Mission and Process

Mission

TutORials — the INFORMS Tutorials in Operations Research series — is a collection of tutorials designed for students, faculty, and practitioners that provides in-depth instruction in significant specialties in operations research. The tutorials in this series were originally presented at INFORMS annual meetings.

Process

Each annual meeting will provide the source for one book. The meeting tutorials chair invites the tutorial speakers to submit a production copy of their tutorial to be a chapter in the printed TutORials volume.

These invitations are at the discretion of the meeting tutorials chair. (Formats and supplementary files are addressed in TutORials Production Guidelines.)

The meeting tutorials chair will either serve as the editor for the annual TutORials volume or designate an editor for the volume to work under his/her direction. The series editor provides advice and help for each volume. The meeting tutorials chair, working with the series editor, oversees scheduling and helps to coordinate production matters with INFORMS.

The production schedule is designed so that the book becomes available for distribution at the meeting. (See TutORials Production Guidelines for the timeline and related tasks.) The meeting tutorials chair, in cooperation with INFORMS publications staff, assumes responsibility for timely publication.

The key players in the TutORials publications are:

• A TutORials series editor who possesses a broad range of interests, vision, ability to work cooperatively, and editorial experience, appointed by the INFORMS Vice President – Publications.
• A meeting tutorials chair (or co-chairs), who works cooperatively with the TutORials series editor and INFORMS publications staff to produce an appropriate collection of tutorials. The meeting tutorials chair is appointed as early as possible by the general chair of each annual INFORMS meeting. The meetings tutorials chair may appoint an editor to work on the volume itself. The principal players should discuss their plan at least one year (preferably 1½ years) before the meeting. In consultation with the TutORials series editor, the meeting tutorials chair invites tutorials presenters to contribute to the TutORials volume.
• An advisory board, formed by the TutORials series editor, who provides advice to the TutORials series editor. The composition of the advisory board is left to the discretion of the series editor, with advice from the Vice President – Publications, but it should contain at least three members. The immediate past tutorials chair is usually appointed to the advisory board.

At the inception of the INFORMS Tutorials in Operations Research series in October 2004, the INFORMS Vice President – Publications, Frederic H. Murphy, appointed Harvey J. Greenberg as the first series editor. Harvey turned over the series editorship to Paul Gray in 2005. J Cole Smith edited the 2005 volume; Michael P. Johnson, Norman Bryan, and Nicola Secomandi were co-editors of the 2006 volume; Ted Klastorin was editor of the 2007 volume; Zhi-Long Chen and S. Raghavan were co-editors of the 2008 volume; Mohammad Oskoorouchi was editor of the 2009 volume; John Hasenbein was editor of the 2010 volume; Joseph Geunes edited the 2011 volume; Pitu Mirchandani was editor of the 2012 volume; and Huseyin Topaloglu was the 2013 volume editor. J. Cole Smith served as the series editor for volumes 2014–2017. Douglas Shier served as the series editor for volumes 2018–2023.

The advisory board consists of Rajan Batta, Esma Gel, Joseph Geunes, Harvey Greenberg, Lewis Ntaimo, and Jiming Peng. The current series editor is Dave Alderson.