Note from the Editor
As readers, authors, and editors of INFORMS Journal on Computing (IJOC), we have a lot to be proud of, but especially when members of our community are recognized by INFORMS.
First, our former Editor-in-Chief and current Advisory Board member, John Chinneck, is being recognized this autumn with one of INFORMS’ top honors, the 2024 Impact Prize. The Impact Prize, awarded once every two years, is intended to recognize widespread impact in the practice of operations research. It may be awarded to an individual or a single set of collaborators. The award may be given for the original research (if these ideas have been widely adopted), and/or for special efforts required to bring the research to a practical form (e.g., implementation as a software package or the communication of a body of research through writings, teaching, and consulting). The important criterion is breadth of use in practice and relevance to operations research. The technical assessment of the quality of the work is considered secondary to the degree to which it has been widely adopted. John is a Distinguished Research Professor of the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa. John conducts research in the general area of applied optimization, including various applications in engineering. He has a special interest in the development of computer tools that assist in the formulation and analysis of very large and complex optimization models. His algorithms for the analysis of infeasible linear programs have been incorporated in many commercial linear programming solvers, including LINDO, IBM CPLEX, Gurobi, FICO Xpress, MATLAB, Frontline Systems Excel solvers, and others. His algorithms for mixed-integer linear programming branching rules are incorporated in the SCIP solver. His algorithms for nonlinear programming are incorporated in the AIMMS global solver. Two of his computer programs are available online: MProbe for analyzing the “shape” of arbitrary nonlinear functions of high dimension, and MINOS(IIS) for analyzing infeasibility in linear programs.
Associate editor, Oscar Dowson, has been chosen by INFORMS as a 2024 recipient of the Volunteer Service Award. Oscar is our first and only associate editor specializing in guiding authors to assemble and post their IJOC GitHub repositories, which are completed for each accepted paper. If you have not yet perused this GitHub repository site, you must! It is full of code, data, and other digital artifacts associated with the excellent work published in IJOC. Everything is fully licensed and documented so you can use it at will. The site can be found at https://informsjoc.github.io/. Oscar has done so much to make this a success after the important foundational efforts of area editor, Ted Ralphs. This IJOC GitHub site is a treasure for the researchers of today and tomorrow and will only grow into the future.
Another recognition by INFORMS is of IJOC editorial board member, Robin Lougee. She has been honored with the 2024 INFORMS Computing Society (ICS) Distinguished Service Award. Here is an excerpt from the award announcement: “Robin has a long history of direct service to the Society, delivered with warmth, enthusiasm, and knowledge that made ICS stronger and more welcoming to the broad computing community. In addition, she was a co-creator of the Computational Infrastructure for Operations Research (COIN-OR) initiative, which was established in 2004 as a strategic partner of ICS. The goal of the COIN-OR initiative is to accelerate the development and adoption of open-source software for computational operations research, a major goal of ICS itself. She was co-recipient of the 2014 INFORMS Impact Prize for this effort, which has been of major benefit to ICS.”
Last but not least, the former Editor-in-Chief of IJOC, David Woodruff, has been named a 2024 INFORMS Fellow. This honor is given to only 12 members each year and is an exceptional distinction. His citation reads: “David L. Woodruff of the University of California, Davis, is being honored for contributions to the theory and practice of stochastic optimization, the development of high-quality open-source software and service to the operations research community.”
Warm congratulations and well-deserved honors for John, Oscar, Robin, and Dave!
On another topic, I emailed a random set of recently accepted IJOC first authors asking them why they chose our journal for their work and to comment on their experiences. Below, I include these responses, in alphabetical order.
“I chose to publish my work in the INFORMS Journal on Computing due to its strong reputation for impactful research in optimization and computational methods. The journal also consistently attracts high-quality work from researchers that lead in specific topics central to my research. This was my first experience publishing in IJOC, and I felt the editorial process was smooth. I appreciated the reviewers’ clear and constructive comments and the editors’ prompt communications from beginning to end. I look forward to engaging with the editorial staff again in the future.” (Brent G. Austgen, brent.
