bouldin@SUN1.ENGR.UTK.EDU (Don Bouldin) (10/25/89)
Dear Colleague:
I am writing to let you know the results of the recent survey
that was conducted via email concerning the need for a new
IEEE Transactions on VLSI.
85 % of the 75 people who responded to the survey FAVORED
the proposal while 15 % did not. On a scale of 1 - 10 where
1 indicates little value and 10 great value, those favoring
the proposal rated it an "8" while the remaining gave it a "2".
About 1/2 of those objecting do not favor any new publications.
The rest of those objecting believe that the scope, as originally
defined in the survey, falls within the purview of the Journal
of Solid State Circuits (JSSC). Verbatim responses (without names)
and a summary will be presented to the Circuits & Systems Society
and Computer Society boards in November.
In light of the responses, we have decided not to list specific
areas of interest at this time but will leave this task to the
future editorial board to meet the needs of its subscribers.
It is our belief that the new publication will have no more than
a 5% effect on any existing publication, yet has the potential
to unify much of the material on VLSI. Furthermore, the new
IEEE Trans. on VLSI will encourage the publication of new papers
that stress the interactions between the various aspects of VLSI.
Some opposing views (for and against) are appended below to give
you a flavor of some of the responses received.
Thank you for your cooperation. If you have any words of encouragement
(or discouragement), please contact me.
Don Bouldin, Chairman
IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on VLSI
Reply to: bouldin@sun1.engr.utk.edu (128.169.200.152)
or
bouldin@utkux1.utk.edu (128.169.200.67)
----------------- OPPOSING VIEWS (FOR) ------------------
RESPONSE A:
I got your message about the possibility of a new
Transactions on VLSI. Although there is a strong possibility of
overlap with several other transactions I see this area as a
growing one within the IEEE and one worthy of focus. After all,
if one can have a transactions on Ligthwave Technology and
another one on Quantum Electronics and a third one entitled J. on
Special Topics in Communications (with a self professed interest
in lightwave communications) and yet another one on Photonic
Technology Letters, what is wrong with a VLSI transactions? It's
the center of gravity of JSSC, IEEETC and IEEE Trans. on CAD, but
right now that center of gravity is a hole with nothing in it. I
feel that there are several of these "donut" activities within
IEEE that never have a home of their own and always live inside
another transaction (Walsh transforms in IEEE Trans. on Elec.
Compat. is another example, and another one is 2D image
processing living within the ASSP even though there is no
acoustical flavor to these papers at all). This is silly. Let's
put VLSI in it's own place, as it certainly constitutes a big
enough activity in electrical engineering today.
RESPONSE B:
Survey Questions:
1. Do you think the proposed publication would fill a need?
Yes / No (please explain) ***YES** My favorite place to
publish is presently in Integration, the VLSI journal. I desperately
need an IEEE accepted place which is similar. They concentrate on the
very things that you have mentioned.
.
.
.
9. Please indicate how valuable you feel this publication would be on
a 1-10 scale with 1 meaning little value and 10 great value.
****I greatly feel the need so I would give it a 10 **
---------------- OPPOSING VIEWS (AGAINST) ------------
RESPONSE A:
I am very concerned about the proposal. It seems to me that
the proposal as it stands overlaps and in many cases duplicates
the coverage of exisiting Transactions and Journals, and that
avenues for publishing the work in question in existing
Journals and Transactions should be explored further.
RESPONSE B:
I feel that there are already too many papers published with
minimal content. Just a recitation of what was done without
sufficient justification or explanation of tradeoffs etc.
I would like the journal review process to do some of the work
of filtering out papers of little value for me.
More journals means more papers published and therefor, lower quality.
I believe that any of the interest areas listed can find an exisiting
journal that will accept them if quality is there.
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