The future of your journal
In this issue of Editors’ Update, we have discussed some of the ways in which technological advances have changed and improved scientific research, publishing and dissemination. Which set of tools or functions is likely to be the most beneficial to the future of your journal?
A. Tools for managing and streamlining the editing process, including facilitating communication with authors, co-editors and reviewers, such as EES;
B. Functionality related to dissemination and visibility, such as YouTube abstracts and Proceedia which allow for new ways to access more complete information;
C. Social networking tools, to help in building relationships between scientists and allowing for
collaborative projects across geographical and disciplinary boundaries.
Please choose A, B or C, and explain your rationale
December 13th, 2008 at 9:38 am
A
Though ther is a problem when sysstems are updated. For a journal with many overseas contributors, the updating of the version of a package eg exel from which files are acceptable can produce difficulties.
December 9th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
A
Options B and C are not current options so their usefullness is not understood.
December 8th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
My choice is for A. No doubt EES greatly improved communications.
The reviewing process and time have improved, which is good for both editors and Authors.
I do not see the relevance of B and C options.
December 4th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Alternative A!
Helps you as an editor and reviewer to keep all activities and communications together.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Definitely A. EES has made our editorial work much more manageable. The other options are not really relevant.
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:09 pm
A: beyond management of submissions, electronic resources aid tremendously in locating scientific communities and identifying suitable referees.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:34 am
A
It has made managing the editing process much easier and, in general, has markedly improved the rate-determining step of the process, namely,
the review procedure. The time taken from submission of a paper to the decision whether to reject, request revision or accept is controlled by this step and Editors are entirely dependent on the reviewers. For me personally, the shift in recent times in the emphasis of papers submitted has necessitated extra effort in finding suitable experts for the peer review process and the electronic system is an invaluable aid in this respect. Whilst occasional difficulties arise with reviewers failing to respond to invitations to review, such occurrences have reduced in recent times and they are now at a manageable level.
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Option A. EES has turned out to be about the same amount of work as the old system of e-mailing authors and reviewers directly. The advantage is in compiling end-of-year statistics, which is sure to generate interesting discussion amongst the editors at our sesquiannual meeting.
I can’t believe anyone would seriously consider teenaged nonsense like YouTube for serious work. Ditto for “social networking tools” (how about meeting people in real life for a change!). Perhaps I’m just an old grouch!
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I make no use of technology like EES. But then I co-edit a journal with about 1000 (one thousand pages)/60 papers per year, so the journal is on a human scale. Without technology, one develops a personal relation with the referees and authors. I usually have no trouble finding referees or getting help finding referees.
Different areas have different uses for their journals. In mathematics (and in physics), journals are NOT means of communication anymore. We have preprint archives and the results are usually disseminated by the time a paper is submitted. What a journal does is “archiving'’ and “certification'’. It provides a permanent archive - mathematics never go out of date - and it provides an assurance of quality and correctness. Social networking, communicating results, etc. are totally irrelevant to math journals: not that we don’t do networking or communicating, just that we don’t do it through journal articles.
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Options A: These tools form the backbone of the handling of a journal. They allow editors to focus on developing the journal and work actively with the community instead of thinking about the process of handling papers. Other tools are possibilities, while the tools in option A are a necessity.
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Option A. Rapid communication with peer reviewers and authors must be a priority for an editor.
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Option A.
EES has resulted in much more efficient and effective management of the peer review process for all users.
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Option A is in my opinion the only really aplicable to a scientific journal. I do not see clearly the final goal of the other two options
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
It’s amazing to see how good is EES to help authors, reviewers and editors at equal pace and that how smooth and fast it has become to publish. EES has become integral part of every researcher today and has indeed helped in improved even in quality publication.
Thus, the obvious choice is A only.
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:32 pm
The choice is not too difficult. My choice is A, because B and C are no real options. The next time a more realistic question with true altenative options please!
I have been working with EES for several years now and it deffinily saves time and speeds up the process. However, I still regularly get comments from reviewers who prefer the old hardcopy and pencil method, which does not fit the system. Excluding these often very experienced colleagues from the review process is no option.
Even though EES works generally well and speeds up the process, it still has some major drawbacks. The largest problem is that editors are unable to upload files in the system. I often make comments in the manuscript using the “track changes” mode of my word processor, but I cannot upload the annotated file. It can be sent to Elsevier, but this is rather cumbersome and it already happened that an annotated electronic manuscript was lost when it was sent by email. Since I am using EES I have asked for a possibility to upload files. Therefore, once again, please create a possibility that editors can upload files with comments and annotated manuscripts.
