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Outstanding Scholar Dr. Miltiadis D. Lytras speaks on his vision for the International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems and the future of computer science

Welcome to the Cognitive and Immersive Era of Computing

By IGI Global Scientific Publishing on Aug 25, 2016

In support of the acclaimed researchers and faculty members associated with IGI Global publications, IGI Global has implemented the Outstanding Scholars Program. This program honors editors and authors of outstanding merit, encouraging discoverability and connecting researchers with the greater global community. We are pleased to continue this series by recognizing Dr. Miltiadis D. Lytras of the American College of Greece. Dr. Lytras is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems (IJSWIS), and has made hundreds of article and book contributions in the area of semantic web and information technology. Here he speaks with us about maintaining a Thomson Reuters Impact Factor for his journal, as well as his vision for the publication, and hopes for the future.

Tell us about yourself. How did you become involved with the International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems?

Thank you for this wonderful invitation and the opportunity to communicate some of my thoughts to the great community of scholars of IGI Global. Currently I am a research professor at the American College of Greece, doing research on areas related to Semantic Web, Smart Cities, Sustainable Development, and Entrepreneurship Innovation with a special interest on how emerging technologies have an impact on our society. I am a great advocate of promoting the scientific discussion of Computer Science, and Information Systems as a socio-technical phenomenon, and I am happy to see my students at Deree College to be thirsty for the knowledge related to Management Information Systems and the adoption of these to all the majors. I do believe that Information Systems has entered into a new era of maturity. Very shortly we will welcome the Cognitive and Immersive Era to Computing, and in the International Journal of Semantic Web and Information Systems (IJWIS), it must play a key role. At the same moment I am extending my collaborations worldwide; just came from a research visit in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where I had the opportunity to meet excellent scholars and researchers in King Saud University, King Abdulaziz University and Effat University. Very shortly I will also visit collaborating scholars in Taiwan and China as well; I am really excited about these. I think that a key challenge of our times is to build bridges between civilizations and countries and to promote a collaboration strategy based on diversity and competence. I want to express my gratitude through this column to my colleagues all over the world and maybe in a next column to provide a coverage to these visits.

It is a real privilege to be involved with the International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems. I will try to explain my vision briefly. My research and my academic life is always concerned with how scholars can contribute to a humanistic vision for our society. We must be the catalyst for change, and also initiators of good things to benefit our society. We need to work collaboratively toward this direction. An academic journal like IJWIS plays a key dissemination role for the diffusion of top quality research to the society. Nowadays we live in a time of great momentum for IJSWIS. A number of thrilling new technologies, like big data, smart data, Internet of Things, immersive virtual reality, cloud computing, and cognitive computing set new opportunities for innovation, entrepreneurship, creativity and prosperity. Twelve years ago, before we started working with Distinguished Professor Amit Sheth, many other colleagues had a similar vision: To launch an academic journal to honor the research work of scholars worldwide and to open new horizons in industry and society. I am grateful for the great work of Amit. He is an outstanding scholar and a great person with virtue and scientific capacity. I want to thank him for his great contributions to IJSWIS and our domain.

You were the original Editor-in-Chief of IJSWIS, left, and are now the Editor-in-Chief once again. Is there anything you plan on doing differently or experiences that you learned from?

I consider IJSWIS a mental and intellectual child of mine. 12 years ago, in the context of the Special Interest Group on Semantic Web and Information Systems in the Association of Information Systems, I asked IGI Global to launch the new journal. I was happy to share this vision for new research that was sure to be the leading academic journal for disseminating knowledge related to semantic web research, with profound scholars from all over the world. I was happy that Professor Amit Sheth accepted my invitation to lead the effort, and based on his hard work with our support, IJSWIS has had a very prolific performance. It took only three years to be indexed by ISI, with a great impact factor over two.

The next phase on the development of IJSWIS was magnificent. IJSWIS was valued as a top journal in the relevant communities and the hard work of Amit and of the Editorial Board resulted in a great reputation. The key feature of IJSWIS was always the application of top standards in reviewing. It is a way to compensate all authors for their trust in the journal. Currently we have implemented a steady rate of submissions and this secures the acceptance of excellent research works for publication. I am also grateful for the EICs who stood in for the journal, Professors Soren Auer and Mehdi Khosrow-Pour. With their dedication and leadership, IJSWIS is back on a good track. I am confident that in the next three years we will continue the initial vision that is to serve our scientific community and to promote the role of semantic web research towards sustainable development and innovation.

