This is the first question that most people ask when you say that you are running for office.
My list, not necessarily in order of priority is:
- Membership – Are we attracting a significant fraction of those working in our profession? What does IEEE have to offer them? Why is membership retention so poor?
- Publishing and information – Is IEEE meeting the technical information needs of its members and customers? Do we have the right answers to Open Access?
- New and emerging technologies – Does IEEE respond to the requirement to build new communities as technology changes? Do we have the collaborative structures in place to support responses to the big technology challenges? Does IEEE’s publications, conferences and standards respond to the demands of new technologies?
- Global diversity – How is IEEE expanding its coverage to meet the needs of technologists world-wide?
- Social responsibility – IEEE, as the world’s largest and broadest community of applied technologists, must explain “advancing technology for the benefit of humanity” results in an improved quality of life.
Hi Roger, affordable access to IEEE articles has been an issue for me ever since I joined in 1976? I have remained a member and subscribed to EDsoc and Communucations, but I have always felt very restricted in the articles I can read and download. I think I would have spent more and gained more benefit if all articles were available but at a nominal rate of say $2 each. With no restriction on which society I was in I would have spent far more money.
Best wishes with the election results,
Gordon Dyer.
Hi Gordon:
Thank you for your comment. I very much agree with your sentiment. IEEE-Xplore and IEL operates on a business model that targetted at the large university or corporate library instead of the individual member.
Aside from individual Society offerings, the only way that an individual member who does not have access via thier employer’s subscription, is the Member Digital Library (MDL),
but that is based on a monthly subscription model.
I have been advocating a very simple model, similar to the operation of a coffee shop card or a phone card or iTunes, that would allow a member to purchase credit that would buy downloads. The iTunes model ($0.99 per song) has worked well and I don’t see why something similar shouldn’t work for technical articles. I would also have a reducing rate for larger purchases – maybe a $10 credit would buy 2 articles, a $25 credit would buy 10 articles, a $100 credit would buy 60 articles, or something similar. Also, like phonecards and unlike the MDL, the credit would never expire.
I would be interested to hear further comment on this subject.
Best regards,
Roger.