ACS - Editorial Policy Coordination Committee (ACS321)
2013 Annual Report
The ACS321 Editorial Affairs Committee met at the trisociety annual meeting in Tampa, FL on Tuesday, November 5 at 9:30 AM in Room 36, Tampa Convention Center. After introductions, individual journal reports were presented:
I. Agronomy Journal– The articles that had been published in the Journal of Production Agriculture have been added to Digital Library. The impact factor of the journal in 2013 was ranked 24 out of 78 and the total cites ranked 5th in the Agronomy category of ISI Web of Knowledge. These metrics have remained relatively unchanged for the past five years. There are four special symposia planned for publication in 2014. Such efforts generally create positive results in terms of increased citations. A book review section that is linked to the journal is available on-line and anyone can contribute to writing and having a book review published, as long as the book being reviewed is appropriate in content and has been recently published. Book reviews do not need to be invited.
II. Soil Science Society of America Journal – There has been a 20% increase in submissions in 2013 compared to 2012. The review time has been improved so that 88% of authors get a first response on their submitted paper within 53 days. The impact factor of the journal in 2013 was ranked 15 out of 34 and the total cites ranked 3rd in the Soil Science category of ISI Web of Knowledge. The impact factor has been dropping steadily over the past five years and efforts are underway to try and identify the causes. The journal is still widely read as is evident from the large number of citations to the journal each year (18,475 in 2012). David Myrold retires after two terms as Editor of the journal and Sabine Goldberg will assume the Editorship of the Soil Science Society of America Journal on January 1, 2014.
III. Crop Science – The impact factor of the journal in 2013 was ranked 25 out of 78 and the total cites ranked 3rd in the Agronomy category of ISI Web of Knowledge. The impact factor has dropped for two consecutive years. Some issues discussed were the need to try and focus more on novel papers, reviewing manuscripts in a timely fashion and working on English language improvement of papers.
IV.Journal of Environmental Quality – The impact factor of the journal in 2013 was ranked 69 out of 210 and the total cites ranked 21st in the Environmental Science category of ISI Web of Knowledge. Although the impact factor ranking of the journal continues to slip, the actual impact factor of 2.353 is the highest it has been in the past five years. With a reduction in page charges, it is hoped that the impact factor value and ranking will increase in future years. The editorial board felt that Manuscript Central was not providing good service for the journal, especially for the members of the editorial board. Authors also seem to complain. Efforts are underway to work with Manuscript Central more responsive to individual journal needs and also more user-friendly to all who have to use it. More training in the use of Manuscript Central will be planned for board members, not only of the Journal of Environmental Quality, but for all society journals. Dennis Corwin will have completed two terms as Editor of the Journal of Environmental Quality at the end of 2013 and Ed Gregorich has been recommended by the three society Editors-in-Chief to take over the editorship duties in January of 2014.
V. Vadose Zone Journal – In 2012, the journal exceeded 2000 published pages for the first time. continues to show improvement in the metrics of impact factor with its highest ranking in the past five years obtained in 2012. It is going to monthly issues at the beginning of the year, which is hoped will increase the impact its factor even further. Vadose Zone Journal is listed in three categories within the ISI Web ok Knowledge. The impact factor of the journal in 2013 was ranked 80 out of 210 and the total cites ranked 71st in the Environmental Science category of ISI Web of Knowledge. For the Soil Science category, it ranked 8 out of 34 in impact factor and 15 out of 34 in total cites. For the Water Resources category, Vadose Zone Journal ranked 16 out of 80 in impact factor and 21 out of 80 in total cites. The journal publishes many special sections of themed papers and this seems to a key in its continued rise in esteem that readers are giving to the journal.
VI. Plant Genome – This journal is published three times per year and 2012 was the first year with an impact factor. Its impact value of 2.463 ranked it 52 out of 197 journals in the Plant Sciences category of the ISI Web of Knowledge and 152 out of 197 in total cites. This is actually a very good showing for a journal that is just receiving its first rankings. For the Genetics and Heredity category, the rankings were 85 and 145 for impact factor and total cites, respectively, out of 161 total journals. The journal published two special sections in 2013.
VII. Plant Management Network Journals – Forage and Grazing Land, Applied Turfgrass Science, Crop Management. These are now being published by ASA-CSSA. There was quite a bit of discussion about these journals. It was mentioned that these journals (e.g. Crop Management) often serve as source articles for programs involving continuing education. The turfgrass community wants a journal with an impact factor. The applied agronomist in the United States wants a journal that provides for rapid publication of relevant information and with that information in English units. So it seemed like these journals have potential to fill a need, but are still looking for an identity.
The discussion could be summarized as follows.
(A) Fold all three journals into one on-line journal with an overall editor and three separate groups of technical/associate editors that would focus on the current areas of emphasis of forage and grazing lands, applied turfgrass science and crop management. A title is currently being considered but has not yet been selected.
(B) Obtain an impact factor for the new journal as quickly as possible. This should attract more content as people want more recognition for their work than has been possible with the current structure.
