PC/TAC Publications Liaison Report

I-Shih Chang, The Aerospace Corporation, i-shih.chang@aero.org Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Orlando, FL, Jan. 8, 2009 (Updated on Feb. 23, 2009)

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Outline

•  Summary from PC Meeting at 2009 ASM •  TCs’ Inputs on Publications

  Background   TCs Comments and Suggestions   General Observations

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Summary from PC Meeting at 2009 ASM

•  TAC recommended 2 of the 5 newly-appointed PC members   Prof. Claudio Bruno (Univ of Rome) and Butch Foster (Auburn Univ.)

•  Dr. Peretz Friedmann (Univ. of Michigan) is appointed to be in charge of AIAA J. •  Major Projects:

  eBooks: 219 titles available for purchase (40 more to be converted)   IAS & ARS archives complete -- first sale went to Texas A&M

•  A new AIAA Journal of Systems Engineering is being considered.

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TCs’ Inputs on Publications -- Background (1/2)

•  An e-mail was sent by Betty Guillie to all TCs on Nov. 19, 2008. Dear TC Chairs:

The AIAA Publications Committee is in charge of books, journals, standards, and technical papers archives and will meet at 2009 ASM in Orlando, FL.

I am pretty sure that you and your committee members have encountered some publications-related issues in the past.

Please e-mail me a one-liner or a paragraph on any publications-related questions, suggestions, and comments. I will ensure that your message is heard at the AIAA Publications Committee Meeting.

Thanks a lot. I-Shih

•  Only Three TCs responded, and I-Shih Chang was furious!

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•  Two more e-mails were sent to TCs on Dec. 3, 2008 and Jan. 28, 2009 Dear TC Chairs, Vice Chairs, and Publications Subcommittee Chairs: The AIAA Publications Committee is in charge of books, journals, standards, and technical papers archives and will meet at 2009 ASM in Orlando, FL. Although “Publish or Perish” is only true in academia, publication is still one of the important factors in measuring personal career achievements in industry and government agencies. As of today, few TCs replied to the previous e-mail on AIAA publications. As a TC leader, you volunteer to take some responsibility and obligation to make AIAA the best Institute to serve aerospace technical community. I recognized that responsibility and obligation when I was the Solid Rockets TC Chair. Please e-mail me a few sentences or a paragraph on any publications-related issues, suggestions, comments, and good/bad experience. If you do not have any thing to say about AIAA publications, you can just reply to this e-mail with two words “No Comments.” But please do not discard this e-mail without replying to it. The inputs from all TCs will be presented to VPs, Deputy VPs, Directors, Editors-in-Chief at the Technical Activities Committee and Publications Committee meetings in January 2009 and later distributed to all TC Chairs, Vice Chairs, and PS-Chairs. Thanks. I-Shih

•  51 TCs responded, and I-Shih Chang is happy now!

TCs’ Inputs on Publications -- Background (2/2)

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20 TCs did not reply. (1/2)

# TC Technical Committee Chair Vice-Chair PS-Chair

1 ACD Aircraft Design Gil Crouse Michael Drake

2 AFM Atmospheric Flight Mechanics David Mitchell Atilla Dogan

3 BA Balloon Systems Michael Smith

4 CAES Computer-Aided Enterprise Solutions Mike Jahadi

5 ECS Energetic Components & Systems Karl Rink Barry Neyer

6 GAS General Aviation Brian Richardet Roy Myose

7 IC2 Info. and Command & Control Sys. Jeremy Kaplan

8 IS Intelligent Systems Ella Atkins Michel Ingham

9 LAAA Legal Aspects of Aeron. & Astron. Pamela Meredith

10 MIS Missile Systems Michael McFarland Ronald Miller

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20 TCs did not reply. (2/2)

# TC Technical Committee Chair Vice-Chair PS-Chair

11 MSP Microgravity and Space Processes Kurt Sacksteder

12 PD Plasmadynamics & Combustion Deborah Levin

13 PS Product Support David Loda Lori Fischer

14 SAT Society & Aerospace Tech. Timothy G Howard

15 SE Systems Engineering John Day Tsutsumi Bright

16 SR Solid Rockets Thomas Moore Clyde Carr

17 SRE Space Resources D Larry Clark

18 ST Space Transportation Peter Montgomery Anthony Taylor Carl Ehrlich

19 TI Technical Information Gerald Steeman

20 V/STOL V/STOL Aircraft Systems John Sprague Charles Crawford E Roberts Wood

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17 TCs gave succinct, positive comments. (1/2) # TC Technical Committee Chair Vice-Chair PS-Chair

1 AA Aeroacoustics Anastasios Lyrintzis Anthony Pilon Anthony Pilon

No comments.

2 ABPSI Air Breathing Prop. Sys. Integ. Raymond Best Jeffrey Flamm Weldon Wainright

All of the AIAA books that I have purchased have been excellent. Please tell the PC to keep up the good work.

3 AMT Aerodynamic Measur. Tech. Jonathan Naughton James Gord

I will respond at the Aerospace Sciences Meeting.

4 ATS Air Transportation Systems Daniel DeLaurentis

Most experiences are good, no reports of problems.

5 GT Ground Testing David Cahill Joe Patrick Steven Dunn

I reserve comment until I talk with my TC in Orlando.

6 HSABP High Speed Air Breathing Prop. Marty Bradley Joaquin Castro

I have surveyed the steering committee and we have "No comments". We are happy with the AIAA publications.

7 LSS Life Sciences and Systems David Klaus William Jackson Brian Dunaway

I am not aware of any particular systemic issues regarding the AIAA publication or review process.

8 LTA Lighter-Than-Air Systems Michael Conners Curt Westergard

Publications are tied to business and you have something to write about aerostats if financial support is available.

9 NDA Non-Deterministic Approaches Chris Pettit Jason Pepin

I requested comments from the NDATC but received none, so "No comments".

Bold font indicates the person who reponded.

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17 TCs gave succinct, positive comments. (2/2)

# TC Technical Committee Chair Vice-Chair PS-Chair

10 P&C Propellants and Combustion Frederick Gouldin Yiguang Ju

Distributed email to TC members. No comments.

