ACS - Agricultural & Environmental Letters Editorial Board (ACS330)
2019 Annual Report
2019 was the fourth complete year of publication. This journal publishes:
1. Editorials, including invited Guest Editorials.
2. Commentaries – commentary on relevant issues related to science, policy, research trends, business trends, exciting new discoveries, food security, etc. These can be as long as 2500 words (approximately four published pages).
3. Letters to the Editor – Letters to the Editor are usually no longer than 500 words in length. They can be as long as 1000 words (approximately two published pages) if there is detailed dialog that results from the papers published in A&EL.
4. Research Letters – Manuscripts that provide research information and other related information, up to 2500 words in length (approximately four published pages). Research letters include an abstract and may be divided into sections to bring organization to the manuscript.
***Due to no activity in #3 this option will be removed for 2020.
The total number of submissions as of November 11 (2019) is 52, down from 70 in 2018. Of the 2019 submissions, 10% were international. The 2019 published papers (Jan –Nov. 27) are as follows: 16 were research letters, 6 were commentary, and 2 were letters to the Editor. Full-text downloads between Jan and Sept 30 was 29,608, up from 21,989 in 2018. A&EL’s Twitter account, @AgricEnvLetters, currently has 580 followers, compared to 420 followers in 2018.
With regards to reviews and manuscript handling, days to first decision is 34 and days to final decision is 40. The acceptance rate for 2019 articles is 43%, down from 63% in 2018.
The transition to Wiley will help A&EL achieve an impact factor and will allow for indexing in more databases. SCOPUS will begin indexing A&EL soon.
The Editor has been asking the primary author of every accepted manuscript about their experiences with the submission and review processes. We mostly receive positive feedback and have gotten some suggestions, mostly due to word limit restrictions.
In regards to word limit, the Editor screens every paper submitted and if the word count is over 2,800 the paper is ‘unsubmitted’ and the authors are asked to reduce word count. This, we feel, has decreased our average page length from 4.6 and 4.4 in 2017 and 2018, respectively, to 4.0 in 2019.
Although A&EL has not gotten transfers from other journals the Editor has transferred a few to AGE.
A&EL is an Open Access journal. Authors may choose between two open access licensing options: (1) CC BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (in summary, You may share immediately with attribution) and (2) CC BY NC-ND https://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/ (in summary, You may share immediately with attribution, but not for commercial or derivative purposes.) Some institutions and funding agencies require the CC BY license.
Editors Conference:
The ACSESS Editors Conference at the ASA/CSSA/SSSA headquarters in Madison (held on May 16-17, 2019) was an excellent forum where Editors of all of the different society journals met and discussed issues that are common to all of the journals. Representatives from Wiley were there to give the timeline for transfer and to answer questions related to nearly all aspects of our new home.
Items Requiring Board Attention:
Members of the Committee:
Ellen Bergfeld (Member, Ex Officio)
Lauren Matthews (Member, Ex Officio)
Matt Wascavage (Member, Ex Officio)
David Myrold (SSSA Editor-in-Chief)
Daniel Sweeney (ASA Editor-in-Chief)
C. Wayne Smith (CSSA Editor-in-Chief)
Thomas DeSutter (AEL Editor)
Ann Edahl (AEL Journal Manager)
Aaron Daigh (AEL Technical Editor)
Kimberly Garland-Campbell (AEL Technical Editor)
Jerry Hatfield (AEL Technical Editor)
Peter Kleinman (AEL Technical Editor)
Sharon Schneider (AEL Technical Editor)
Daniel Sweeney (AEL Technical Editor)
Hailin Zhang (AEL Technical Editor)
Veronica Acosta-Martinez (AEL Associate Editor)
William Anderson (AEL Associate Editor)
Sougata Bardhan (AEL Associate Editor)
Brian Beres (AEL Associate Editor)
Anthony Buda (AEL Associate Editor)
Patrick Carr (AEL Associate Editor)
Francis Casey (AEL Associate Editor)
Patrick Drohan (AEL Associate Editor)
Georgia Eizenga (AEL Associate Editor)
Ryan Haden (AEL Associate Editor)
Brian Haggard (AEL Associate Editor)
Zhongqi He (AEL Associate Editor)
Vincent Hebert (AEL Associate Editor)
Abdelbagi Ismail (AEL Associate Editor)
Sindhu Jagadamma (AEL Associate Editor)
Quirine Ketterings (AEL Associate Editor)
Holger Kirchmann (AEL Associate Editor)
Randall Kolka (AEL Associate Editor)
Michael Lehman (AEL Associate Editor)
Sally Logsdon (AEL Associate Editor)
Merrin Macrae (AEL Associate Editor)
Matthew Polizzotto (AEL Associate Editor)
Tony Provin (AEL Associate Editor)
Joseph Robins (AEL Associate Editor)
Maxim Schlossberg (AEL Associate Editor)
Patrick Shea (AEL Associate Editor)
Douglas Smith (AEL Associate Editor)
Kevin Tiessen (AEL Associate Editor)
Jac Varco (AEL Associate Editor)
Tameria Veith (AEL Associate Editor)
Forbes Walker (AEL Associate Editor)
Paul White (AEL Associate Editor)
Lina Yousef (AEL Associate Editor)
Prepared By:
DeSutter, Thomas M.