IEEE Security & Privacy and IEEE Software Win 2020 APEX Award of Excellence

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 05 August 2020 - IEEE Security & Privacy and IEEE Software, leading magazines in the computing industry published by the IEEE Computer Society, have each been awarded the APEX 2020 Award of Excellence in the “Magazines, Journals & Tabloids—Electronic” category. APEX 2020, the 32nd Annual Awards for Publication Excellence, is an international competition that recognizes outstanding publications—from newsletters and magazines to annual reports, brochures, and websites. IEEE Security & Privacy, November/ December 2019 Issue "IEEE Security & Privacy strives to develop theme issues that are timely and of broad interest,” said IEEE Security & Privacy’s editor in chief David M. Nicol. “The November/December 2019 issue was very successful, as the community's interest in privacy is large." IEEE Security & Privacy’s November/December 2019 issue, entitled “GDPR: One Year In,” examines the impact of Europe’s massive overhaul of its privacy and data protection laws. Nearly a decade in the making, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect to great fanfare in May 2018 with the goal of returning control of personal data to individuals. Impacting every area of an economy marked by technological and data innovation—including finance, healthcare, retail, education, transportation, utilities, and scientific research—the GDPR carried immense promise but also many implementation challenges and interpretation complexities. This issue of IEEE Security & Privacy examines the reform’s effect on corporate and organizational data practices, particularly at the intersection of policy, law, and computer engineering.  Features include:

• “Did App Privacy Improve after the GDPR?,” which analyzes app behavior before and after the GDPR’s implementation and shows that app privacy has moderately improved.
• “The Security Implications of Data Subject Rights,” which explores how providing an individual with his or her personal information has the potential to reveal aspects of the entity’s underlying technical infrastructure and organizational processes—raising security concerns that need to be considered in fulfillment processes.
• “The General Data Protection Regulation: From a Data Protection Authority’s (Technical) Perspective,” which discusses the technical challenges and open questions that persist for regulators one year later.
• “The DAta Protection REgulation COmpliance Model,” which describes a model called DAPRECO that enables semiautomatic processing of GDPR legal text with the aim of helping controllers build GDPR-compliant systems and helping regulators check for compliance.

IEEE Software, September/October 2019 Issue "Each issue of IEEE Software is the outcome of the dedicated work of our guest editors, column editors, authors, associate editors, and staff,” said IEEE Software’s editor in chief Ipek Ozkaya. “The September/October 2019 'Sentiment and Emotion in Software Engineering' issue is an exemplar issue demonstrating diversity of timely content that bridges research and practice." IEEE Software’s September/October 2019 issue explores emotion. While this isn’t a topic that many associate with computers or software, this issue on “Sentiment and Emotion in Software Engineering” shows that emotion awareness contributes to better software products and software engineering workplaces. Software developer morale can help or hurt productivity and team collaboration, while sentiment-analysis software tools can improve product quality and customer service by detecting user emotions. This special issue aims to inspire new practices that leverage emotion awareness at the individual and organizational level in the software industry. Features include:

• “Release Early, Release Often, and Watch Your Users’ Emotions: Lessons from Emotional Patterns,” which uses sentiment analysis to gauge user reactions to app changes and recommends five strategies for retaining app users: continuously analyze feedback, frequently release small changes, prerelease changes to subsets, explain changes, and capture implicit feedback.
• “Can a Machine Learn through Customer Sentiment?: A Cost-Aware Approach to Predict Support Ticket Escalations,” which aims to help software organizations improve customer satisfaction through a machine-learning approach to monitoring emotions in customer-support conversations.
• “Comparing the Communication Tone and Responses of Users and Developers in Two R Mailing Lists: Measuring Positive and Negative Emails,” in which the authors analyze 10 years of emails between two teams to understand the different types of responses they generate.
• “Perceptions of Gender Diversity’s Impact on Mood in Software Development Teams,” which examines how a team’s gender ratio affects workplace atmosphere, productivity, and team cohesion.
• “The Connection between Burnout and Personality Types in Software Developers,” in which the authors ask whether certain personality types (based on the five-factor model of personality) experience higher rates of burnout and stress in the workplace.

The APEX 2020 awards are based on excellence in graphic design, quality of editorial content, and the success of the entry—in the opinion of the judges—in conveying the message and achieving overall communications effectiveness. With 1,183 entries evaluated in 100 categories, this year’s competition was especially intense. Ultimately, 476 Awards of Excellence were given to recognize exceptional entries. More information and the official results can be found at www.apexawards.com. Visit https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazines to learn more about the IEEE Computer Society’s portfolio of peer-reviewed and award-winning magazines.   About IEEE Security & Privacy IEEE Security & Privacy’s primary objective is to stimulate and track advances in security, privacy, and dependability and present these advances in a form that can be useful to a broad cross-section of the professional community—ranging from academic researchers to industry practitioners. It provides articles with both a practical and research bent by the top thinkers in the field of security and privacy, along with case studies, surveys, tutorials, columns, and in-depth interviews for the information security industry. Learn more at https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/sp.   About IEEE Software IEEE Software is a bimonthly peer-reviewed magazine that offers pioneering ideas, expert analyses, and thoughtful insights for software professionals who need to keep up with rapid technology change. It’s the authority on translating software theory into practice. Learn more at https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/so.   About the IEEE Computer Society The IEEE Computer Society is the world’s home for computer science, engineering, and technology. A global leader in providing access to computer science research, analysis, and information, the IEEE Computer Society offers a comprehensive array of unmatched products, services, and opportunities for individuals at all stages of their professional career. Known as the premier organization that empowers the people who drive technology, its unparalleled resources include international conferences, peer-reviewed publications, a unique digital library, standards, and training programs. Visit www.computer.org for more information.