IEEE Newsletter

Welcome Message from the 2014-15 SMC Society President

It is a great honor and privilege to serve as the 2014-2015 President

of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society (SMCS).

I would like to thank the Society members and volunteers for their

continuous support, service, and dedication to the SMC Society.

Numerous Society volunteers contribute by serving as editors

and reviewers of the SMC Transactions, members of the Society

Technical Committees, Chairs of local SMC Society Chapters and Student Branch Chapters, and

organizers of SMC Society-sponsored and technically co-sponsored conferences and scientific

meetings. I would also like to thank the members of the SMCS Executive Committee and Board of

Governors who work for the benefit of the Society.

During the second year of my term, I plan to continue working on improving the SMC Society's

operations and on enhancing services to SMCS members. I plan to emphasize technical

excellence as well as closer collaborations with other IEEE Societies and Councils.

Operations and Planning: We plan to continue to be a welcoming, friendly, and congenial

Society that is open, equitable, and accountable to all members. In collaboration with the SMCS

Executive Committee and the Board of Governors, who have been elected to serve our members, I

look forward to enlisting new leaders from the ranks of all members, including young professionals,

new faculty members, practicing engineers, and prominent researchers. Many of you have already

kindly volunteered to serve on various committees and editorial boards as SMCS representatives.

We are expected and obliged to govern the Society in a financially responsible manner according

to IEEE policies and rules. However, IEEE has growing expectations that volunteers need to

generate additional financial gains from IEEE publications and conferences. These expectations

have been recently challenged by Society and Council Presidents who are now requesting

financial transparency in reporting Society budgets. I plan to strongly support this position and

advocate the goals of the SMC Society at IEEE Technical Activities Board (TAB) meetings.

Membership and Student Activities: The Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society has begun

2015 with a healthy financial picture and many opportunities to introduce new initiatives and

projects to be pursued throughout the year. Our membership has been steady over the past few

years and a number of new Chapters and Student Branch Chapters have been recently

established. We need to provide new incentives to retain our continuing members and to attract

new members to join the SMC Society. We need to establish new long-term programs to address

the needs of our diverse membership across regions. Many IEEE members cannot afford the rising

conference registration fees to have their papers published at IEEE-sponsored conferences or the

cost of expenses to attend IEEE technical meetings. The SMC Society needs to address these

issues by establishing long-term strategies for its conferences and workshops that will generate

revenues so that we may offer financial support to members from less advantaged regions. We

plan to enhance Society regional activities by strengthening our Distinguished Lecturers Program,

by providing incentives to SMCS Chapters through additional funding, and by providing Web

access to resources, mailing lists, and membership databases so that SMCS members may be

served more effectively. The SMC Society has established awards for best student conference

papers and grants for students to attend professional conferences. We may also serve our young

professionals by establishing online forums to help new members learn about resume writing, new

job opportunities, available postdoctoral positions, new academic positions, and calls for grant

proposals.

Technical Activities: The SMC Society attracts numerous researchers from the new and

emerging areas in cybernetics, human-machine systems, and systems science and engineering.

SMC Society currently hosts 46 technical committees. New research topics are often addressed

by the SMC Society before they are included in technical events sponsored by other IEEE

Societies. To strengthen our relevance to industry, we are in the process of establishing a new

SMC Standards committee and an Industry Liaison ad-hoc committee with the goal of encouraging

closer collaboration with industry and recruit new members.

Publications: This inaugural issue of the new SMC Magazine is an electronic publication bringing

the Society news and timely information on the latest technology and research results within the

Field of Interest of the SMC Society. The Society financially sponsors three Transactions

(Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, Transactions on Cybernetics, and

Transactions on Human-Machine Systems. We also co-sponsor with the Computer Society the

new Transactions on Computational Social Systems. We are successfully completing the

transition to the new titles of our three Transactions, which were introduced in 2013 to better

reflect the scope of our publications. We will encourage technical excellence by improving the

quality of SMCS-sponsored publications through a rigorous peer review process, enhancing the

online resources for our editorial boards, improving the electronic review system, and enhancing

the reviewer's database by recognizing diligent reviewers.

Conferences and Meetings: Each year, the SMC Society financially sponsors and technically

co-sponsors a large number of conferences. We need to continue supporting and encouraging new

initiatives by providing financial support to smaller workshops and symposia sponsored by the

Society. Our Society will also benefit by fostering strategic relationships with other Societies and

Councils, especially those that were incubated by the SMC Society. This may be achieved

through co-sponsored technical meetings and publications, and by encouraging collaboration

among Chapters within local IEEE Sections. We are currently developing a corporate memory of

our sponsored and co-sponsored conferences (acceptance rates, number of papers, and number

of attendees).

I look forward to working with you and I encourage you to take a pro-active role in getting involved

in the Society by serving on our Technical Committees, by submitting your research contributions

to our journals and magazines, and by participating in our technical conferences, symposia, and

workshops. I also encourage you to take an interest in the governance of the Society by providing

your feedback and suggestions for the betterment of the Society. Please contact me

([email protected]) for more information about becoming involved in the Society. The names of

other SMC Society volunteers and their contact information are located on the Systems, Man, and

Cybernetics Society website (http://ieeesmc.org/). I wish you and your families a happy and

prosperous 2015.

Ljiljana Trajkovic

2014-2015 President, IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society