11 SC Space Colonization Narayanan Ramachandran Marcello Romano

TC has just started an electronic news brief & newsletter this year and we regularly also put out position papers.

12 SD Structural Dynamics Teresa Kinney Suresh Shrivastava

I prepare a 2-page YIR article, and in this regard I have absolutely no problems with Aerospace America Editors.

13 SS Space Systems Stanley Kennedy Jeffery Puschell

Let's talk in Orlando.

14 TES Terrestrial Energy Systems David Lilley

I am very satisfied with the works of the Publications Committee.

15 WSE Weapon System Effectiveness Jeffrey Elder David Lyman

I have found publication articles I have read to be interesting, current, informative, and creative.

16 LP Liquid Propulsion Carl Engelbrecht Scott Miller

Forwarded email to TC members.

17 MS Modelling and Simulation Joseph Nalepka

No comments. I am not aware of any issues or concerns regarding publications.

Bold font indicates the person who reponded.

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34 TCs provided much appreciated detailed reply. (1/2) # TC Technical Committee Chair Vice-Chair PS-Chair

1 ADS Aerodynamic Decelerator Sys. Robert Sinclair Elsa Hennings

2 APA Applied Aerodynamics Frank Coton

3 APS Aerospace Power Systems Harout Ayvazian Gregory Carr Theodore Stern

4 ASD Astrodynamics James Gearhart Craig McLaughlin

5 CPS Computer Systems Thomas Woodall Lyle Long

6 DA Digital Avionics John Gonda Denise Ponchak Christopher Watkins

7 ECO Economics Dipasis Bhadra

8 EP Electric Propulsion Dan Goebel

9 FD Fluid Dynamics Peter Hartwich

10 GNC Guidance, Navigation & Control Mark Whorton* Sungwan Kim

11 GTE Gas Turbine Engines Robert Bruckner Ian Halliwell

12 MAT Materials Gregory Odegard Samit Roy Edward Glaessgen

13 MDO Multidisciplinary Design Optimiz. Timothy Simpson Robert Canfield

14 MVC Meshing, Visuali. & Comput. Env. Steve Karman David Thompson

15 SA Space Architecture A Scott Howe Theodore Hall

16 SAR Space Automation & Robotics Glen Henshaw Marcello Romano

17 SEN Sensor Systems Timothy L Howard

Bold font indicates the person who reponded. * indicates additional TC member(s) also responded.

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34 TCs provided much appreciated detailed reply. (2/2)

# TC Technical Committee Chair Vice-Chair PS-Chair

18 SL Space Logistics Olivier De Weck Barry Hellman

19 SOF Software Systems Lyle Long* Allan Morris

20 SOS Space Operations and Support Bernard Schwartze David LaVallee J Paul Douglas

21 STE Space Tethers Sven Bilen Enrico Lorenzini

22 STR Structures Michael Hyer Stephen Engelstad

23 SUR Survivability Stephen Whitehouse Ameer Mikhail

24 TP Thermophysics Egidio Marotta* Eswar Josyula

25 HR Hybrid Rockets Andrew Prince Arif Karabeyoglu

26 ASE Atmospheric & Space Environ. Dale C Ferguson

27 CMS Communications Systems Elizabeth Klein-Lebbink Allan Osborn Chris Hoeber

28 AS Adaptive Structures Vit Babuska Gregory Agnes Timothy Hindle

29 FT Flight Testing Brenton Weathered John Minor Terry Weber

30 NFP Nuclear & Future Flight Propulsion Benjamin Donahue Bryan Palaszewski Gregory Meholic

31 ACO Aircraft Operations Parimal Kopardekar Rick Shay John Sorensen

32 HIS History Scott Eberhardt

33 MGT Management J Stephen Rottler P David Elrod

34 DE Design Engineering Hugh Briggs E Russ Althof

Bold font indicates the person who reponded. * indicates additional TC member(s) also responded.

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1. Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems (ADS) TC (1/2) ADS TC Chair, Robert Sinclair, Airborne Sys. N. America, robert_sinclair@airborne-sys.com The following are comments from the members regarding AIAA publications. 1. Perhaps we should mention the "issue" we had at the last conference with the plagiarized paper, and suggest that AIAA may want to impose an earlier manuscript submission rule for conferences so that papers can be reviewed by session chairs at a minimum prior to presentation to reduce the chances of this happening again? 2. How about AIAA working harder (and faster) to allow the production of paper-copies of conference proceedings for those who want to p ay extra for them? I understand that this ma y not be economical for megaconferences that feature hundreds of talks; but I think that it would work for small proceedings such as those of the ADS. And to repeat my argument against those proceedings on CDs: Today in 2008 I still consult ADS proceedings produced 10, 20 and 30yrs ago. What tells me that those CDs will be readable on those computers that will be built 20yrs from now? And a suggestion on how to spend ADS TC money: In case AIAA is still not r eally interested in d oing this, I wouldn’t mind our T C printing a bunch of pre-ordered ADS proceedings from 2005 and 2007 and sell them at a (reasonable) loss. 3. What is the current time between manuscript submission and appearance in an AIAA publication? It used to take a very long time (well over a year). If that is still the case, AIAA should be challenged to speed that process up. In parallel with nudging AIAA on our publication issues, our TC leadership should target key papers from our ADS Conference and urge people to prepare them for publication. In particular, combining papers might make good journal articles. We ought to look for opportunities to put articles in Aerospace America as well.

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1. Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems (ADS) TC (2/2) 4. For those who have not attended a particular conference the proceedings cost is quite high, and usually one only wants a paper or two. Has the AIAA considered a subscription allowing one to download individual conference papers from the AIAA website? I do not know how popular it would be, but individual download charges are more clumsy for the user than they are expensive. A reasonable cost for access to all proceedings could be a bout half a proceedings cost per year. Library user download rights, already in place for some journals could be a source of income, too. Maybe this is already done, and I am ignorant, but, if so, I suggest more publicity for it. 5. Here are some statistics on the papers submitted to the Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics during the 12-month period from October 2007 to September 2008 (with the corresponding numbers for the previous year in parenthesis). The average days from submission until:

An author of a declined paper is notified: 92 (95) days The Associate Editor asks for a revision to a paper that is expected to be accepted: 98 (89) days A paper is accepted after revision: 176 (170) days

(these numbers will be published in Editorial to appear in the January 2009 issue). So it is still the same – about a year in the best case (the numbers given above are rather minimums than averages, so in practice it takes more than a year). As you can see, it is not speeding up. Of course, it is totally up to Associate Editors to accept or decline the paper and what revisions to make (they usually give only one month to incorporate the revisions); and I do not think they would ever follow the TC suggestions.. .

