apprised as it
progresses. Everyone on this list is very welcome to join the effort,
send suggestions etc. For our part, we will keep our ears to the ground.
Best wishes for the holidays!
Rajesh
Rajesh Gupta wrote:
Folks:
I am sending this note a somewhat arbitrary selected subset of the
broader embedded systems community to seek your input and participation
for a proposed transactions on embedded systems letters. This journal
has been under discussion for a while within IEEE. We have also had
input from some of you who had earlier pulled together a proposal for a
journal on Embedded Software.
IEEE Council on EDA, has pulled together a strawman proposal for IEEE Transactions on
Embedded Systems Letters (modeled roughly after IEEE Electron
Device Letters in terms of style of publication). The idea is to
provide a forum for rapid dissemination of ideas and advances in
embedded systems, their applications with a responsive peer review
system that keeps the submission to acceptance within 3 months. We have
also structured it to compliment publications in the embedded systems
area. Some of you are involved in such venues at ACM or at the IEEE. More than that you are a valued colleague in the
embedded systems domain, hence this email.
Specifically, I am looking for your any ideas, suggestions regarding
the proposed journal, your willingness to help build the proposed
journal. We are also looking for volunteers who would be interested in
taking an active role as a part of a smaller ad hoc committee to refine
the proposal and make it responsive to the elaborate requirements at
the IEEE. IEEE CEDA Publications will champion and shepherd the
proposal through the IEEE. Ideally, this will be a small committee of
3-4, but we are ready for the wonderful problem of more volunteers.
In terms of timeline, I would like to hear back from you, particularly
if you are interested and have the substantial bandwidth need to work
on the publication approval process by Tuesday, Dec 18th. At which
point, I will pass on the existing Phase A
proposal draft. Our first deadline is a proposal to IEEE CEDA EXCOM for
adoption by January 13th. To get there, it needs to be approved by CEDA
Pubscom which is usually very responsive.
I look forward to your feedback, suggestions and participation. Please
feel free to send your delicate comments directly to me.
Sincerely,
Rajesh
--
VP/Publications, IEEE CEDA