Note from the Editor in Chief

Note from the Editor in chief

Handing over the Reins

Roch Glitho

Time flies. Three years have already passed since I took the reins of the magazine. It is now time to bow out gracefully. A major strength of this magazine is its ability to constantly rejuvenate itself. Old blood is always recycled and new blood taken in, laying the basis for innovations. The following is an overview of some that were introduced during my tenure:

When I took office in January 2003, all submissions were distributed to reviewers by email, and the reviews were sent back by the same means. That was of course a very big step compared to the era when everything was done by snail mail and faxes. I acknowledge the terrific job done by my predecessors who brought the process to the stage where it was when I came on board. My contribution to this ongoing process was to introduce a centralized electronic manuscript handling system. Virtually all submissions are now handled using this new system. The advantages are numerous. Many tasks that were done manually in the past are now fully automated. This helps a lot in shortening "lead times." Sure, it took some time for the editors to get acquainted with the new system, but the investment was indeed worth it.
The review process has been significantly improved. Proposals for feature topics now go through a formal evaluation process that involves assessments by at least three experts.
The magazine has traditionally had the following main rubrics: feature topics, series, columns, and standalone articles. A new rubric, supplement, was introduced during my tenure. Supplements are "sub-magazines" within the main magazine. We now have two quarterly supplements that are fully operational. The first, the Optical Communication Supplement (OCS), was initiated in February 2003; the second, the Radio Communications Supplement (RCS), came on stream in March 2004.
Two new series were launched. The first, the Ad Hoc and Sensor Network series, was first published in March 2005, and there have already been three issues. The second, the Network and Service Management series, is more recent. It was first published in October 2005.
The Regulatory and Policy Issues column has been revived, and its scope broadened. The editors have authored and invited contributions on a wide range of policy issues in the United States, New Zealand, and the Netherlands.
New blood has been injected in the editorial board, with the appointment of several associate technical editors. Many of them will eventually be appointed full technical editors. They are the future of the magazine.

      I am now passing on my editorial duties to Tom Chen. He will be supported by Steve Gorshe, the new Associate Editor-in-Chief. I wish them the best, and have no doubt that they will bring the magazine to new heights.
      I would like to express my deep gratitude to my Associate Editor-in-Chief, who is now the Editor-in-Chief, for his support. I am also grateful to all members of the editorial board and the production staff in New York for their invaluable assistance. Special thanks to Sue Lange of the Publication Department, for all the changes she made to the centralized manuscript handling system to make it more user-friendly.
      It was great collaborating with all of you at IEEE Communications Magazine!

Biography
ROCH H. GLITHO [SM] holds a Ph.D. (Tekn. Dr.) in tele-informatics from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, and M.Sc. degrees in business economics (University of Grenoble, France), pure mathematics (University Geneva, Switzerland), and computer science (University of Geneva). He works in Montreal, Canada, as an Expert in service engineering at Ericsson, and as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Concordia University. In the past he worked as a Senior Specialist in network management for Ericsson Telecom in Stockholm, and as an R&D engineer for a computer manufacturer in Oslo, Norway. His industrial experience includes research, international standards setting (e.g. contributions to ITU-T, ETSI, TMF, ANSI, TIA, and 3GPP), product management, project management, systems engineering and software/firmware design. He is Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Communications Magazine and a Technical Editor for the Journal of Network and Systems Management (Plenum/Kluwer). He is also an IEEE distinguished lecturer. In the past he has served as Editor-In-Chief of IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials. His research areas include IP telephony, service engineering, network management, signaling, and mobile code. In these areas he has authored around 50 peer-reviewed papers, more than 15 of which have been published in well-known refereed journals. He has also guest edited some 10 special issues of refereed journals and has more than 20 patents in the aforementioned areas.