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2. Applied Aerodynamics (APA) TC APA TC Chair, Frank Coton, Univ. of Glasgow, frank@aero.gla.ac.uk There has been no adverse feedback from the Applied Aero TC on publications issues. We have a connection with the Journal of Aircraft board and this appears to be functioning well. I am an Associate Editor of the AIAA Journal and so provide a link to that journal also. We publish out highlights article annually and that is a valuable activity for the TC.

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3. Aerospace Power Systems (APS) TC APS TC PS-Chair, Theodore Stern, DR Technologies, Inc., tstern@drtechnologies.com The APS-TC publications subcommittee mostly focuses on publications by the TC, such as our website and newsletter, while our conferences subcommittee generally addresses papers for specific conferences. Nonetheless, here are a few comments from my observations – AIAA’s electronic paper submission system is excellent. It really makes the process very convenient for the authors and the session chairs. On the flip side, I’ve seen better approaches to gathering the presentations for the conference, e.g. the IEEE PVSC uses a c entralized system at the conference so t hat each paper is automatically transmitted to the proper room at the proper time. There have been too many AIAA conference sessions where the session has been interrupted because the power points weren’t compatible or couldn’t be located or loaded on time. I think the “no paper, no podium” rule is important to enforce, but the converse never made sense to me. If someone wants to submit a paper and it gets through all the gates, I don’t see why presenting it has to be a precondition for inclusion into proceedings. It is getting harder to find the time, budget and to go through the approval process to get state-of-the-art results published. This is especially true with the larger corporations who shy away more from potential issues with ITAR, etc. I don’t know what AIAA could do about this – perhaps something could be done to clarify the ground rules or to encourage corporations to invest more discretionary funds in technical publications. Could AIAA lobby the State Dept and Commerce Dept to provide better clarity on what is and is not acceptable. To encourage submissions, perhaps authors should get a discount on the conference? Perhaps AIAA should consider more conferences with restricted attendance (US Citizens only) ?

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4. Astrodynamics (ASD) TC ASD TC Chair, James Gearhart, Orbital Sciences Corporation, james.w.gearhart@comcast.net Regarding the issue of AIAA Publications from the perspective of the Astrodynamics Technical Committee, I would like to provide the following feedback: 1) The following text was excerpted from our TC Charter: "Assist the Publications Committee of the AIAA in its efforts to maintain and improve the quality of the AIAA technical publications, by providing counsel to editorial staffs and reviewing technical papers proposed for publication." 2) Our TC maintains two positions that formally serve as liaisons with the Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics and the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets. It has always been the policy of the Astrodynamics TC to communicate any publications-related issues directly to the respective editors through these journal liaison members, in a timely fashion as the issues arise. 3) At every Speakers' Breakfast and before every technical paper session held at both the Space Flight Mechanics Meeting and the Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, the session chairs encourage the authors to consider submitting their conference papers to the various peer-reviewed journals.

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5. Computer Systems (CPS) TC

CPS TC Chair, Thomas Woodall, Raytheon Space & Airborne Sys., twoodall@raytheon.com We've been happy with publications. We the Computer Systems TC together with the Software TC published the COTS guidebook. We have been disappointed in some ways with JACIC, but are satisfied with the current plans which will make it better and more respected. For example, we like the annual publication of all articles.

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6. Digital Avionics (DA) TC

DA TC Chair, John Gonda, The MIRE Corporation, jgonda@mitre.org In the future, please do not shotgun these requests out to the TCs which have already responded. DA TC PS-Chair, Chris Watkins, GE Aviation, chris.watkins3@ge.com The Digital Avionics Technical Committee (DATC) has discussed a possible improvement to the AIAA publications process. We propose a process be setup where we can submit award-winning conference papers to AIAA journals. We would like to provide papers that win "best of conference" and possible "best of track" for more widespread publication in the journals. The conference would be a good first round of reviews, even if the award-winning paper required additional review by the journal editors.

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7. Economics (ECO) TC

ECO TC Chair, Dipasis Bhadra, FAA, Dipasis.Bhadra@faa.go v I commend you for your interests in collecting information about AIAA's publications. I have some limited exposure to AIAA journals but generally noticed the following: 1. Professional quality of Journals appears to be somewhat uneven. Some journals are at par with what one would expect in the academic domain but some others may not. 2. Review process of the journals may always be improved. Although I like the web-based review process that the AIAA launched a couple years ago, it can be further improved. I would also be interested to see that reviewers pool is expanded. A lot of research that takes place outside the AIAA community may be brought in for the effectiveness of the Journals. 3. Finally, the industry aspects of aviation, in particular economics, finance, and business, are sorely missing in almost all the Journals. Within AIAA community, we have been working very hard to build these communities, emphasizing parts of some journals or even launching an industry-focused journals may be worth your while. Over the years, I have noticed that AIAA journals have published very little in these areas. Once again, I appreciate your taking time to compile this information. This is certainly a task that will serve the broader community well.

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8. Electric Propulsion (EP) TC EP TC Chair, Dan Goebel, JPL, dan.m.goebel@jpl.nasa.gov I submitted a lot of information that you presented last year. So my first comment is what happened? What actions have been taken to streamline the reviewing process for the journal editors and associate editors? This year I would like to comment (complain) that a paper was sent back twice to a student I know because the editor of the AIAA journal did not like the fonts and layout of the figures. He said that making the author submit the figures in the final format saved time later. This puts a big job on the author that may not be warranted because the reviewers may recommend that the figures be changed or deleted. Submitted papers should have figures of sufficient quality to be reviewed, and the editors should try and minimize the workload on the author as much as is reasonable. Once the paper is reviewed, then the final figures should be required.

