IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 1

IEEE Transactions on Robotics

Status ReportAdCom Meeting @ Autumn’05

Alessandro De Luca, Editor-in-Chief

presented by Bill Hamel, RAS VP Publication Activities

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 2

Highlights

smooth transition to two new Editors and many new AEs ∼completed

submissions are steady up, with acceptance rate reasonably low reviewing times continue to be very short reduced publication queue at IEEE 2004 impact factor: a new record high multimedia submissions in action enhancing revenue indices (impact factor, Xplore hits) for T-

RO

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 3

Editors’ transition

May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct 12LynneParker

stop AEof new papers

E start of new papers

E full in duty ✔

SethHutchinson

stop E of new papers

stop E ✔

4 papers in 1st review2 CA

papers

KevinLynch

stop AEof new papers

E start of new papers

E full in duty ✔

IanWalker

stop E of new papers

stop E ✔11 papers in in 1st

review8 CA

papers

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 4

T-RO/T-RA submissions

217 223248

325361

267

87

425 445

354305 322

050

100150200250300350400450500

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 est2005

T-RAT-RA roboticsT-RO2003 roboticsup to 3Q T-RO

• robotics submissions are up, though leveling off: 2005 will beat record submissions of T-RA 2002 (without automation & special issues)note on 2003 transition: T-RA for first 3Q only, T-RO started in last Q

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 5

T-RO/T-RA acceptance rate

T-RA1998 = 28%1999 = 23%2000 = 34%2001 = 30%2002 = 31%2003 = 28,6%

T-RO2003 = 19,7%2004 = 24,3%2005 = 24,6% (up to 3rd Q) current total T-RO = 23,6%

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

acceptance rate =

(accepted + conditionally accepted)

(reviewed submissions - withdrawals)

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 6

T-RO/T-RA reviewing times

At date 5/02 10/02 9/03 10/03 4/04 9/04 4/05 10/05

ICRA02 IROS02 ICRA03 IROS03 ICRA04 IROS04 ICRA05 autumn

Rvw > 9 mo 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 00

Rvw 6-9 mo 7 14 10 8 0 2 1 2 4 8Rvw 3-6 mo 59 84 63 58 0 0 22 25 32 22Rvw 0-3 mo 110 106 104 68 20 0 80 106 103 82Total in Rvw 179 206 177 134 20 2 103 133 139 112

T-RA T-RO

over the years, reduced overall work-in-process (despite the large growth of submissions)

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 7

T-RO reviewing times

4 2 4

16

29

18

35

05

10152025303540

7 6 5 4 3 2 1

months in review

a closer look shows rather steady data (112 T-RO papers in review)

82 in 0-3 months

22 in 3-6 months

8 in 6-9 months

(1 in mo 9, 3 in mo 8) average is, for third time in a row (since 1.5 y), less than 3 months!!

close to future IEEE 90/90 target: 73%/90 days or 90%/130 days

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 8

T-RO/T-RA publication

within -5% (‘99-‘00) or +5% (‘03-‘04) of budget

Year 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Page Budget 1248 1024 1024 1024 1024 1024 1076Pages 1196 960 1024 1024 1076 1076 1046Pages/RegPaper 12.7 12.6 12.8 12.5 12.3 11.2 9.9

T-RA T-RO

will go up to 1292 pages (using “max +20%” allowed by IEEE

this year)

max 10 pages allowedin T-RO w/o charge!

Up to T-RO Oct 05 issue

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 9

… looking into 2006

Page budget in 2006 T-RO consolidated a larger budget of 1292 pages (+5% allowed)

Publication queue in T-RO (as of Oct 4, 2005)

T-RA paper

s

T-RO reg

T-RO short

accepted 0 6 4

at EiC 0 5 3

at IEEE 0 22 12

all papers areRapid Postedin Xplore

ALL pending papers will be published within Feb 2006 issue

Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec

220 208 208 208 212 236

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 10

Multimedia in T-RO

advertised in T-RO web site (Jul), T-RO cover (Aug), RAS e-news (Aug), R&A Mag (Sep)

authors have started submitting videos with their papers 7 papers: 1 reject, 2 revise, 3 in review, 1 accepted (at

IEEE) few compatibility problems were experienced (codecs not

available)

how it will appear in IEEE Xplore 2.1

(downloadable next to paper)

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 11

T-RO in IEEE Xplore 2.1

Links to T-RA(for cont’ed access)

Rapid Posting(currently with papers for Dec 05 issue)

Cover pagesalso in electronic form

Full text search

Institutional access(hits for RAS revenues)

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 12

Enhancing revenue indices

Impact factor check for relevant T-RO citations during review process

encourage special issues and authoritative tutorials a “call for special issues” will soon appear in T-RO/RAM

Xplore hits timeliness of review and publication processes ✔ larger number of published papers

keeping a high page budget availability of multimedia ✔ rapid posting of papers ✔ access from institutional sites

… but never compromise on quality!

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society San Francisco, CA - 16 October 2005AdCom Meeting 13

Manuscript Central update

T-RO continues monitoring the experience of T-ASE 3 months to go on line, including testing “home-made” current web solution has been improved, is still more

flexible for editorial reports, and definitely cheaper (but labour intensive)

T-RO shifted move to Manuscript Central v3to mid 2006(at least)