(C) Published articles in the Crop Management section that includes a clickable link that would provide the contents of the article in either SI units or English units depending on the menu selection made by the reader. This would serve our American applied practitioners with their needs and also allow a more international audience to benefit from applied crop production research information.
(D) Allow publication of rapid response, one-page observations that would benefit the applied agronomist. These would be peer reviewed to weed out product endorsements or other types of material deemed inappropriate.
(E) Efforts would be made to try and avoid longer, detailed research articles that are essentially clones of articles in AgronomyJournal or other society journals. These articles will be peer reviewed and report credible information, but may often be limited in novelty or other types of criteria commonly used for our journals.
(F) Each section of the journal (i.e. the Forage and Grazing Land, Applied Turfgrass Science, Crop Management sections) will develop their own criteria of what they would like to see published in the journal and these criteria may differ for the turfgrass people compared to the rangeland scientist. The goal is to be flexible, provide an outlet for information that is useful, and allow for scientist needing metrics like impact factors and total citations to be published for journals to which they contribute content.
Some follow-up efforts have already been made regarding the above items related to the Plant Management Network journals. A conference call of those impacted by the proposed changes to the Plant Management Network journals was made on December 2, 2013. The following was agreed upon. A new journal combining the three Plant Management Network journals will be created with the title being “Crop,Forage and Turfgrass Management” and the new journal will immediately seek an impact factor. The types of papers to be published will be flexible with many have easy access to English units via a link that would allow switching between English and metric units. A new board structure will be subdivided by subject in a “journals within a journal” format. Future actions items will include planning the timeline to launch, considering implications of the new journal, seeking ASA and CSSA board approval and making a call for an editor of the new journal via an article in CSA News.
VIII.Soil Horizons – This journal experienced several changes in 2013. Lorene Lynn was appointed as an Associate Editor in charge of “front matter” submissions from authors. Commensurate with all websites of the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), the Soil Horizons website was also substantially updated. Starting in 2013, all SSSA members have complimentary access to all Soil Horizons content and non-members can purchase restricted access materials for a fee. Progress continues on digitizing and electronically archiving older issues of Soil Survey Horizons. User statistics indicate that Soil Horizons had more than 24,000 abstract hits. Once all back issues of Soil Horizons and Soil Survey Horizons are digitized and fully searchable online, the number of hits to the website are expected to increase. Efforts are also underway for Soil Horizons to become indexed and obtain an impact factor. This will raise the visibility of the journal and help convince authors to make Soil Horizons a journal of primary choice.
IX. Book Publishing – The book publishing committee is active and aggressively pursuing book opportunities. There have been about 90,000 book downloads since initiation of the Digital Library. A new acquisitions editor, Nicole Sandler, has been added to the staff in Madison to increase the number of books published each year. The book committee has increased to 19 members with representation from all three societies. More members are needed, however, from the Crop Science Society of America. All books have been digitized and are available within the Digital Library. Individual chapters can be either downloaded for paying subscribers or purchased. The book committee chair, April Ulery, heads up an active group and this seems to be a growing area within our publications activities.
X. Other– The rest of the meeting was spent discussing miscellaneous agenda items. Also, information about other items relevant to this committee but not discussed in Tampa is provided below.
A. Impact Factor Discussion - Are we doing enough to increase it? Can we do more? The usual search engines do not seem to hit our journals very easily. Maybe we need to come up with some strategies to enhance the probability that our journals will be near the top of web search engines.
B. Soil Science Society Journal and Open Access Journal – A discussion with the British Soil Science Society on development of a joint open access journal for submissions to our journal that were not accepted because of lack of novelty was not accepted. While members of the committee saw several benefits of this, there were concerns associated with entering into a publishing business agreement with Wiley for the first time and on the association of being tagged with a second tier Journal. The idea was pitched to the SSSA Board and they unanimously voted to decline the opportunity to collaborate with the British Soil Science Society and Wiley on this endeavor. However, it is important to continue to explore new publication products. Therefore, more effort needs to be put into exploring an entirely open access journal for papers that have good information but may not reach the level of novelty or other criteria that our journals required for publication should be discounted.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:40 AM.
Items Requiring Board Attention:
Members of the Committee:
Ellen Bergfeld (Member, Ex Officio)
Mark Mandelbaum (Member, Ex Officio)
Matt Nilsson (Member, Ex Officio)
Daren Redfearn (Forage & Grazinglands Editor)
Zachary Reicher (Applied Turfgrass Science Editor)
David Somers (TPG Editor)
Daniel Sweeney (Crop Management Editor)
David Weindorf (SH Editor)
Andrew Sharpley (Chair)
Shawn Kaeppler (Member)
David Myrold (Member)
April Ulery (Member)
April Ulery (Member)
Andrew Sharpley (SSSA Editor-in-Chief)
Warren Dick (ASA Editor-in-Chief)
William Raun (AJ Editor)
E. Charles Brummer (CSSA Editor-in-Chief)
Michael Young (VZJ Editor)
Dennis Corwin (JEQ Editor)
Prepared By:
Dick, Warren A.