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9. Fluid Dynamics (FD) TC FD TC Chair, Peter Hartwich, The Boeing Company, peter.m.hartwich@boeing.com I passed your original e-mail on to my TC membership. I have yet to receive a s ingle answer. This experience is consistent with similar surveys that I distributed in the past on behalf of the AIAA Publications Committee. I even brought it up as an agenda item at my last TC plenary session. During this session, the general feedback was that AIAA's publications are of high quality. I have TC members who are working with AIAA on a Progress-series book. Our TC has for years a liaison with the Journal of Aircraft. I nominated one member of our TC for the position of Editor-in-Chief, AIAA Journal. In short, the Fluid Dynamics TC is actively involved with AIAA publications at several levels. To me, their engagement seems to indicate that they are taking AIAA's publications seriously, that they value them, and that they care. If nothing else, they are actively engaged rather than sitting quietly on the sidelines, and they try to make a difference rather than sending a few gripes up the chain. In my book, thata's all goodness. Thanks very much for caring about the quality of AIAA's publications - very much appreciated…

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10. Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) TC (1/2) GNC TC Chair, Mark Whorton, NASA/MSFC, mark.whorton@nasa.gov I agree it is a radical idea and I'm not saying our TC advocates it. I'm just passing along the comment. However, there has been some discussion amongst our members against this i dea and you can see this response below.

Lael Rudd, Northrop Grumman Corp., lael.rudd@ngc.com A suggestion I would like to propose is blind reviews of journal papers, in terms of not having the author's name appear to the reviewer. This would remove any prejudice one way or the other. I would even propose possibly going one step further and have the reviewer's names be known to the author. I believe this would force the reviewer to give an accurate technical assessment, instead of a possibly biased one (due to competitiveness, personal grudges, etc.), since the reviewer's name would be known. However, I guess it could be argued that people may be afraid to give critical, detailed, analyses if they know their name will be seen. Also arguments over technical expertise against the reviewer might also occur, but I think that should be irrelevant as long as the reviewed points are technically valid, or vice-versa invalidated by the author.

I think though, that the concept of an "old boys" network should be accepted as a potential problem. At the very least, preventing reviewers from seeing the author's names can help minimize this problem. Having reviewers be accountable for their comments would also minimize this problem. Both of these actions would lead to greater technical quality papers, I believe. I could be in the (extremely small) minority here though.

John D. Schierman, Barron Associates, Inc., schierman@barron-associates.com Lael: I believe you would be very much in the minority on this one. I think having the reviewer’s name known would limit their honesty if they had critical comments. On the other hand, one possible problem with not knowing the author is that no checks could be made regarding whether the material had been published previously. I guess you could have those types of checks made by an editor though.

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10. Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) TC (2/2)

John L. Crassidis, State Univ. of New York at Buffalo, johnc@eng.buffalo.edu

Oh I spend A LOT of time checking up on the history of a paper. It’s amazing the deceit that goes on. But such is the life of publish or perish… Nazli Kahveci, nkahveci@ford.com

I have a c omment about past conferences and events. The AIAA website in its current form provides information only on the future conferences. The links to the past events simply disappear. Users can access past conference proceedings and agenda via the "Publications and Papers" link, whereas I believe events overview, program committee, forums and sponsors could as well be lis ted in an accessible form for future reference. Most professional organizations indeed keep online records for the links which were used to advertise past events at the time. Chris L. Pettit, U.S. Naval Academy, pettitcl@usna.ed u

We all know that publications is a key factor in academia and beyond. In the recent years, increasingly, numerical indices (eg, journal impact factor, h-index, publication half-life) are being used to judge publications. Whether we like or not, I don't see the trend reversing the near future. In spite of very high-quality nature of the AIAA publications, they somehow perform poorly in numerical indices [eg, AIAA journal, which is the leading AIAA publication, has impact factor less than 1 - this is less than J. of Sound & Vib - which I think is not as good as the AIAA journal]. I somehow feel this issue need to be at least registered by the AIAA Publications Committee.

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11. Gas Turbine Engine (GTE) TC GTE TC Chair, Robert J. Bruckner, NASA/GRC, robert.j.bruckner@nasa.gov I have no input or issues with AIAA books and journals. However, I feel strongly that the quality of the technical conference papers could be improved. I believe there is a trade-off between timeliness and rigorously peer-reviewed conference papers. On the one hand there are conferences such as the ASME-IGTI TurboExpo that have a very rigorous publication and review process. The papers coming from this conference are o ften of higher quality than refereed journals, however the research that is presented is at least 18 months old. On the other hand there are several conferences that only require an extended abstract. In such a setting the onus is on the author to make his/her best effort to present error-free research, but the understanding is that it is timely and not meticulously reviewed. I feel that the AIAA conferences, JPC and ASM in particular, are stuck firmly in the mushy middle, papers are neither timely nor of high quality. They have long le ad times f or abstracts (8 months for the JPC is unreasonable in the day of internet based conference administration), yet the final paper is not reviewed and is often of poor quality or not even submitted. I believe it would be in the best interest of AIAA to moved toward a more timely format in which only an extended abstract is required for the conference proceeding and a more formal, reviewed paper can be published through the journals. GTE TC Vice-Chair, Ian Halliwell, Avetec, ihalliwell@avetec.or g The only comment I have on AIAA publications is that I think the collection is really impressive. I have a pretty large set of AIAA Air Breathing Propulsion texts as well as many others from The Education series and Progress in Astro & Aero. I always look through the list of upcoming publications to see what I might next acquire. There are a few books on my wish list right now! The savings on AIAA publications is something I always mention when encouraging young folks to become members; they can recoup the whole of their Student Member fee on one book alone!

