WMSCI
Encyclopedia
WMSCI, the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, is a computer science
and engineering
conference that has occurred annually since 1995.
.
The annual WMSCI/ISAS Conferences started in Baden-Baden
, Germany, in 1995. At that time, they were known simply as SCI. For the first few years, about 50 papers were presented. It changed its names to WMSCI when it added on collocated conferences in 2005. The multiconference has grown to have an average of about 1500 registered participants, the majority of whom present papers. Since its start in 1995, more than 10,000 papers have been presented on WMSCI and its collocated conferences. Up to 2005 it allowed both reviewed and non-reviewed papers. Since 2006 1) just reviewed papers are accepted, 2) authors of accepted papers have access to the reviews of the reviewers who recommended the acceptance of their paper, and 3) the reviewing process is based on double-blind and non-blind reviewing.
who showed that the same paper was rated from "unacceptable" to "excellent" according to 6 out of 9 measures by 45 field experts. According to the organizers, their acceptance policy may be better suited for the purpose of bringing together multi-disciplinary engineering communities, and may reduce possibilities of plagiarism and fraud generated by the reviewing process (see also peer review
, peer review failure
).
called SCIgen
. Documents generated by this software have been used to submit papers to other similar conferences. Compare to the Sokal affair
. Following criticism of the per-paper fees and their acceptance of talks without any review the organization responded as follows:
Recently, the organization appears to have abandoned the policy of accepting non-refereed papers. Motivating their acceptance policy, the organization says:
to advertise its conferences.
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
and engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
conference that has occurred annually since 1995.
History
WMSCI is organized by the International Institute of Informatics and Systemics. Its General Chair has usually been retired Professor Nagib Callaos. The conference is often held in Orlando, FloridaOrlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
.
The annual WMSCI/ISAS Conferences started in Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden is a spa town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the western foothills of the Black Forest, on the banks of the Oos River, in the region of Karlsruhe...
, Germany, in 1995. At that time, they were known simply as SCI. For the first few years, about 50 papers were presented. It changed its names to WMSCI when it added on collocated conferences in 2005. The multiconference has grown to have an average of about 1500 registered participants, the majority of whom present papers. Since its start in 1995, more than 10,000 papers have been presented on WMSCI and its collocated conferences. Up to 2005 it allowed both reviewed and non-reviewed papers. Since 2006 1) just reviewed papers are accepted, 2) authors of accepted papers have access to the reviews of the reviewers who recommended the acceptance of their paper, and 3) the reviewing process is based on double-blind and non-blind reviewing.
Mission
WMSCI is a multi-disciplinary conference where participants focusing on one discipline may attend conferences from related areas. According to the organizers, "this systemic approach stimulates cross-fertilization among different disciplines, inspiring scholars, originating new hypothesis, supporting production of innovations and generating analogies, which is ... a fundamental aim in cybernetics" . Objectives of the conference include identification of synergetic relationships among Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, and establishing communication channels among academic, professional, and business worlds . Their mission statement is as "a forum for focusing into specific disciplinary research, as well as for multi, inter and trans-disciplinary studies and projects" . Some say that its mission is rather opaque (needs a reference).Acceptance of refereed papers
The average acceptance rate in 2009 at WMSCI and related conferences was 32.12%, with the average of 4.93 reviewers per paper/abstract . A combination of double blind peer reviews and open peer reviews was used, with a total of 11902 reviews per 2413 submissions . The organizers claim that for the refereed papers, the acceptance policy of WMSCI is the majority rule, with the tendency to accept papers when in doubt . This policy is more liberal than that of other conferences using the alternative strategy, where papers are accepted when there is the positive agreement of the reviewers. WMSCI's policy increases chances of accepting poor papers, but decreases chances of rejecting good papers. Motivating their acceptance policy , the organizers cite Ernst et al.who showed that the same paper was rated from "unacceptable" to "excellent" according to 6 out of 9 measures by 45 field experts. According to the organizers, their acceptance policy may be better suited for the purpose of bringing together multi-disciplinary engineering communities, and may reduce possibilities of plagiarism and fraud generated by the reviewing process (see also peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
, peer review failure
Peer review failure
Peer review failures occur when a peer-reviewed article contains obvious fundamental errors that undermines at least one of its main conclusions, when a journal publishes well-known information as a new discovery, or when important valid work is rejected out of hand. Peer review is not considered a...
).
Acceptance of non-refereed papers and SCIgen paper acceptance
In the past, WMSCI was known to also accept non-refereed papers. WMSCI attracted publicity of a less favorable sort in 2005 when three graduate students at MIT succeeded in getting a paper accepted as a "non-reviewed paper" to the conference that had been randomly generated by a computer programComputer program
A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...
called SCIgen
SCIgen
SCIgen is a program created by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that randomly generates nonsense in the form of computer science research papers, including graphs, diagrams, and citations...
. Documents generated by this software have been used to submit papers to other similar conferences. Compare to the Sokal affair
Sokal Affair
The Sokal affair, also known as the Sokal hoax, was a publishing hoax perpetrated by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies...
. Following criticism of the per-paper fees and their acceptance of talks without any review the organization responded as follows:
- [We] think it is legitimate and academically respectful to accept non-reviewed papers, especially if we take into account that in the call for papers in our conferences has always been clearly stated that we accept NON-RESEARCH papers submission, as it is the case of position papers, invited papers, case studies, panels’ presentations, reports, etc. which are usually accepted, or not, on a non-reviewing base.
Recently, the organization appears to have abandoned the policy of accepting non-refereed papers. Motivating their acceptance policy, the organization says:
- In a survey made by the National Cancer Institute where “active, resilient, generally successful scientist researchers” were interviewed, just 17.7 percent of them disagreed with the statement “reviewers are reluctant to support unorthodox or high-risk research”... This is one of the reasons why, in WMSCI Conferences, we accepted in the past non-reviewed papers taking the intrinsic risks of this kind of paper acceptances. Deception was a risk that was not perceived at the moment of examining the risks of this kind of acceptance policy."
Other controversies
WMSCI has been accused of using spamE-mail spam
Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
to advertise its conferences.