Communications - July 2009

DOI: 10.1145/1538788.1538790 Scott E. Delman

The quality of
the editorial
content, as well
as the new
research papers
and introductions,
is the reason
i plan to remain
an ACM member.

Communications

is a vastly
better magazine
as a result of
these changes.
—software vendor

Communications’

Annual Report Card

This issue marks the first anniversary of the

completely revamped Communications, so

I thought it would be appropriate to report

on how we’re doing so far. There are two

main ways to gauge the magazine’s

performance. The first is by asking our

readers what they think of the new mag-

azine and comparing that feedback

to past results; the second is by exam-

ining actual current usage patterns,

primarily online. Of course, sometimes

what people tell us is different than

how they really behave, so by compar-

ing these two types of data points we can

gain insight into our progress and gather

enough valuable information to serve

our readers even better in the future.

While this is not an exact science, I

am very pleased to say that our readers

response is overwhelmingly positive re-

garding the direction Communications

is taking, but the proof is in the details.

Over the coming months, I will share

some of those details for interested

readers by highlighting comments

we received in recent months (some

of which are peppered in these pages)

and by sharing some of the up-to-date

usage statistics we continue to pull off

the new Communications Web site.

This past April, ACM conducted

an extensive readership survey that

was sent electronically to 5,000 of

our readers around the world. It gar-

nered a response rate of 12.16% or 608

completed surveys. Any experienced

market research professional will tell

you that a double-digit response rate

is exceptional and is usually a strong

indicator of definitive results, either

positive or negative. In this case,

the results are very positive. The last

such survey ACM conducted several

years ago indicated that 37.9% of all respondents rated their satisfaction with the editorial focus and format of the magazine as either “satisfied” or “very satisfied.” The same question posed in the most recent survey yields a result of 94.8%, a startling increase in overall satisfaction. There is, of course, an enormous amount of detail behind this general improvement in satisfaction, and for those interested, we are placing the entire survey results online at http://cacm. acm.org/2009ReadershipSurvey.pdf. From my own perspective, I think several key statistics are worth noting as strong indicators of a trend in ACM’s membership and Communications’ readership. They are: