Welcome to the 2013 March issue of ACM Inroads!

This issue of marks the beginning of the fourth year (Volume 4) of ACM's leading computing education magazine.

As mentioned in the 2012 December issue, it is appropriate to chart the future direction of the magazine. A task group led by Lisa Kaczmarczyk (and includes Michael Goldweber, Beth Hawthorne, Joe Kmoch, and Fran Trees), has produced a draft report that has been reviewed by the associate editors and the members of the ACM Inroads editorial advisory board. The task group is concluding its deliberations and will soon be issuing its final report, which will eventually become public. A special thanks to Lisa and her hard-working group for their relentless efforts to have ACM Inroads achieve a greater level of publication excellence.

We should all remember the nature of the publication. As mentioned in the 2012 September issue, ACM Inroads:

  • Is a magazine, not a journal or a newsletter
  • Publishes articles, not research papers
  • Serves all computing areas as a computing education publication
  • Is an ACM publication, not a SIG publication
  • Has a strict review process via ScholarOne Manuscript Central

Keep these points in mind as the publication moves forward to new heights in quality achievements.

One outcome of the aforementioned task group is a "Reviewer Scorecard." The scorecard allows reviewers to evaluate articles on several criteria scaled 1 to 4 with commentary to justify each criterion. The scorecard provides judgment on whether an article is:

  • Original in content
  • Engaging to read
  • Thought provoking
  • Incorporating relevant images
  • Focusing its discussion
  • Technically correct
  • Achieving quality of exposition

A pilot version of the scorecard is already in use and authors should understand that reviewers are currently using it to evaluate their manuscripts. You may access the actual reviewer scorecard by going to the URL http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/inroads and clicking "Instructions & Forms" under Resources. Comments regarding the new scorecard are welcome.

Another change affecting ACM Inroads is the modification of its spotlight section. Before this issue, the section had the title, "SIGCSE Spotlight." However, the magazine serves all computing educational communities within ACM. Furthermore, the magazine is becoming more inclusive with outreach to diverse communities. Hence, the section now has the simple title, "Spotlight" and starting with this issue, the spotlight will shine on SIGCSE and SIGITE. (Welcome, SIGITE!) In future issues, I hope to have a quarterly participation from other SIGs within ACM. Our Trend Tracker, Curt White, has agreed to manage this new Spotlight development. Thanks, Curt!

Some readers may not know that ACM Inroads has a dedicated website managed by Amber Settle. Its URL is http://inroads.acm.org/. Please visit the site, explore its contents, and even consider posting a blog!

One of our faithful, Alison Clear, has decided to step down from her associate editor position due to other professional obligations. I am in the process of finding a replacement for her. Thank you, Alison, for your contributions over the past three years in making ACM Inroads an excellent magazine.

I trust you will enjoy reading this issue of ACM Inroads. Thanks again to all authors and readers who help make this publication an outstanding magazine.

John Impagliazzo
Editor-in-Chief

Copryright held by author.

The Digital Library is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2013 ACM, Inc.

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