Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine 26-1 - 3

fromthesociety
Max Cortner
T
he last few years have been a time of great change for
the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society
(IMS). I know that's said frequently now, but I think
our story deserves a bit more detail. Outside forces created extraordinary
challenges for the IMS Administrative Committee
(AdCom). New strategies were required for
nearly everything we do. Fortunately, we
had the people and procedures in place to
adjust our strategy.
Conferences
The I&M AdCom sees great value in faceto-face
meetings in which our colleagues
share ideas broadly. Prior to COVID the
rules for our eight financially-sponsored
conferences included the requirement that
at least one author be physically present to
discuss the paper results with the audience.
We highly recommended author presence for the ten technically-co-sponsored
conferences as well. Without travel that
rule became impossible. Instead, we worked with Conference
Catalysts to select and adapt a virtual conference platform
with maximum opportunity for remote participation and took
most conferences virtual. The result was two years of virtual or
hybrid conferences where authors worked across time zones
to present and discuss papers for the most diverse audience
possible.
The AdCom struggled with this compromise, but in the
end, it was far better than canceling our conferences altogether.
Participation was lower than in previous years, but
the opportunity for technical exchange was preserved. We
are now in the process of designing the new normal. Valuing
diversity and personal interchange, each conference
is adapted for the unique circumstances of participating
regions, and timely decisions for in-person and virtual presentations
are made by the conference committee to
assure continued diversity while encouraging in-person
participation. It gets complicated, but providing a richer
idea exchange remains our seminal goal. We even piloted
a hybrid distributed conference that combines virtual presentations
with multiple in-person conference/workshop
sites to maximize the regional experience of a world-wide
conference.
February 2023
I encourage you to register for one of our conferences. Keep
an eye on our website for conference information and paper
submission details: https://ieee-ims.org/.
Publications
Our publications continue to be recognized for their excellence.
Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine ranks well in
comparison to other publications and is now distributed electronically
to increase access. We want our instrumentation and
measurement (I&M) culture as well as our technology to benefit
engineers and their allies worldwide. Themed content
focuses on subjects of importance, today with in-depth articles
beyond the headlines.
The Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement (TIM)
also became an on-line only publication. TIM is the number
one journal in the world with so many submissions of
high-quality papers that the already large staff of editors and
reviewers needed increasing again! The strategy of quality,
quality, quality has been extremely successful and has maintained
the financial stability of the society even as conferences
have struggled.
The actions of the European Coalition called Plan S requires
authors in some countries and institutions to submit papers
only to Open Access journals that charge the author to publish
rather than using the traditional charge for access model.
In response to that need, the IMS has created a new gold open
access IEEE Open Journal of Instrumentation and Measurement
(OJIM) which is up and running. Providing this option while
dealing with the tidal wave of submissions for TIM was met by
expanding our editorial staff yet again.
Our editorial teams are maintaining and growing TIM as
well as OJIM, so check out the links on the IMS website and
submit your papers soon.
Benefits
Prudent management of expenses and an increase of income
thanks to the astonishing success of TIM have put the IMS on
sound financial footing. As volunteers themselves, the AdCom
fully understands the effort of many members to build
the profession of I&M, and we recognize that it is entrusted
to us to spend wisely for the benefit of members. To that end,
we have increased the award and grant funding. Through
awards, we recognize the leadership by example of those in
IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine
1094-6969/23/$25.00©2023IEEE
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https://ieee-ims.org/
Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine 26-1

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