Services now account for more than half of the US economy. As the foundational discipline of the modern services industry, services computing has become a cross-discipline that covers the science and technology of services innovation research and engineering and leverages IT and computing technology to model, create, and manage business solutions, scientific applications, and modernized services. From the lifecycle of computing and software-based services innovation research perspective, the scope of services computing covers business componentization, services modeling, services creation, services realization, services annotation, services deployment, services discovery, services composition, services delivery, service-to-service collaboration, services monitoring, services optimization, and services management. The goal of services computing is to enable IT services and computing technology to perform business services more efficiently and effectively.

The services computing discipline is creating what will become one of the most significant industries of the new century. The IEEE Transactions on Services Computing (TSC) will serve as a valuable resource for providing leading technologies, development, ideas, and trends to an international readership for researchers, engineers, and business leaders in the field of services computing. The issues addressed in this domain of research are quite different from those addressed by researchers in related information technology areas such as Internet and networking, software development, databases, and multimedia. First, the technology foundation has a significant difference. The underlying technology suite of services computing includes Web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA), business consulting methodology and utilities, business process modeling, transformation and integration, and services delivery and management. Second, the research target is to modernize the traditional software and services industry as well as to create new generation software and services.

As the services computing discipline is maturing, its Body of Knowledge is being formed. The IEEE Transactions on Services Computing will help formulate and promote this emerging discipline by attracting and publishing high quality papers in all well-disciplined areas. Currently, the services computing discipline includes the following first-level knowledge areas [1]: principles of services, services lifecycle, Web services, service-oriented architecture, services relationships, services composition, business process management and integration, business grid and cloud computing, enterprise modeling and management, service-oriented consulting methodology, services delivery platform and methodology, application services and standards, security and privacy in services computing, and services management. All of the research papers addressing those identified knowledge areas are the major sources of TSC submissions.

The second-level and third-level knowledge areas illustrate a set of fine-grained research areas for the authors and readers to explore. As an example, the second-level knowledge areas of SOA include general topics, services invocation, bridging business and IT architecture, solution lifecycle, and solution reference architecture. In the general topics area, SOA includes two third-level knowledge areas regarding SOA foundations (operational model and realization aspects). Within SOA, the topic of “services invocation” covers four third-level knowledge areas for defining services invocation models: metadata for describing services interfaces and publishing, and simple/advanced invocation framework. The topic of “bridging business and IT architecture” includes three third-level knowledge areas for how to apply SOA to bridge the gap between business and IT at various levels (e.g., enterprise/process/programming levels). The topic of “solution lifecycle” includes 10 third-level knowledge areas for managing the services solution lifecycle: solution modeling, development, deployment, publishing, discovery, invocation, composition, collaboration, monitoring, and management. The topic of “solution reference architecture” includes nine third-level knowledge areas regarding various aspects of a solution reference architecture: user interaction modeling, business process, service, service component, operational system, integration, quality of service, data architecture, and governance.

The other major differentiating knowledge area in the services computing discipline is the service-oriented consulting methodology (SOCM). It includes two second-level knowledge areas: general topics and service-oriented business consulting. Within SOCM, the general topics area in turn includes two third-level knowledge areas: methods for generic strategic planning and IT strategic planning. The service-oriented business consulting area includes eight third-level knowledge areas for business consulting: gap analysis, initiative, value chain, business case, portfolio identification, transition planning, project management, and IT service management. For example, mathematical formulation and the optimal control theory-based consulting model and analysis are very good research directions in this knowledge area.

In the services computing discipline, the services delivery platform and methodology are dedicated to the science and technology of creating reusable approaches for effectively building services delivery platforms and using them to deliver manageable services. It includes five second-level knowledge areas: general topics, the service-oriented services delivery platform, the services delivery methodology, Software as a Service (SaaS), and Services as Software.

Based on those examples, we can see that the Body of Knowledge areas help categorize paper submissions and reviewers’ expertise to make sure each paper submission can get fair review comments. It is noted that the multilevel knowledge areas in the field of services computing are evolving based on new technologies and services delivery methods. Therefore, the readers and authors of TSC should be prepared to contribute or adapt to potential changes. The scope of TSC is to cover all computing and software aspects of the science and technology of services innovation research and development. TSC will emphasize the algorithmic, mathematical, statistical, and computational methods that are central in services computing, the emerging field of service-oriented architecture, Web services, business process integration, solution performance management, services operations, and management.

