I just answered a question on my LinkedIn Group " Howard Michel for IEEE 2014 President-elect, 2015 President". If you are a member of LinkedIn, join the group. The question was on getting more downloads cheaply. Here is the answer. This is an old issue. In 2008, the representatives from all sections, meeting in Sections Congress 2008, recommended that the IEEE provide a limited number of free downloads to all members. At the next triennial Sections Congress, in 2011, I as IEEE Vice-President for Member and Geographic Activities reported the results. They can be found here: ieee.org/societies_communities/geo_activities/sections_congress/2008/recommendations.html The bottom line is that providing these free downloads would cost the IEEE $1.4 to $4.0 million each year. We are a non-profit organization, and that loss of revenue would need to be made up from somewhere else, or services and benefits would need to be cut. Since then, I have co-chaired (with the VP Technical Activities) an ad hoc committee to see the impact of including a basic society membership with ones IEEE membership. We are running a worldwide pilot of that now with several thousand members. I cannot report the results yet, but this could be a way to provide more value for our members. Another path forward is the change to open access. The IEEE has over $1 million in published open access papers already. I think that once authors see the advantages of open access, more will select it. The impediment now is that it shifts the cost of publishing from the consumer to the author or his institution. In the transition, universities will need to continue to subscribe to traditional publications, and pay open access publication costs. Most are not prepared to pay those costs.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 01:14:22 +0000