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I believe A - namely the tools for managing and streamlining the editing process are the most important. Currently technology is moving rapidly and this needs to be reflected in the tools available to editors. Advances such as more automated reviewer databases, etc. are certainly needed. In addition new tools such as automation of information updates would certainly be the key to the future.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Option A is the only one properly part of a journal’s function. The other two strike me as bogus attempts designed to inflate the (perceived) importance of a journal. If journals insert themselves into the production of knowledge, there is the risk that the knowledge itself is distorted. Already absurd notions like the ‘impact factor’ are introducing biases. I realize that journals are in business to make money but attempts by journals to appear to be better and to adopt a more aggressive posture become unwarranted intrusions.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:38 pm
A is clearly far and away the most helpful. Editorial Manager has considerably improved our efficiency, effectiveness, and timeliness. Our submissions have doubled; we could never do the job if we still had to work with only paper files.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
For me A is most important. The reviewing process has improved to such an extent, that publication and revieweing time has been cut considerably. This is very important for both editors and Authors.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
For me A) is most important, although I too agree that there is room for improvements. We have had problems with 5% of submitters who have complained about difficulties submitting LaTeX files. I wish there were more improvements to support interaction between Editors and Reviewers and workflow management. I view (B) and (C) as less important, although I am on the lookout for novel ways to explore interaction between journals and their constituencies.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
My choice is a. The electronic system is an enormous help. I started with paper and the USPS only. Tracking was terrible. This is a must!
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Clearly to me it is “A.” I see “B” and “C” as fluff that will most likely go the way of chat lines.
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Concerning A, EES is valuable, there is room for improvement. For the journals I work with, there is no provision for reviewers to upload files. Most often these are scanned copies with the reviewers hand edits (returned as a PDF). For the longer term, more effort is needed to encourage researchers to provide auxiliary files such as of data.
Concerning C, it is unclear whether a journal publisher has a comparative advantage in providing networking tools.
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
“A” was a vital step and still needs refinement but substantial gains in efficiency have already been made. The biggest bang for the buck will come from “B”.
It would be quite useful for a reader to have the ability to rotate a figure of a molecular structure. This could be achieved by asking the author to supply an “xyz file” containing the coordinates and atomic numbers of the atoms together with his figure. Lots of software already exists to perform the rotation. The technical task would to be to make it possible for the reader to do the rotation while reading the online HTML/XML version and also when reading the PDF version.
Visibility can also be improved greatly by allowing free access to a selected subset of papers. Some possibilities that come to mind
1) Make the articles most downloaded in a three-month period free to access for the next three months.
2) Make the current issue free to access.
3) Make articles older than, say, one year free to access.
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:33 pm
This is a fatuous questionnaire designed to convince that Elsevier computing support is more valuable than the absolutely trivial alternatives.
I am irritated that you even think to fill my in-box with this.
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
My opinion is primarily for A, this tool greately improves and facilitates the work. Meanwhile, also C should be taken in account.
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:31 pm
B is important to the future. EES is effective so that A is already accomplished (with continued improvement possible). I think C is one of these fora where the talkative talk, not where the workers work.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Specifically for a particular journal, A seems to be of primary importance. No doubt EES greatly improved communications already, but I must say there is still much to implement (e.g. automatic controls/reminders which would further increase the efficiency).
We should not however forget about C completely - when properly organized, a research network can help significantly to maintain research quality, thus working finally for the benefit of the journals.
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
maybe number 2 with the possibility to have video abstracts will attract young audience and will increase visibility of science results
October 21st, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Definitely A. I have been using EES for the last five years and it made my life much easier. Hopefully in the near future EES will include additional functions to check for multiple submissions by authors, similar previous papers (Scopus) and others.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:04 pm
A
For those of us (diminishing in number) who edited before the advent of EM/EES, it is sometimes easy to forget just what a massive step forward that was - particularly for editors - but for reviewers and authors also. Those who have edited only since the advent of EES can only imagine what it was like in the days of paper submissions - I sometimes wonder how I managed even as an associate editor - what it must have been like for an editor-in-chief hardly bears thinking about!
On the other hand that step forward has been achieved - B and C may become more relevant in the future.