Welcome to the 2012 September issue of ACM Inroads, ACM's computing education magazine.

As always, we are grateful to our authors; every section of the magazine reflects their tireless efforts and commitment. The Featured Columns, for example, form the foundation of the magazine; the columnists are leading voices in the field and they share their experiences, observations, and opinions with us. The EduBits section highlights educational happenings within ACM, the ACM Education Board, and the ACM Education Council. SIGCSE Spotlight shines on special interest group news from the magazine's global community. The Spotlight, EduBits, and the Featured Columns are quarterly fixtures of the magazine. Therefore, readers are welcome to contact our SIGCSE Trend Tracker Curt White, our EduBits' coordinators Andrew McGettrick (Chair of the ACM Education Board) and Yan Timanovsky (ACM Education Manager), and the dedicated authors of the Featured Columns with your thoughts. They would love to hear from you.

As Editor-in-Chief of this magazine, I have written on several occasions about the nature and purpose of ACM Inroads. However, some confusion remains among readers. The following should help dispel some of the misunderstandings.

• ACM Inroads is a magazine. It is not an ACM journal. It is not an ACM newsletter. ACM Inroads is one of eight magazines published by the Association. For example, Communications of the ACM, the flagship publication of ACM, is another such magazine.
• ACM Inroads publishes articles, not research papers. As a magazine, articles should be concise, interesting, informative, yet substantive. Authors should write articles in a more informal, general-interest style with an appropriate number of colorful high-resolution diagrams, images, and figures.
• ACM Inroads is a computing education publication. Its focus includes all areas of computing such as information systems, computer engineering, computer science, information technology, software engineering, and other related fields. Its focus is not just computer science. The magazine encourages and seeks education-related articles from all computing areas.
• ACM Inroads submissions undergo a strict review process via Scholar One's Manuscript Central. Articles such as Bits & Bytes, Standard, and Comprehensive types must pass a double blind, formal peer review scrutiny before publication.
• ACM Inroads is an ACM publication; it is not a SIG publication. The magazine is under the jurisdiction of the ACM Publications Board even though the publication derived its roots from the SIGCSE community. SIGCSE helps support the publication and it provides the magazine as a benefit to its members.

These facts should remove remove any confusion that seems to surround the nature and purpose of the magazine.

I trust you will enjoy reading this issue of ACM Inroads. The topics presented should interest even the casual reader. Thanks again to all authors and readers who help make this an outstanding magazine.

John Impagliazzo
Editor-in-Chief

Copyright held by author.

The Digital Library is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2012 ACM, Inc.

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