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12. Materials (MAT) TC MAT TC Chair, Gregory Odegard, Michigan Technological Univ., gmodegar@mtu.ed u The only recent interactions that our TC has had with AIAA Publications is concerning a project that we have in which our TC members are assembling a book on Aerospace materials, and our annual Materials report in Aerospace America. As far as I know, we have had no problems with AIAA publications. I have cc'd the chair of our book subcommittee (Biliyar Bhat) and the chair of our publications subcommittee (Ed Glaessgen). If they have any specific suggestions regarding AIAA publications, then they will contact you directly.

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13. Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) TC

MDO TC PS-Chair, Robert Canfield, Air Force Institute of Tech., robert.canfield@afit.ed u My experience with reviewing is that editors rely on automatic e-mail messages to solicit reviewers without ever making personal contact. Then they often expect reviews be accomplished without ever hearing from the candidate reviewer--the paper shows up on CAS as due/overdue without the reviewer ever responding positively to the request .

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14. Meshing, Visualiz. & Comput. Envir. (MVC) TC (1/2) MVC TC Vice-Chair, Steve Karman, Univ. of Tenn. at Chattanooga ,steve-karman@utc.edu I forwarded you request for input to the Meshing, Visualization and Computational Environments committee and received feedback from two members. Below is the te xt of their emails (unedited or filtered). These are their experiences and opinions, not necessarily mine. Input from first committee member: The last 2 experiences I have had with the journals were mixed. Last year I had an amazingly expeditious review of a manuscript for Journal of A ircraft: 6 weeks from submission to acceptance (frankly, unheard of!), and 6 months from submission to appearance in print. This year I submitted a manuscript to JACIC, which was declined by the associate editor as out of scope. I did not particularly agree with this since I have seen other CFD papers in JACIC, but I did not dispute it. Nevertheless, the decision was prompt. I do believe AIAA had made a solid effort to shorten the time to either publication or a rejection decision for the journals. As a contrasting case, an article I published in AIAA Journal in 2005 was under review for over a year before I finally had reviewer comments back and a decision from the associate editor. Obviously I missed the telecon, things came up (sick kid to the doctor). Again, I will not be at ASM but should be in San Antonio (pending abstract acceptance of course) .

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14. Meshing, Visualiz. & Comput. Envir. (MVC) TC (2/2) Input from second committee member: Nobody in industry cares about AIAA publications or reads them except small group of i ndustry authors. Publishing papers often negatively influences your career. AIAA needs to allow technical content to be uploaded by member authors to a searchable website (like NASA reports) which can be spidered by google. Google will do the ranking for us. I suggest we dump the peer review process all together. Members should be able to add their critiques of a certain paper as an attached blog. In industry AIAA publications are not necessarily a positive for your career, because papers either disclose technology and/or strategy or disclose that you are not working on what you should be working on. Industrial work should NOT be peer reviewed. Either the published material does not meet academic standards of reproducibility (on purpose) or academic reviewers are not qualified to peer-review. Therefore most industrial work is only disclosed during conference meetings. (If at all). A lot of industrial work is now disclosed in non-AIAA conferences such as NAFEMS or company specific meetings. AIAA is becoming less and less of an outlet for industrial work. What I propose as a fist step is that all industrial papers that are presented in AIAA conferences are uploaded to the AIAA website and distributed for free. The papers should be searchable by Google. Individual members should be able to comment on the papers as they see fi t .

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15. Space Architecture (SA) TC SA TC Vice-Chair, Theodore W. Hall, twhall@twhall.com We have an AIAA book in the works: "Out of This World: The New Field of Space Architecture." This has been a long time in coming -- it was originally conceived as proceedings for a symposium we organized in 2002. (We were a subcommittee of Design Engineering at the time.) It has been re-conceived and re-edited over the years -- chapters have been added and deleted. I have not been directly involved in the editing and can't say why it has taken six years. Suffice to say there have been delays with authors and editors (who can work on it only during nights and weekends), and also with the publisher. It's my understanding that AIAA has been slow to act at times. The editors are A. Scott Howe and Brent Sherwood. Scott is also the SATC Chair. I don't know whether Scott has had a chance to reply to you. I'm including him on Cc. Speaking for myself, in regard to meeting paper publication: I wish that all AIAA meeting papers were fully peer reviewed -- not just the extended abstract, but the full final manuscript. The SATC meets annually at t he International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES), which is cosponsored by SAE, AIAA, AIChE, ASME, and the ICES International Committee. (We've been meeting there since 1999 when we were merely a "working group.") SAE h andles the paper review and publication. Short abstracts are due in November, reviewed for relevance, and assigned to sessions or rejected. Full papers are due in March and are reviewed by three peers assigned by the session organizer. The reviewers may accept, accept with modifications, or reject. Authors have a few weeks to make necessary modifications. Modified papers are reviewed again for final acceptance or rejection. Camera-ready manuscripts are due in May. I like the SAE/ICES review model. What I don't like is that they require authors to sign away all of their copyrights (what AIAA calls "Option A.") It seems that AIAA meetings make accept/reject decisions earlier in the process, based on extended abstracts and incomplete papers. I don't like that. On the other hand, I do prefer AIAA's approach to copyright assignment .

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16. Space Automation and Robotics (SAR) TC (1/2) SAR TC Chair, Glen Henshaw, U.S. Naval Research Lab, glen.henshaw@nrl.navy.mi l

Well, now that you mention it... I personally have been having an AIAA journal publication-related issue. I will try not to sound petty about this issue, though it has been quite frustrating.

Summary: - multidisciplinary papers have a difficult time getting a fair review from AIAA journals, especially if the author's reviewer suggestions are ignored - AIAA editors are not responsive to author questions regarding such papers

Background: Last year I submitted a paper for consideration to AIAA JGCD. The paper was cross-disciplinary, in that the topic was on trajectory planning for spacecraft docking maneuvers; but it incorporated elements of spacecraft trajectory planning related to "classic" orbital dynamics (finding minimum delta-V maneuvers) but also incorporated elements of robotic trajectory planning from the artificial intelligence community (finding paths that do not collide with obstacles). These two communities make different assumptions about the problem and therefore derive different algorithms that have different characteristics. They also each tend to ignore problems that the other community finds important. AI researchers typically ignore delta-V requirements and second-order perturbation effects. Orbital mechanics researchers typically ignore collision hazards and attitude constraints. In m y paper I at tempted to define and then solve an intermediate problem that incorporated elements of each of these fields in order to develop an algorithm that could plan trajectories for spacecraft which are operating in the near vicinity of collision hazards.

