Communications of the ACM

DOI: 10.1145/2492007.2492008
Moshe Y. Vardi and Victor Vianu

What is a flagship Publication?

Communications of the ACM was launched in January 1958, with Alan J. Perlis as Editor-in-Chief. The first issue included articles such as “Tables for Automatic Computation” and “A Programmed Binary Counter for the IBM Type 650

Communications, which is, indeed, the best known and most widely distributed publication of ACM. The flagship metaphor suggests an image of a fleet led by a flag officer. In the Task Force’s opinion, however, ACM’s portfolio of journals and magazines (see http:// dl.acm.org/) is not quite a “fleet.” In fact, while ACM has an impressive collection of high-quality journals and magazines, the portfolio fails to be more than the sum of its parts. For example, one needs to simply visit the home pages of a few ACM publications; there is no indication that the individual journals are part of a cohesive portfolio. The Task Force recommended that ACM undertake to build and develop a cohesive portfolio of publications, rather than a loose collection, starting with a uniform design of journal home pages.

The flagship and fleet metaphors also suggest that it is not enough for

Communications to be a high-quality monthly magazine. It also must be the publication that ties together ACM’s publication portfolio and adds value to the portfolio as a whole. Currently,

Communications’ Research Highlights section features articles selected from (mostly) ACM research conferences, but there is no real connection bet ween

Communications and other ACM journals and magazines. The flagship is not leading the fleet! Discussions on how to tie the flagship better to the fleet are currently under way. We welcome your views on this matter.