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SCB Newsletter Editor's Report

 
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CONSERVATION BIOLOGY EDITORS' REPORT
Gary K. Meffe, Editor
Ellen Main, Managing Editor
Krista L. Clements, Editorial Coordinator

Introduction

This has been a transitional year for the journal, as the Editor's position changed from Reed Noss at Oregon State University to Gary Meffe, first at Savannah River Ecology Lab for several months and then at the University of Florida. The transition largely was smooth and effective, thanks to tutoring from Reed Noss and Lisa Loegering, and the stability and historical knowledge of Ellen Main, who retained her role as Managing Editor. The new office began receiving all new manuscripts in late May 1997, while the Oregon office continued processing (through December 1997) all manuscripts already in line. Nancy Meffe acted as Editorial Assistant in a temporary capacity for the new office from May through September, until the office moved to its Florida location, whereupon Krista Clements came on board, much to the relief of Nancy Meffe. The Florida office is now functioning quite smoothly, and has been handling all editorial duties since January 1, 1998. Because of the seven-month overlapping transition period, and the time lag involved in publishing, nearly all of this report deals with manuscripts handled by the former office; only 13 manuscripts reported on here that were submitted to the new office were far enough through the process that they could be included in turnaround time calculations.

Submissions

The submission rate for this journal year (June 1997 through May 1998) continued to rise (Figure 1), though at a slower rate than in the past. We received 579 manuscripts, a 7.2% increase from the 540 manuscripts submitted last year. Previous increases were 24.4 % (434 manuscripts), 14.8% (378 manuscripts), and 25.2% (302 manuscripts). The two highest monthly submittal rates ever recorded for the journal were in March and May of 1998. We also received and processed over 40 preliminary manuscript inquiries, most of which consisted of an abstract and an inquiry as to its suitability for the journal.

Assigning Editors each handled from 1 to 12 papers. Of those Editors serving for at least six months, the mean manuscript load was 8.2 papers. Eleven new Assigning Editors were added to the Board in the last journal year, and several others resigned, mostly to address other obligations. Also, a new position, Associate Editor for Quantitative Methods, was created to address statistical and quantitative issues.

We used 48 ad hoc Assigning Editors this year, individuals who handled one or more manuscripts but are not on the Board. These individuals were used when a manuscript did not fall within the expertise of existing Editors, when they had special expertise in the area, or if the appropriate Assigning Editor was particularly busy with other manuscripts. This system has worked very well and will continue to be employed. Ad hoc Editors will be acknowledged in the December issue.

Decisions and Rejection Rates

Of the 579 papers submitted this year (Table 1), 169 (29.2%) were rejected by the Editor without review, usually within 3 days of submittal, and usually due to inappropriateness of subject matter or low quality; 397 were sent to Assigning Editors and 13 were sent to reviewers directly by the Editor. Of the 410 manuscripts sent for review, 172 were rejected (42.0%), 56 (13.7%) were accepted, and no decision has yet been reached on 182 (44.3%), which are still in review or in revision with authors. Thus, of the total number of papers submitted (579), 341 (58.9%) were rejected, 56 (9.7%) were accepted, and no decision was reached on 183 (31.6%) as of May 31, 1998; 66% of the latter are papers submitted in January through May. Of the 396 papers for which decisions were made, 340 (85.9%) were rejected. However, many of the "no decision" papers are being revised and likely to be accepted, so the actual rejection rate will be lower than this, probably in the 75-80% range.

Turnaround Time

Turnaround time this year increased slightly, at least partly due to the continued increase in number of manuscripts, which offers a difficult workload, and the transition period, which added to everyone's time. The average time in review (Figure 2) was 69.9 days (min = 7; max = 206). It is difficult to reduce this figure by much because it is largely in the hands of reviewers, all of whom are busy, and many of whom resent persistent calls from anxious Editors. Time from acceptance to publication (Figure 3) increased to 286 days, though the backlog is now smaller and we expect that number to decrease next year. Total time from submission to publication (Figure 4) was 495 days.

There is a lower limit to this speed, partly dictated by publication schedules. There is a 4-month (120 day) minimum period of copy editing and proof development. Some backlog also ensures that enough papers will be available for future issues. Papers are now published within 9 to 11 months of acceptance; this may decrease by a month or so in 1999.

Region of Authorship

The proportion of papers published by United States authors decreased from 68% to 61% this year (Figure 5), a positive trend for an international society. Minor changes were seen in other regions, with small increases in representation from Central and South America and Canada, and a small decrease for Europe. Editorial policy tries to be blind with respect to country of origin; papers are judged on the basis of merit and interest, though we do try to accommodate non-U.S. papers that show promise but need work.

Miscellaneous Information

The size of the journal is not expected to grow in the near future, and we have requested the same page budget (1632 pages) for next year. We have heard nobody say that the journal is too small, but have heard several comments to the effect that it is difficult to keep up with all the papers. Thus, we feel it should not grow at this time. With the continued increase in submissions, this of course means an increasing rejection rate and, hopefully, increasing quality.

Several special sections are planned and in the works, so we anticipate the number of special sections will increase next year.

Next year we plan to change the report to a calendar year (January to December), which will follow a complete journal volume. The June to May cycle seems a historical artifact of when new Editors took over, and when the annual meeting was held. However, we see no particular advantage to maintaining that cycle and will change next year.

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