Unfortunately, the associate editor appears to have recruited reviewers who were only familiar with the orbital mechanics side of the field, even though I recommended reviewers from both sides. The reviewers were not favorable to the mixed set of assumptions I made, preferring to see a more classical orbital mechanics paper.

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16. Space Automation and Robotics (SAR) TC (2/2)

The reviewers also had valid critiques of the literature review and of the set of example problems I solved in the paper. Two of the three reviewers recommended that the paper be rejected for publication. This, by itself, would be fine; I am perfectly fine with accepting a negative outcome from a fair review process.

However, two of the three reviewers based their evaluations on assumptions that were clearly in error. I noted this and the fact that the other major critiques of the paper - the literature review and the example problem set - could be rectified, and asked the associate editor whether I had the option of rewriting the paper, attaching a cover letter detailing the mistakes made by the reviewers, and resubmitting it. I never received a reply. I rewrote the paper anyway and submitted it to AIAA JSR, thinking that the multidisciplinary nature of that journal would suit the paper better. However, the editor of JSR rejected the paper without reviewing it on the grounds that it had already been rejected by an AIAA journal. I pointed out that the paper had been significantly rewritten and asked the JSR editor the same questions I had asked of the JGCD editor. Again I received no reply. I was therefore forced to submit the paper to an inferior non-AIAA journal.

I have noted that a significant number of other spacecraft trajectory planning papers that make similar sets of assumptions have also been published in non-AIAA journals, including some from otherwise well regarded authors. Of course I do not know the details of these papers' reviews and publication, but given that JGCD is normally considered to be the leading journal in the field and that the author of a spacecraft trajectory planning paper would normally consider JGCD first for publication, I find it strange that these papers did not find a home there.

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17. Sensor Systems (SEN) TC SEN TC Chair, Tim Howard, The Boeing Co., timothy.l.howard@boeing.com I forwarded your original request to my TC members and didn’t get any suggestions or requests back from anyone. My own experience with AIAA pubs has been generally positive. My own area (sensors) is probably better covered in terms of publications by traditional publishing firms and other professional organizations (such as SPIE and IEEE). I think that is a side effect of the traditional technology base for sensor engineers; however, as you are probably aware, the use of advanced sensors, computing, and intelligent systems/subsystems in growing in the aerospace community (witness the journal JACIC, and the growth of the Infotech conference). So I would hope that we can expect to see more technical books for example, as well as a growth in papers in this area in the coming years. For the AIAA such publications would, I expect, be mission- or payload-oriented because the fundamental technology is well covered elsewhere. I have no requests, complaints, or suggestions. However, I should note that, when I first joined the Sensor Systems TC a few years ago we had some discussion on aiming towards an eventual sensors-related publication, perhaps as a new section in the AIAA Design Guide for some future release of that publication. Perhaps that would be worth considering for a future edition of the guide. Our TC is also meeting at Orlando, on Monday 1/5 from 7-10 pm. If you or a delegate can attend, I’d be happy to put you on the agenda to brief our TC on AIAA pubs, Or if not I’ll be happy to read or circulate any news you’d want to share with us .

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18. Space Logistics (SL) TC SL TC Chair, Olivier De Weck, MIT, deweck@mit.edu I agree with you, publications are critical. We are working on two things in the Space Logistics TC: 1. AIAA Progress Series Book: "Space Logistics: Enabling New Frontiers" (project approved and underway, about 50% complete) 2. New AIAA Standards for space logistics I can provide more detail if desired.

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19. Software Systems (SOF) TC (1/2) SOF TC Chair, Lyle Long, Pennsylvania State Univ., lnl@psu.edu You need a new Editor-in-Chief for the JACIC journal, someone who is more accessible and more pro-active. SOF TC Member, Ronald Kohl, R. J. Kohl & Association, rjkohl@prodigy.net I happen to be the E ditor in C hief of a Soft ware Systems TC Guidebook, “Managing the Use of COTS in Mission Critical Systems”. One of the problems that I, and the working group that helped our TC produce this GB, has had is that when I want to gain information about this GB (e.g. how many copies have been sold or downloaded? What are the trends of such purchases/dl’s over time? What are the demographics of the purchasers? Can we have access to the recipients of our GB in order to solicit their reactions to our GB?), I always have to make a special request to some AIAA staffer. While the AIAA staff has been helpful and usually responsive, it seems that as the Publication ‘owner/manager’, our TC should have some of the kind of info at our fingertips. It would be much more useful to me, as the GB ‘owner’, if I c ould have easier and/or direct access to such info in order to be able to answer these kind of questions without having to engage AIAA staff. This could help our TC to better make decisions about when to update our GB, what changes to make to our GB in future updates, etc.

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19. Software Systems (SOF) TC (2/2) A second question I have is ‘What is the Pubs committee doing to determine the need for and a marketplace for future AIAA Pubs?’. While our TC has conceived of this COTS GB pretty much on our own, based on a lot of TC interactions. But the re may be s ome burning need by the AIAA membership (or even larger technical community) on some aspect of software intensive systems that our Software Systems TC could consider taking on, either by ourselves or in collaboration with other TCs ( or even other outside orgs?). While our TC recognizes that we can propose ideas for new Pubs (as we did for our COTS GB) and as a part of that effort we did our best to determine community interest, we a re just a small part of the AIAA. If t here was ‘marketplace analysis’ service that the AIAA Pubs committee could provide to us TCs, in order to make sure that our TC Pub is, in fact, something of greater interest to a larger community. These are some thoughts I’ve had, based on my own experiences in leading our TCs efforts (in collaboration with the Computer Systems TC) on our COTS GB. If your Pubs Comm is meeting at ASM, I mite be able to attend, in case any of the above would be worth further discussions.

