Editorial:
preserving excellence through change
The Journal of the ACM
is charged with the mission of archiving the very best research in computer
science. It has lived up to this
charter of excellence by publishing research that is both lasting and pervasive
in its influence. How must the
ACM’s flagship journal adapt to the constant change in the computing research
environment? I will focus here on
outlining what I believe are some of the biggest challenges currently facing the
JACM’s editorial board. My intent
here is to highlight the issues that I expect this board to address in the near
future without necessarily prescribing the solutions by which to address
them.
The JACM’s scope has
sometimes been misconstrued as limited to the theory of algorithms and
computational complexity. Such a
limited focus is inconsistent with the mantle of the premier journal in computer
science. I intend to continue the
trend introduced by my predecessor, Joe Halpern: to gradually broaden the
editorial board and content to other sub-areas of computer science. This does not imply abandoning the
foundational nature of JACM papers, nor does it entail a lowering of the
standards for which the Journal is renowned. Does this constitute “treading on the
toes” of other journals?
Theoretical computer science has seen many journals thrive despite many
of the best papers in the field going to the JACM. Likewise if (say) two of the best papers
of the year in Databases (along with a couple each of the best in Graphics, the
Web and so on) were to appear in the JACM, it should not leave the other
journals bereft of their pipelines.
The challenge to success in this quest: articulating to a broad computer
science audience this vision of a more inclusive JACM as the premier research
publication.
Given the
pervasiveness and the advantages of the Web as a medium for publication, what
role does the JACM play? The Web
cannot support many of the roles provided by the JACM. To begin with, there is the obvious
archival reference value of something published in the Journal – a publication
known throughout the community for its reputation. This reputation reaches beyond the
authors and readers, to address such constituencies as tenure committees and
grant agencies. The Web cannot fill
this role simply because of its distributed, uncoordinated existence. The Journal derives its reputation from
editorial process and standards that cannot be replaced by any self-reliant
analysis of Web publications and citations; a paper published on the Web may
garner high linkage for a number of reasons, including reference to its
flaws. Our view of the Web and the
Journal is thus one of harmoniously complementary roles – the one providing
editorial approval and archiving, while the other supports easy search and
retrieval.
Over the past two
decades computing has emerged irrevocably from the glass house into consumer
ubiquity. While work continues on
difficult problems motivated by “classical” application areas such as scientific
and engineering computing, emerging application areas motivated by business,
public policy and “mass-usage” computing are the drivers for much new computing
research. These new areas entail
understanding interactions between computing and disciplines as diverse as
economics, human factors and the life sciences. As new areas evolve, inevitably new
measures of research progress (beyond the classical notions of computational
resources) will proliferate – already we see papers invoking notions of economic
utility as game-theoretic ideas are brought to bear on problems in multi-agent,
distributed computing (such as in the Web). How should the Journal go about
attracting and assessing the best work in these newer
areas?
The JACM has served
its authors, readers and the ACM by providing an archival forum for computing
research with the highest editorial standards. Its current enviable position is due in
significant measure to the vision and diligence of its editorial board and
editors in chief leading up to Joe Halpern. I want to thank Joe for his untiring
efforts and focus on the issues he highlighted six years ago. I additionally want to thank Hal Gabow,
Johan Håstad and Andrew Odlyzko, three members of our board who are stepping
down at this time.
I am pleased to
welcome four new members to the editorial board. Éva Tardos of Cornell will succeed Hal
Gabow to cover the algorithms area.
Madhu Sudan of MIT will succeed Johan Håstad in covering complexity. Moni Naor of the Weizmann Institute of
Science will succeed Andrew Odlyzko for cryptography. Finally, Eli Upfal of Brown will replace
me for the area of probability and computing.
In addition, we are
instituting one further change: Nimrod Megiddo’s area will be expanded to read
“Operations Research, Game Theory
and Economics”. With this
change I expect that we will address – in a measured way – the recent spurt of
interest in game theory, mechanism design and the influence of ideas from
economics on
computing.