I would like to share with you few thoughts for our revised editorial strategy. This is my intended contribution as the Editor in Chief of IJSWIS:

We will extend the coverage and the focus areas of IJSWIS in order to serve all the emerging technologies and information systems that are powered by semantic web research. For this purpose, it is key to announce in advance a 2-year editorial calendar with 8 issues focused on the critical issues of both disciplines. Towards this direction we are already working in the preparation of four special issues related to: big data, smart cities, cognitive computing, Arab culture, language and innovation, learning analytics, SPARQL, and machine learning. Our plan is to announce very shortly six more issues on bioinformatics, social networks, semantic for adaptive learning systems, web science research for cognitive science, mobile technologies, and junior researcher's innovations in semantic web. By adopting this strategy, we will have more qualitative submissions and more options to select the best papers. In the next issue we will announce them.

We will motivate a revised enthusiastic Editorial Board with commitment to contribute substantial effort to the journal. This is a critical step for the new era of IJSWIS. We will deploy and announce for the next issue the new Editorial Board of IJSWIS, consisting of almost 100 members. Anyone interested in serving is welcome to the new board. We will deploy an open process for the selection of candidates, with the main criteria including an enthusiasm to serve and previous experience in semantic web and information science research. We will secure and promote the top academic standards for review. We will ensure that only the best papers are published in IJSWIS, not only regarding technical aspects of semantic web, but also on all aspects relating to information systems and innovation.

I bring to IJSWIS my editorial experience of Chief editing and guest editing over 20 different impact factor journals and more than 40 special issues. Along with the Editorial Board, I will strive to link IJSWIS with some of the most promising young researchers in the relevant domains. This will provide a key pool for the sustainability of submissions. By helping young researchers to publish their PhD research on IJSWIS we will boost their commitment. In addition, every year we will run a PhD competition where 6 top contributions will be published in an issue dedicated to PhD research on semantic web and information systems. A scientific committee will screen the submitted papers and the top 15 of them will enter in the review process for selecting the top six papers. Overall, we will promote the quality in all the phases of the development process and we will improve the impact factor with the trust of our community.

How long have you worked with IGI Global? Why do you choose IGI Global as your publisher?

I have a special relationship with IGI Global. I perceive IGI Global to be a scholar-friendly publisher. People at IGI Global respect and honor the work and contributions of authors and editors. They are there to solve any issues and they work hard with fresh ideas to meet all the new inquiries of a very demanding industry. I have collaborated with many publishers, including Springer, Emerald, Elsevier, Rinton Press, Taylor and Francis, Hindawi, and many others. IGI Global has a vision that fits with mine. It is a knowledge disseminator. Especially in our disciplines of computer science and information science and technology, they define the benchmark.

In ten years starting from 2004, we edited nearly 20 books, 2 journals, more than 10 special issues, managed 4 book series, and supported more than 500 scholars from all over the world to disseminate their works through our editions. This is an honor for me and my colleagues and collaborators. It has provided direct compensation to our souls as researchers.

The journey started in 2004, where together with my very good friend Ambjorn Naeve from Sweden, we delivered the edited book entitled: Intelligent Learning Infrastructure for Knowledge Intensive Organizations: A Semantic Web Perspective. After that, many other books and editions were developed. I want to thank all the contributors from over 45 countries for their contributions, including:

These editions are a great asset for all modern academic libraries. As academics, it is a great feeling to see your books available in thousands of university libraries all over the world, as well as in services like WorldCat. I would also like to note that in recent years, IGI Global has maintained an excellent system for the management of the editorial process- the eEditorial Discovery system.

Your journal continues to maintain an Impact Factor every year. How do you make that happen?

The impact factor is a good approximation to gauge the scholarly value of academic publications. IJSWIS has over the years achieved an impact factor over 2.5. Professor Amit Sheth has always invested in quality reviewing, and this is the key answer to your question. Quality standards in reviewing secure the acceptance of quality papers. And if you have a steady rate of submissions like we do for IJSWIS, it is not so difficult to select 20 papers per year from 150 submissions. I want to thank all the members of the editorial board for their great work throughout the years. We decided to recruit a new editorial board starting from the first issue of 2017, in order to meet the significant challenge of reviewing. Timely publication and top quality reviews in selective research guarantees the maintenance of a good impact factor. We will continue to work hard in these areas. As I said before, under my editorship, IJSWIS will follow an annual editorial calendar with thematic special issues. This will boost our citations and hopefully also the impact factor. If you want my humble opinion, sooner or later, the impact factor will be integrated with more qualitative ways to measure academic impact. We will be ready for all these challenges, and who knows, maybe we will have an impact on the definition of new ways to measure this impact.

