Welcome to the September issue of ACM Inroads, the computing education publication of ACM. As always, we are grateful to all authors who contribute to this magazine.

I work routinely with the Associate Editors and the Editorial Advisory Board to improve and strengthen the quality of ACM Inroads, content and presentation. Yet, several people have mentioned that ACM Inroads seems to be one of the best-kept secrets in the computing education community, both to potential contributors and readers. Why is that? Do we need to advertise more? I would appreciate any thoughts you have on making ACM Inroads more visible and in continuing to improve the publication.

In the June issue I announced that in streamlining the submission process, the publication now has just two categories for general article submissions: Contributed Articles and Bits & Bytes. Once again, the two categories are as follows.

Contributed Article: An unsolicited narrative of an important topic exhibiting some elements of research closure or relevant interest to the computing education community. Approximately 2000 to 5000 words. Formally Reviewed.

Bits & Bytes: An unsolicited short narrative illustrating the results of a study or educational experiment, or providing a brief update on what is happening in specific initiatives or communities, or presenting a short commentary on a situation, a technique, or a development. Approximately 1000 to 2000 words. Formally Reviewed.

The Peripheral, which is a short announcement or other information relevant to the purpose of the publication, and the Letter-to-Editor are also unsolicited in addition to these two unsolicited categories for the publication.

And there are other publication categories. Solicited contributions address focused topics at the invitation of the EIC. Solicited articles include Critical Perspective and regular quarterly contributions. These include EduBits, which reports on educational happenings within the ACM community; Spotlight, which reports on happenings within some of ACM's special interest groups; Back Page, which showcases interesting digital material for computing educators and students; and Insights, which are regular columns published quarterly or semi-annually. Please note that all articles (solicited or unsolicited) are double-blind peer reviewed.

With this issue, we launch a new quarterly feature for ACM Inroads called First Bytes. This feature addresses some activities to encourage young students to program. This solicited article spawned from the Code.Org initiative. Cameron Wilson, CEO at Code.Org, is the author of First Bytes. Keep an eye on this new addition for interesting developments surrounding innovative coding experiences for students.

Last September ACM Inroads published the first report on "Non-Doctoral-Granting Departments in Computing" (NDC) programs. I am pleased to inform you that the second NDC report appears in this ACM Inroads issue as a Critical Perspective. The NDC report is loaded with many items of interest including enrollment trends in the five computing discipline areas (computer engineering, computer science, information systems, information technology, and software engineering) as well as data concerning faculty trends. Take a peek. Gather new information about computing education and its trends.

While we are very interested in your submissions, we ask you to remember that they must follow the magazine's formatting guidelines. These guidelines and a template of a correctly formatted submission appear on the ScholarOne Manuscript Central site (mc.manuscriptcentral.com/inroads). Access to these resources is also available through the website link at inroads.acm.org/. So, consider submitting a Contributed Article on a stimulating topic or a report on a thought-provoking happening through Bits & Bytes. The world is interested in hearing from you. Again, if you have thoughts on any suggestions or enhancements to the publication, contact me at [email protected].

John Impagliazzo
Editor-in-Chief

Copryright held by author.

The Digital Library is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2014 ACM, Inc.

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