Editorial

Erhan Erkut - erhan.erkut@ualberta.ca
Faculty of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R6, Canada

While MS/OR academics have a wide variety of research interests, the great majority share a common task: teaching. In the last decade, many business and engineering schools have been demanding major changes in the way MS/OR is being taught: use of real-world applications, cases, spreadsheets, and collaboration with other functional areas. MS/OR teaching is also experiencing a number of revolutions simultaneously: end-user computing, the world-wide-web, distance learning, cooperative learning, all of which demand significant changes in teaching. Networking and cooperation among MS/OR teachers, who are trying hard to cope with these changes, is as important as it has ever been in our discipline.

All of these changes have created a strong need for the recording and sharing of high-quality information about MS/OR teaching. This is the primary reason for the launch of this new INFORMS journal which will not only serve these ends, but will also encourage the production of high-quality educational materials. Serving the needs of MS/OR educators is one of INFORMS' mandates, and INFORMS has always recognized the importance of MS/OR education for the future of our profession. This journal is one of many INFORMS initiatives directed towards the improvement of the teaching of MS/OR.

The mission of our journal is to promote excellence in MS/OR education. We hope to achieve this goal by facilitating communication and networking between MS/OR educators. We feel that the best way to accomplish this is by creating an entirely electronic journal with refereed articles. The electronic format will allow innovations in content and interactivity not possible in a print journal, such as immediate electronic access to data sets and software, hypertext links and Java applications.

The journal will publish regular articles (such as tutorials, case studies, review articles, surveys, discussion papers), as well as software tips, book reviews, and sample problems. The readers will have an opportunity to participate in discussions about the articles through a bulletin board. It is our hope that INFORMS Transactions on Education (ITE) will improve classroom practice by providing access to current trends in curriculum and pedagogy and by making high-quality teaching materials available quickly, and at no cost, to instructors.

To encourage readership we are offering the journal for free during the first year. However, in the future we will be forced to find a source of income, either in the form of support from sponsors, or in the form of subscription fees, or both.

As readers of our journal, you can help ensure its success by:

Spreading the word in the MS/OR community about the journal.
Submitting papers for publication.
Acting as referees and members of the Editorial Board.
Using the materials provided by the journal and acknowledging the source.
Subscribing to the journal and convincing your library to subscribe (if and when we move to a pay-per-use system), or helping us secure sponsors.

As we begin our virtual life, we would like to acknowledge the efforts of those who have contributed to ITE in various ways. The idea for the journal came about during Art Geoffrion's presidency of INFORMS—in fact Art is the one who first proposed the electronic format. Tom Grossman, Armann Ingolfsson, Stephen Powell and Susan Neuman helped with the proposal. The INFORMS Publications Committee provided us with useful feedback, and the entire INFORMS Board supported the proposal. Our thanks also go out to the 25 individuals who have agreed to act as Associate Editors, and especially to Stephen Powell who is acting as Guest Editor for the first two issues.

We are hoping that ITE will become one of the most widely-read and most influential INFORMS journals in a short period of time, and we are looking forward to your input.

Download the PDF
10.1287/ited.1.1.01

Citation Information
Erkut, E. 2000. Editorial. INFORMS Trans. Ed. 1(1) 1. Available online at http://ite.pubs.informs.org/.

DOI: 10.1287/ited.1.1.1