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20. Space Operations and Support (SOS) TC SOS TC PS-Chair, J. Paul Douglas, jpauldouglas@opsjournal.org I share the sentiment voiced by the Life Sciences and Systems TC: it is unfortunate that the YIR reflects only 2/3 of the year. Though I can readily relate to the editorial staff's need to adhere to a schedule, having been in the position myself at times to cut certain material for the sake of maintaining the Communicator's production schedule, I believe that it is nonetheless counterproductive to place the deadline for the YIR manuscript submission in September. Much can transpire in t he final 3 months of a year, which is not captured in this article. The net result is that we, the TCs in parti cular and AIAA in general, can be left appearing uninformed. May I suggest moving the YIR to January or, as was suggested by LSSTC, re-title to "Fiscal." My preference is for the former, but if the latter was adopted, it would at least leave open the possibility for every significant event in a given year and field to be captured.

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21. Space Tethers (STE) TC

STE TC Vice-Chair, Enrico Lorenzini, enricoloren@comcast.net On the positive side 1) the quality of the AIAA peer-reviewed publications is high; 2) the web-based publication retrieval system works well; 3) the write-track reviewing system is has reduced (see later) the time from submission to publication. On the negative side 1) the time to publication is still far too long: six months at minimum and more typically quite longer Issues/Suggestions There are no equivalents of "rapid communications" or "letters" in the AIAA family of journals. Engineering notes are part of the solution but they are too few and still take several months to publish. Consider starting a journal dedicated to rapid communications in the aerospace field. Make every effort to speed up the publication time of full-length papers in the AIAA journals: aim for a maximum time of six months to publication. Overall AIAA is doing a great job at promoting aerospace engineering, fostering technical advances and disseminating the results.

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22. Structures (STR) TC

STR TC Chair, Mike Hyer, Virginia Tech, hyerm@vt.ed u About a year ago a member of the Structures TC took the initiative to begin an electronic newsletter for the Committee. The idea was to solicit articles, stories, research findings, etc. from the TC members, assemble them in a newsletter format, and circulate the newsletter to the members of the TC, and put them on the TC web page. The first three newsletters were a huge success. For the fourth newsletter there was some difficulty in getting articles from the members. By the fifth newsletters there were minimal submissions of articles and we are now in the process of determining what to do next. The newsletter editor suggested a blog. I am not sure this is su ch a g ood idea. Most engineers do not hang out on blogs on a r egular basis, at least technically oriented blogs. You mentioned that only in academia is publish or perish a motto. Many aircraft industries do not want to necessarily publish findings that have business implications, so many of the non-academics do not publish. We are not sure if this is the problem.

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23. Survivability (SUR) TC SUR TC Chair, Steve Whitehouse, Applied Research Associates, Inc., swhitehouse@ara.com My only comment would be that I have enjoyed being a reviewer for the Journal of Aircraft. The computer-based system works well, and is a convenient way to get copies of papers for review, and to submit review comments. The editors of the journal are also very good about asking for help well before the deadline for the review. Finally, it is very satisfying to know that your personal expertise is being used to maintain the quality of an AIAA publication.

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TP TC Chair, Egidio Marotta, Texas A&M Univ., emarotta@tamu.edu This might be an issue you can discuss with your subcommittee and come up with a set of recommendations for the full committee to discuss in Orlando. Also, it seems that a good portion of the submitted articles is from foreign authors; does this affect the perception of the quality of the AIAA journals? Moreover, I was under the perception that our Thermophysics Journal was well respected? Is this not the case? TP TC PS-Chair, Eswar Josyula, Air Force Research Lab, Eswar.Josyula@wpafb.af.mil I work in a Govt. Lab and I interact with academia in my research. With most of the academic Professors I work with, I find there is a reluctance to publish in the AIAA series of Journals because their impact factors are lower than the high standard these academics have set for themselves. My recommendations are as follows:

1. Find out the reasons why AIAA set of Journals have relatively low impact factors and attempt to improve on them.

2. If Editors-in-Chiefs of the AIAA set of Journals have good reasons *not* to i mprove the impact factors, document the reasons and disseminate them to TC Chairs, Vice Chairs, and Publication Subcommittee Chairs.

3. Find an alternate measure of merit in which AIAA set of Journals are, in fact, better than similar ones and disseminate this information.

In the end, we want the best researchers out there (Academia, Industry, and Govt.) to feel satisfied, excited and a healthy challenge with their publishing experience in AIAA.

24. Thermophysics (TP) TC (1/2)

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TP TC Member, Michael J. Wright, NASA Ames Research Center, michael.j.wright@nasa.gov I will say that I find the quality of the AIAA journals to be quite good overall, and I have been a contributor, reviewer, and guest AE for several of them. I believe that the primary reason why the impact factors of the journals are low is that they are engineering journals, and as such publish a large number of papers of a more applied nature. These may not be heavily referenced in the more academic journals, but since AIAA is first and foremost an engineering professional society, I believe that they are adequately serving their community by publishing journals of an engineering nature. In my job at NASA I don’t even bother checking the TOC’s of the “academic” journals, but I always look over my “big three” -- JTHT, AIAAJ and JSR -- when they arrive. I will also say that the review process is broken. A consequence of the online review system is that reviews tend to be more cursory. There is an expectation that a paper that appears in a pe er reviewed journal is of archival quality and free of at least obvious errors. Based on my experience as an au thor and AE, this is not always the case. I try to write detailed reviews when I am assigned a manuscript, but as an AE I frequently find myself in the situation of asking for three reviews and after 3 months and several prompts getting one back with a one paragraph writeup to the effect of “this is good” or “this isn’t good.” I honestly have no idea how to fix the problem, but it is worth noting. Perhaps it is worth periodically reminding authors that it is their duty to review 2-3 papers per paper they publish to ensure that the system works, and to remember their frustration at receiving late or cursory reviews when they are conducting reviews of other manuscripts.

24. Thermophysics (TP) TC (2/2)

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25. Hybrid Rockets (HR) TC HR TC Vice-Chair, Arif Karabeyoglu, Space Propulsion Group, Inc., arif@spg-corp.com This may not be the official position of our TC, but, as a person who occasionally publishes in the AIAA journals, I have a few comments: 1) I bel ieve that the most important issue that AIAA Journals face is the rather low values their IMPACT FACTORs despite their relative importance and the high quality of the material in these journals. AIAA must absolutely address this to keep the quality at the highest level. 2) The publications delays are still a little bit of an issue, less so though.