We actively seek the participation of the services computing community members by virtue of paper submissions, reviews, and editorial assignments. This rich mix of knowledge areas will make the journal unique. It is my hope that it will also inspire cross-disciplinary work on various aspects of services computing.

I also expect that TSC will play an important role in helping form and shape services computing curricula by publishing high-quality, innovative accomplishments in the field. In the field of computing, the IEEE Computer Society and the ACM published a volume of computer science curriculum recommendations in 2001 as the CC2001 Computer Science Volume (CS Volume) [2]. It is well known that there are four defined volumes that cover information systems, software engineering, computer engineering, and information technology. They are all a part of the 2005 Computing Curriculum (CC 2005) report. The goal of creating a services computing curriculum is to extend the current computing curriculum to cover services innovations in addition to the current key areas, including hardware, software, and organization behaviors. On the other hand, the services computing curriculum can also be leveraged in the field of management of information systems, business schools, and other information technology institutes.

All papers submitted to TSC undergo a comprehensive review process under the direction of an Associate Editor. Each paper receives three thorough reviews, based on which a recommendation is made by the Associate Editor. The Associate Editors ensure that all papers receive fair and in-depth reviews before any decision is made. These decisions are reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief.

The composition of the Editorial Board reflects the diverse knowledge areas and subareas in services computing. All of the Associate Editors are subject matter experts in their own research areas. In this issue, we include the biographies of all of the Associate Editors. It is truly an impressive group of researchers and practitioners who will maintain the integrity and quality of this journal. The members of this board have worked very hard to meet aggressive deadlines to bring the first issue of TSC to completion and will continue this dedicated work to maintain short review times and a high-quality publication. If new Associate Editors are added to the board, we will continue to introduce them to our readers.

In addition to the Editorial Board, the publication is produced through the excellent work of the IEEE Computer Society publications staff, including Evan M. Butterfield, Director of Products & Services, Alicia L. Stickley, Senior Manager, Publishing Services, Kimberly Sperka, Transactions Production Editor, and Jennifer Carruth, Associate Manager of Peer Review and Periodical Administration. To meet the aggressive publication deadline, the IEEE Computer Society leadership team, including Sorel Reisman, 2008 Vice President, Publications Board of the IEEE Computer Society, and Steve Tanimoto, Chair of the Transactions Operations Committee of the Publication Board, have helped speed up the publication process. I would like to send my special thanks to Angela R. Burgess, Executive Director and former Publisher of the IEEE Computer Society, Michael R. Williams, 2007 Computer Society President, Jon Rokne, Member-at-Large of the Publication Board, and Frank E. Ferrante, Board of Governors and Member-at-Large of the Publication Board, for their great support in the launching process of TSC.

I am honored to be the first Editor-in-Chief of this journal and look forward to serving our readers. Along with the Editorial Board and IEEE Computer Society publications staff and volunteers, I welcome our readers. We will all work hard to ensure that a high-quality, informative, top-notch journal is produced. I strongly encourage the members of the research community to become actively involved with the journal and the research areas. Your participation through paper submissions, paper reviews, and ongoing research are sincerely welcome.

I am very pleased to include three research papers in the first issue. The first paper is “Effective Web Service Composition in Diverse and Large-Scale Service Networks” by Seog-Chan Oh, Dongwon Lee, and Soundar R.T. Kumara. Oh et al.’s paper is based in the knowledge areas of Web services and services composition. The second paper is “Bridging Security and Fault Management within Distributed Workflow Management Systems” by Frederic Montagut and Refik Molva. Their paper belongs to the business process management and integration area as well as security and privacy in the services computing area. The third paper is “Adaptive Secure Access to Remote Services in Mobile Environments” by Hanping Lufei, Weisong Shi, and Vipin Chaudhary. Lufei et al.’s paper can be categorized into the application services and standards area as well as the area of security and privacy in services computing.

I hope you enjoy this and the future issues of TSC. I also look forward to receiving your paper submissions. Please feel free to send me any input regarding the directions and operations of TSC.

Editor-in-Chief

REFERENCES

[1] L.-J Zhang and C.-K. Chang, “Towards Services Computing Curriculum,” Congress on Services—Part I, 2008 (SERVICES ’08), pp. 23-32, IEEE, July 2008.

[2] Computing Curricula 2001, Computer Science, Final Report, The Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula, IEEE CS and ACM, IEEE CS Press, 15 Dec. 2001.