PRESIDENT'S DESK
Pubs on the leading edge
INFORMS President
Terry Harrison
tharrison@psu.edu
Loosely paraphrasing INFORMS’ constitution, the institute exists to develop and disseminate knowledge of O.R., both in theory and practice. Our current organization structure aligns nicely with that purpose, which results in three major segments of activity – publications, meetings and member services. For this column, I highlight publications or “Pubs.” Value exists for every INFORMS member within Pubs activities.
The Basics
INFORMS publishes 13 journals covering a broad span of topics. They are:
1. Decision Analysis (DA)
2. Information Systems Research (ISR)
3. INFORMS Journal on Computing (JOC)
4. Interfaces (Int)
5. Management Science (MS)
6. Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM)
7. Marketing Science (MktSci)
8. Mathematics of Operations Research (MOR)
9. Operations Research (OR)
10. Organization Science (OrgSci)
11. Service Science (ServSci)
12. Transportation Science (TS)
13. INFORMS Transactions on Education (ITE)
Eleven of these journals appear both in print and online versions, while ServSci and ITE are online only. ITE is also open access (i.e., freely available and a great source of information for educators). All of INFORMS journals are peer-reviewed.
Notice that many INFORMS journals have “Science” as part of their name. This reflects the heavy orientation toward theory and our academic communities within INFORMS. One journal, Interfaces, is dedicated to O.R. practice, and it publishes the best applications of O.R. in the world. The Edelman issue, which is the first issue of each year, reports truly transformational applications of O.R.
The Numbers
The scope and size of INFORMS journals are impressive. An example is the span of research topics from OrgSci to OR and MS to Int to MOR and others. A few other key metrics are submissions and page counts. INFORMS processed 1,942 manuscripts through online peer review in 2005. That number increased almost 250 percent to 4,767 in 2011. Consider the number of reviewers alone necessary to referee this volume of manuscripts.
INFORMS also experienced a steady growth in pages published (and an attendant cost increase). In 2007, INFORMS published 591 papers and 9,162 pages across all of our journals. Four years later, in 2011, those numbers were 734 papers and 11,481 pages.
Lastly, the financial numbers of Pubs are significant. Pubs provided 57 percent of revenue used to support INFORMS in 2011. The bulk of that revenue comes from institutional subscriptions, which continue to be strong. INFORMS’ journals are distributed via a variety of mechanisms such as JSTOR, EBSCO and Proquest. Additionally, INFORMS has distribution arrangements with library or government consortia in Brazil, The Netherlands, Korea, Australia, India and China with Turkey pending.
The Impact
Like many aspects of academic life, journals are “ranked.” Many INFORMS’ journals are considered the premier outlets in their areas. Further, four of INFORMS’ journals are used by Business Week and the Financial Times in ranking MBA programs. No other organization has more than two. Eleven INFORMS journals are indexed and ranked by Thomson Scientific Journal Citation Reports.
A few years back INFORMS introduced “Articles in Advance” to allow papers to become available online before they appear in print. To speed the publication cycle, INFORMS officially considers a paper “published” with the online version. This especially aids academics approaching a promotion/tenure decision by decreasing the lag between acceptance and publication.
The Future
The future of Pubs holds exciting promise for tools and technology to further enhance the availability of our journals. A large challenge also looms in changing models of payment and distribution.
Publications, in general, have been transformed over the past decade with the increasing capability of information technology to render a page in a highly readable fashion on a variety of devices. INFORMS continues to explore ways to make its content available across a number of platforms. Expect to see significant new options and capabilities over the next few years.
Open access, where journal content is distributed to the end user at low or no cost, requires INFORMS to think about different revenues models and distribution methods. To date, the impact has been small but, for the long term, it is a trend that cannot be ignored. We rely heavily on Pubs to provide funds for many other kinds of activities within INFORMS. To ensure a robust financial base in the future will require us to find ways to be less reliant on publications revenue. It is a difficult question but one that has attracted the attention of our strategic planning effort. I am confident of the outcome.
Going forward, we look to increase our rate of innovation in Pubs. While INFORMS is a relatively small organization, we have substantial stature in the publications community. We continue to search for novel ways to address our mandate to disseminate knowledge of O.R. theory and practice. Some of the best ideas and recommendations for change have come from our membership. If you have a suggestion about how we can improve in this area, please share it. Collectively, it will make an important difference. I look forwarding to hearing from you. Contact me at president@mail.informs.org.