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26. Atmospheric and Space Environments (ASE) TC

ASE TC Chair, Dale C. Ferguson, NASA/MSFC, Dale.C.Ferguson-1@nasa.gov Our primary issue is that in 2008, the AIAA published three books with subject matter directly related to the work of the ASETC, without using any members of the ASETC as reviewers or resources. Not having any input into these publications, we could not ensure that they were accurate, complete, or represented the AIAA properly. This situation should be remedied. Whenever AIAA is considering publishing a book on TC-related subject matter, the TC in question should at least have the chance to review the book, so that the expertise of the AIAA is brought to bear to help make the book worthy of AIAA publication. Hopefully, you will consider this request in the spirit in which it is given. Publications will be better if the TCs are used as a valuable resource.

CMS TC PS-Chair, Chris Hoeber, Space Systems Loral, hoeber.chris@ssd.loral.com I want to say that I strongly endorse what you say on page 37 - that it is very bad that the YIR only covers the first 2/3 of the year. As the author of the Communications entry the last several years, I have brought this up more than once, and it felt like fighting City Hall. Either solution: moving it to January or covering the fiscal Year October-September, would work.

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27. Communications System (CMS) TC

28. Adaptive Structures (AS) TC

29. Flight Testing (FT) TC

FT TC PS-Chair, Terry Weber, Boeing, terry.b.weber@boeing.com

The (email) title made it look like an offer from AIAA rather than a request to the TC's. May I suggest a subject line such as, "TC Input on AIAA Publications Requested" in the future. I get a lot of mail and sometimes skip over things.

I did look over your charts though. The suggestion of peer reviews for conference papers is absurd. With the hoops that most industry and DoD folks have to jump through just to release a paper, to add a peer review would make it impossible to get papers. The idea of using the Wikipedia model for constant, online peer review has merit. Wikipedia is one of the most ruthlessly peer reviewed sources of information that exists.

30. Nuclear & Future Flight Propulsion (NFP) TC NFP TC Vice-Chair, Bryan Palaszewski, NASA GRC, bryan.a.palaszewski@nasa.gov

Our TC has published one book recently on Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (Millis et al.).

Another book we are planning, related to advanced propulsion concepts, has been stalled on our end as the AIAA has requested more detailed additions (problem sets, etc.). This seems to be a frustration on my part. We are trying to disseminate technical data, and as the AIAA is a volunteer organization, we are usually buried in our normal work, and may not have the time to develop the added materials for a textbook. Perhaps we can loosen the requirements to make our books in the form of textbooks!

ACO TC Chair, Parimal Kopardekar, NASA ARC, parimal.h.kopardekar@nasa.gov

I think we need a journal that is focused on Air Traffic Management. We have a number of conferences but no journal where we publish peer-reviewed papers focused on ATM.

Systems Engineering Journal sounds good too.

31. Aircraft Operations (ACO) TC

HIS TC Chair, Scott Eberhardt, Boeing, scott.eberhardt@boeing.com

The on-line availability of technical papers is a real bonus. I stopped getting hard copies of the technical journals when I realized I seldom had time to look at an issue before the next issue arrived. It is easier for me to research a topic by an on-line search. However, the one loss is that I don't get to skim papers that are tangent to my interests. I now rely on Aerospace America for an overview of other topics.

The text book series is excellent. I am happy to see the series continually expand.

As History TC chair, I really enjoy the books related to history and case-studies. I hope those titles continue to expand. I am hopeful that opportunities will expand for engineer/historians to publish in this venue where engineers can contribute their knowledge of the past. I also enjoyed the republication of Lillienthal's and Goddard's works.

On the downside, the review process is a challenge, particularly in industry. Not only must we go through all the hoops within the company, but we must endure the lengthy peer review process. It is always refreshing to get a long, detailed review, even when it isn't as favorable as one would like. But, too often, due to busy schedules, a review is at best cursory. It's hard to blame the reviewer when frequently the paper comes out of the blue and time hasn't been set aside for it.

Within the company, there are internal reviews that can be almost comical. Too many non-technical reviews are required for ITAR, EAR, IP, Copyright and branding issues. It's almost enough to lead one to just skip contributing a paper.

32. History (HIS) TC

MGT TC Vice-Chair, David Elrod, Aerospace Testing Alliance, david.elrod@arnold.af.mil

As a representative of the Management TC, I wanted to respond to your request for info on AIAA publications. For context purposes, the Mgt TC is not a heavy user of or contributor to AIAA publications overall. We do submit an article annually to Aerospace America and several of our members receive AIAA's Daily Launch email news bulletin. From a technical role, I have also used AIAA's technical publications and proceedings a fair amount over the years. I have been more than satisfied with each of these publications.

33. Management (MGT) TC

DE TC PS-Chair, E. Russ Althof, Raytheon Missile Systems, eralthof@raytheon.com

Our TC prepares the AIAA Aerospace Design Engineers Guide, one of AIAA's top selling books. At least over the past 12-15 years, we have always received extremely effective support and cooperation from AIAA Publications in the preparation of a number of new editions of the Guide for publication. Without that help, we would be much less willing and able to contribute that considerable amount of work.

34. Design Engineering (DE) TC

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General Observations

•  71.8% (= 51/71) of the TCs in TAC responded. •  One TC chair (DATC) was annoyed by receiving emails twice. •  Most TCs are satisfied with the AIAA publications. •  Average time from paper submission to publications is still too long. •  Paper review process can be improved. •  IEEE PVSC paper submission system seems worth a look. •  Things go smoothly, if TCs have liaisons with journal editors. •  TCs can be used a valuable resource by the journal and book editors. •  3 TCs (CPS, MVC, SOF) are not satisfied with JACIC. •  AIAA journals seem not having high impact factors in academia. •  Hopefully, the Pub. Committee will take some actions to respond to

these TC comments and suggestions.

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