Page 14 - Summer 2006

acousticians just entering their professional careers vs. established professionals.
The survey taken of the members attending the retreat indicated the Society is viewed as serving its students and established members very well, but that it could serve its young professionals better. A critical time is the transition from student to working acoustician, accompanied by the transition from stu- dent membership to associate or full membership. These members also have fewer opportunities to net- work with other professionals, both locally and nationally. Society meetings and technical committee structure are key to involving new professionals, espe- cially those who enter non-academic careers.
Issue: Establishment of young acoustician’s professional careers and encouragement to participate in Society affairs.
Young professionals need help and encouragement at the start of their careers. It is especially important that the Society do as much as possible to make the transition easy. For example:
• Send a “welcome” letter from the President to mem- bers transitioning from Student Membership, con- gratulating them on their new professional status and including a list of specific benefits of ASA member- ship.
• Reduce meeting registration fees and dues to 50% of full member price for the first three years of full mem- bership.
• Simplify procedures for becoming active in ASA activities. For example, with the dues notice include a check-off form to allow members to volunteer for committee assignments. Through the Vice President and Internal and External Affairs Councils, encourage inclusion of young professionals in ASA activities including:
• Membership on technical committees
• Membership on administrative committees
• Technical Program Organizing Meeting (TPOM)
as “interns”
• Leadership roles in regional chapters
• Organizing (or co-organizing) special sessions at
meetings
• Serving as session chairs at meetings
Issues relative to products and services
The Society provides both products (publications, meet- ings, exhibits, and standards) and services (outreach, public information, public policy, promotion of acoustics, careers, and positions, developing standards, recognition) to the acoustic community.
• Publications
Issue: Personalization of the Peer Express system and making it more user-friendly.
The Journal continues to be the unifying force of the Society. It is seen as the premier research publication in acoustics—both internally and externally (nationally and
internationally). The Journal is rated very highly by our members because the membership of the Society is largely research-oriented, and therefore has a stake in a research journal (the participants of the retreat rated its quality as 9.3/10.0 and its relevancy as 9.0/10.0). Although there are some members who see the Journal as currently too narrow in scope, either because some areas of acoustics that were once in the Journal have moved to a different publication are no longer there or are missing because they never were in the Journal. Those that expressed dissatisfaction with the Journal usually did so because of process issues—manuscript- handling (the Peer Express system), reviewer bias, and the submission-to-publication interval. Members who described manuscript-handling used words like pedan- tic, unfriendly, intimidating, impersonal, and wasteful of time. Yet submission-to-publication time has decreased since the Peer Express system was implemented. Although almost all authors surveyed (87%) indicated that the Journal was their first choice for submission of an article, the combination of substance (technical rele- vance) and process (the Peer Express system and the review) seemed to drive some authors unnecessarily to other journals.
Issue: Expansion of the scope of the Journal.
It may not be easy to improve the Journal but some par- ticipants at the retreat felt that it could be done by expanding its scope. The use of special issues or special sections of an issue can provide increased interest to members and non-members alike. Emerging fields, focused topics, invited and contributed articles, and tutorials—when coordinated and assembled by a “guest editor”—can create a very exciting issue. It has been done before, but it could be done more often.
Issue: Continuation of the Journal revenue stream in light of pressure to place the Journal in the public domain (i.e., an Open Access Publication).
The rapid rise of electronic communication has led to a widespread opinion that information should be free. Consistent with its mission to promote acoustics, the natural position of the Society is that acoustical informa- tion should be free. Since it seems likely that opinion in this direction will continue to increase, it appears to the Vision 2010 Committee that although the Journal is presently an important benefit for ASA members as part of paying dues, in the future many of the Journal articles will be available to anyone at no charge.
The issue that needs to be addressed is that the Journal is the largest contributor to the revenue stream of the Society. The Vision 2010 Committee expects that the cost of producing the Journal will decrease as the processes of publishing and distribution evolve thereby increasing the net revenue. However, a probable increase in the size of the Journal may offset lower production and distribution costs. Clearly, alternate plans should be
12 Acoustics Today, July 2006