“We chose IJOC because it is a prominent outlet for advancing methodological contributions in operations research and computing. Several of the previously published papers in IJOC, particularly in areas like combinatorial optimization, binary quadratic programming (BQP), reformulation frameworks, and decomposition methods, align closely with the themes of our research. Our paper fits best within the “Design & Analysis of Algorithms–Discrete” area of the journal, as the paper focuses on BQP problems and presents a general framework applicable to various BQP scenarios. This makes IJOC an ideal venue for reaching the right audience and contributing to ongoing discussions in the field. The publication process with IJOC was smooth and professional. The editorial team provided clear guidance throughout, and the peer review process was very constructive and resulted in a much more improved version of the paper. The revision timeline provided at each step was well aligned with the complexity of the revisions. We found the deadlines to be reasonable and manageable. Moreover, the submitting process, the platform, instructions and the template was clear enough. Overall, we were drawn to publish in IJOC because of its relevance, impact, and recognition within the operations research community and it was an exciting positive experience.” (Mahdis Bayani, mahdis.
“We chose to submit our manuscript to INFORMS Journal on Computing for publication because the journal is highly regarded as one of the top journals in the field. The review process was very professional. The reviewers provided many insightful comments to help us improve our manuscript, and the editorial team held a rigorous standard to ensure the manuscript contains original and innovative research that makes significant contributions to the literature. We are grateful for the opportunity to publish our work in INFORMS Journal on Computing and would definitely submit our work to this journal in the future.” (Jake Clarkson, jakeclarkson@live.
“The publishing experience with INFORMS Journal on Computing was highly rewarding. The detailed review process provided valuable and constructive feedback that significantly enhanced my research. The editorial team was both supportive and efficient, facilitating a smooth transition from submission to publication. The visibility and recognition I gained through this journal, along with its associated GitHub site, have been instrumental in advancing my research and fostering connections with experts in the field. Overall, it was a highly positive and impactful experience.” (Yu Du, yu.
“Together with my co-authors, we chose to publish in IJOC because it is well respected in our field and has a record of publishing papers on the two core aspects of our work: robust optimization and ML enhanced optimization. I am grateful for the peer review process that resulted in valuable feedback, helping us improve the quality of our paper. The correspondence with the area editor was excellent and the process after acceptance went very smooth. Overall, I am very happy with the experience.” (Esther Julien, e.
“We chose IJOC for our submission because of its strong reputation for publishing high-quality, computationally focused research in operations research. The review process was efficient and rigorous, with clear communication from the editors. The well-informed, thoughtful, and constructive reviewer reports we received led us to improve the presentation and positioning of our work significantly. Preparing our code for publication on the journal’s GitHub repository was also a smooth process. Overall, it was a highly positive experience throughout.” (Robin Legault, legault@mit.
“Why IJOC? Our work has both theoretical and computational contributions in simulation experiment design. Given IJOC’s focus, we thought this was a great venue to publish our work. Thoughts about the experience? Unfortunately, many of the OR-focused journals tend to have very long review periods compared to other fields, which I think hinders the progress in the field. IJOC has been relatively fast at turning around the review process, and I thank the editorial team and the reviewer community for that.” (Eunhye Song, eunhye.
“I think the INFORMS Journal on Computing (IJOC), as a leading journal on computing, information systems, and management science, is a suitable outlet for our business school researchers to publish their works, especially those intersecting the above areas. My research directions include data-driven optimization, model uncertainty, and supply chain management, and from my own experiments in publishing papers in IJOC, I benefited a lot from the professional, constructive, and insightful comments provided by the review teams of the journal. I really enjoyed during the whole process.” (Shuming Wang, wangshuming@ucas.
All my best,
Alice E. Smith
Editor-in-Chief
