IEEE Distributed Systems Online Names First Editorial Board

IEEE Distributed Systems Online, the IEEE’s first online-only publication has named the charter members of its editorial board. Editor-in-Chief Jean Bacon culled the 17 board members from leading professionals within academia and the distributed systems industry worldwide.

“I wanted senior people, experts in each area, to ensure that we had high quality information,” says Bacon. “These people have very little time, so I encouraged them to recruit enthusiastic young colleagues to assist. On this basis, I was able to attract leaders in the field to apply overall control while their team is responsible for supplying the detail and managing Web pages regularly."

DS Online debuted in 2000 as an IEEE Computer Society pilot program. Featuring original, peer-reviewed articles and departments, as well as expert-managed topic areas, the monthly magazine quickly became a leading resource for distributed computing information. “Our vision in starting DS Online in 2000 was to provide a Web site that people could trust, both to keep up-to-date in their area and to find out about new ones,” says Bacon.

The IEEE recognized the magazine’s importance by awarding it full publication status, making it the international organization’s only exclusively online publication. DS Online relaunched under its new status in January 2004.

Bacon credits the magazine’s success to a dedicated cast of volunteers, many of whom have been with DS Online from the beginning. “I volunteered to participate on the DS Online editorial board because of the emerging shift in the means by which communities interact with one another,” says David A. Bader, a professor at the University of New Mexico. “I rely on DS Online as the single portal for providing active information about our community to computing researchers, academics, and professionals.”

Hewlett-Packard’s Dejan Milojicic, another DS Online board member, agrees. “People in the industry have less and less time to regularly read papers in IEEE transactions and journals. The dynamic style of IEEE DS Online is more suitable for busy professionals,” says Milojicic. “It is a combination of a magazine style enriched with online access. … Short, but credible, summaries of technology help researchers and technologists more easily navigate through the wealth of information available in contemporary computer science.”

For the latest issue of DS Online, visit http://dsonline.computer.org. For a complete list of DS Online volunteers and their affiliations, visit http://dsonline.computer.org/about_editors.htm.

Contact: Rita Scanlan, Lead editor, DSOnline@computer.org

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