Editorial Purpose, Strategy and Methodology

As it was emphasized in the editorial of the first issue, the main purpose of the Journal is to collaborate in the systemization of knowledge and experience generated in the areas of Systemics, Cybernetics (communication and control) and Informatics. This systemization process necessarily implies a progressive increase and enlargement of the relatedness among the associated areas, as well as among their respective disciplines. So, improvement in interdisciplinary communication would provide a very good support for the sought systemization process. This is one of the main objectives of the Journal we are launching with this first issue, and our editorial policy will be directed by it.

We are trying to support the process of interdisciplinary communication among and in the areas included in Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, by means of:

In the context of this main purpose, a basic immediate objective of the Journal is to provide a multidisciplinary vehicle for disseminating information about diverse but highly interrelated areas through a single medium. It covers a wide range of areas, sub-areas and topics related to Systems Science, Engineering and Philosophy (Systemics), Communications and Control of Mechanisms and Organisms (Cybernetics) and Computer Science and Engineering, along with Information Technologies (Informatics).

These three major areas are continuously evolving into integrative means of diverse disciplines.

• Informatics supports instrumental multi- and inter-disciplinarity.

• Cybernetics showed to be fruitful for conceptual inter-diciplinarity as well as for analogy generation and cross-fertilization between mechanisms and organisms, in order

o to improve our understanding of organic systems,
o to enhance our designs of mechanical systems, and
o to inspire the conceptualizations and the production of hybrid systems, as it is the case of cyborgs.

• Systemics has been viewed by an increasing number of authors as one of the most fundamental trans-disciplines.

Consequently, each one of these three major areas has been providing an increasing support for multidisciplinary problem solving research and for interdisciplinary communications and integrations among different academic disciplines and among academic, industrial and governmental organizations.

Therefore, the basic aims of this Journal are

1. To support multidisciplinary information dissemination related to different disciplines in the major areas of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (SC&I).
   
   
2. To foster interdisciplinary communication based on the integrative potential of these three major areas. Accordingly, the journal will include not just areas from SC&I, but also from the relationships among them, among their areas and sub-areas and between them and disciplines from other areas, especially in the form of applications of SC&I disciplines in other disciplines, and vice versa. Consequently, a strong emphasis is made on relationship areas and on what has been named as hyphened sciences, engineering and technologies, in order to refer to the inter-disciplines that are emerging as a consequence of multi- and inter-disciplinary problem-centered research.
   
   
3. To support inter-organizational multi- and inter-disciplinarity among academy, industry and government.

The Journal will initially have a multidisciplinary orientation. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary sections will gradually grow. The multidisciplinary part of the Journal will be nourished, basically, from the best papers presented in conferences in the Journal’s areas, basically from the conferences or workshops organized by The International Institute of Informatics and Systemics (IIIS) which is also the publisher of the Journal. The best 5-10 % of the papers presented at IIIS’s conferences will be among the papers accepted for publication, after their respective authors had made the respective modifications and extensions pertinent to archiving and journals.

Consequently, with this approach, we are hoping to produce a very high quality journal, because its basic content will be related to the 5-10 % best papers presented in related conferences, which is the equivalent, though not exactly the same, of a rate of, at least, 90% of refusal. This way of achieving a high quality Journal, will not be based on a high number of actual refusals. With this strategy we will be avoiding being the cause of the hidden psychological and economical costs caused to the authors of refused papers. The greater the refusal rate, the greater the hidden costs caused, by the editors, to potential authors of refused papers by the editors. We are hoping, with our editorial strategy to minimize the hidden costs we might be causing by means of our editorial decision, while not compromising the journal high quality.

Our methodological strategy will be a systemic, not a systematic one. To organize the editorial process and to manage the publishing operational activities will be done with an open, elastic, adaptable and evolutionary methodological system. It will have the flexibility required to adapt the Journal, its editorial policy, its organizational process and its management to the dynamics of its related areas and disciplines, to changes produced by the inherent learning process involved, and to the uncertainty of the environment.