What Is the Periodicals Committee?

The Periodicals Committee is a standing committee within the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board (PSPB) responsible for overseeing the policies, standards, and lifecycle management of IEEE's journal and magazine publications. It serves as the primary governance body through which proposals for new periodicals are evaluated and approved, existing publications are reviewed for continued relevance and quality, and policies affecting editorial operations across IEEE's portfolio of transactions, journals, and magazines are formulated and administered.

IEEE publishes more than 200 society-sponsored periodicals spanning electrical engineering, computer science, communications, biomedical engineering, and related disciplines. The Periodicals Committee coordinates across the technical societies and councils that sponsor these publications, ensuring that each periodical meets standards established by the PSPB and that the portfolio as a whole serves the needs of IEEE's global membership and the broader engineering community.

Role and Governance

The Periodicals Committee operates under the authority of the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board, which is itself accountable to the IEEE Board of Directors for matters relating to publications policy and services. The committee is composed of representatives from the technical societies that sponsor IEEE periodicals, along with PSPB-appointed members who bring publication management expertise. Its decisions on periodical policy are binding across IEEE's organizational units and inform how individual societies administer their own editorial boards and operations. The IEEE PSPB Operations Manual defines the committee's charter, composition, and scope, specifying that major boards and organizational units administering periodicals must comply with the policies and standards the Periodicals Committee sets.

New Publication Approval

One of the committee's most consequential functions is approving or rejecting proposals for new periodicals. A technical society wishing to launch a new transactions, journal, or magazine must submit a proposal that demonstrates sufficient community need, a viable editorial model, a proposed scope that does not unnecessarily duplicate existing publications, and a path to sustainable submission volume. The Periodicals Committee evaluates these proposals and, when approved, authorizes the publication to proceed to launch. This gatekeeping role shapes the composition of the IEEE journal portfolio over time. A recent example is the approval in February 2021 of the IEEE Transactions on Signal and Power Integrity, a new journal covering signal integrity and power integrity at the board and package level, which required Periodicals Committee authorization before launching.

Periodicals Review and Advisory Process

The Periodicals Committee also conducts ongoing oversight of existing IEEE periodicals through the Periodicals Review and Advisory Committee (PRAC) process, which is required at intervals of at least every five years for each publication. The PRAC review assesses a periodical's editorial quality, impact, scope alignment, and financial sustainability, and may recommend continuation, scope adjustments, merger with another publication, or discontinuation. This periodic review ensures that the IEEE portfolio of journals and transactions on IEEE Xplore remains current with the state of the field and that resources are not indefinitely committed to publications that no longer attract a sufficient authorship and readership base.

Applications

The Periodicals Committee and its functions have relevance across several dimensions of scientific publishing and professional society governance, including:

• Editorial policy development for peer-reviewed engineering journals
• New journal launch authorization and scope definition
• Portfolio rationalization and publication merger or discontinuation
• Standards for author and reviewer guidelines across IEEE periodicals
• Coordination of open-access policy implementation across IEEE publications