What do you require from your journal contributors to maintain and build your journal’s reputation?

Our journal contributors are distinguished personalities. We honor them and to respect them. It is not an easy task to satisfy all the contributors when the acceptance rate in IJSWIS is lower than 10%. I want to trust all of them by securing a transparent, fair review process and I will also try to expand our capacity on publishing papers. Maybe it is a good idea to discuss it with IGI Global to have 6 or 12 issues per year. I am confident that our scientific community can support such expansion. My ultimate requirement from our contributors is to continue to trust us with the best of their research. And we will do our best to maximize its exposure and impact.

How can other researchers maximize the exposure and increase the likelihood of indexing for their publications? What resources are required?

The relationship should always be a win-win situation. This is why publishers, and IGI Global, encourage this policy and should find ways to increase the flexibility of authors to provide open access or self-archiving. Additionally new approaches in social academic networking are vital. Publishers can easily adopt these networking services and researchers can build more collaboration. This is my friendly advice to colleagues. Build interdisciplinary synergies. For example, in IJSWIS, it is a strategic decision to promote this approach. Shortly we will publish special issues on bioinformatics, machine learning in healthcare, semantic web for innovation and entrepreneurship, etc.

Does IGI Global provide support in this area?

Yes, I am really satisfied with and grateful for the support provided by IGI Global. The Marketing Department does a great job. One suggestion that might be nice is to implement a bulletin with short interviews from all contributing authors, where they can share on their research groups, recent works, etc. It’s good to honor our contributors. And people love to communicate the good things they are involved in. Another idea is to support further PhD students.

Do you execute any personal promotions to support the journal? What specifically?

Yes, I always distribute to my networks new issues, special information about authors, and request feedback from colleagues for new ideas related to special issues, etc.

Is there any other advice you can offer/anything else you would like to discuss?

There are many things I would love to discuss. Given our limited time, I will choose to address two things. The first one is related with our domain. I would like to invite the international academic community to become a part of IJSWIS. Please do not hesitate to drop me an email and to accept my invitation to become an editorial board member and reviewer. Additionally, please continue submitting to IJSWIS the very best of your research work.

The second thing that I want to share with you is an invitation. Let’s all work together to create a collaborative vision for our society. Let us share visions for our society, economy and humanity. All of us as scholars must do more to increase responsibility, sustainable development, and prosperity. It is a good time, in our turbulent era, to promote a multicultural attitude. Science is a key enabler of prosperity for all. I do believe in the capacity of humanity to promote peace and development. Together, as scholars we can envision a better world for all. Our journal will always publish scientific works within this context. I will continue working to my maximum capacity in this direction. As IGI Global does the same, I will continue to serve as a knowledge disseminator. It is an integral part of my personality. A long time ago, I made a decision to act as a hub for human minds. Nowadays, this is more challenging. In the Era of Cognitive and Immersive Computing, we have the opportunity to honor the capacity of human minds for collaboration.

Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity. I am really looking forward to my next column to share with you some of my experiences from my visits to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Miltiadis D. Lytras is a Research Professor with a research focus on semantic web technologies, intelligent systems, technology-enabled innovation, social networks, computers in human behavior, knowledge management and e-learning, with more than 150 publications in these areas.

He has co-edited 45 special issues in International Journals (e.g. IEEE Transaction on Knowledge and Data Engineering, IEEE Internet Computing, IEEE Transactions on Education, WWW Journal, Information Systems Management, Computers in Human Behavior, IJ of Engineering Education, Journal of Universal Computer Science, Interactive Learning Environments, Journal of Knowledge Management, British Journal on Education Technology, Education Technology and Society, Behavior and Information Technology, etc ).

He has authored, edited, and co-edited 50 books with international publishers [e.g. Semantic Web Information Systems, Real World Applications of Semantic Web and Ontologies, Semantic Web Personalization and Context Awareness, Open Source for Knowledge and Learning Management, Ubiquitous and Pervasive Knowledge Management, Intelligent Learning Infrastructures for Knowledge Intensive Organizations, China Information Technology Handbook, Web 2.0: The Business Model, and more].

He has served as the Editor in Chief and Co- Editor in Chief of 12 international journals, including: International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems, International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, and International Journal on Social and Humanistic Computing. He is an associate editor or editorial board member on seven more.

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