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Last day as EIC of the JOP -- 6 full years! (Thread with some thoughts below.)
First, thanks to my current editors: @tom_s_clark, @ConradCourtenay, @jtlevy, @namalhotra, @ecalvo68, and Margit Tavits. We had hoped to do 4 years, but the SPSA constitution limited me to 6 as EIC.
Second, thanks to my first group of editors: @MerollaJenn, @SeanGailmard, @WillReedPhD, Lisa Ellis, and Lanny martin. We did the whole 4 years!
Glad to have done a few things as EIC: (1) got JOP on Dataverse, (2) introduced a short-article format, and (3) established the "Field Editor" model.
If I had to pick one word to describe the JOP experience, it was: "relentless." In 2019, we had over 1300 manuscripts. A little less in 2020, simply because we closed off Editorial Manager for longer periods.
You could take a day off, but the work didn't. You'd just come back to more manuscripts!
Happy to hand things off to @VETroeger. She will have some challenges that aren't of her making!
We have a decent backlog of accepted manuscripts. At another journal -- under Cambridge, Oxford, Springer, etc -- this wouldn't be a big deal.
But the business model at the U of Chicago Press is different. I really like the people there. But it's much more of a "mom & pop shop." They don't have offices overseas or farm out jobs (like copyediting). So their process for publication is different.
At a CUP journal, for example, you could expect to have your article in a published online (PDF) form in about a month after having it accepted. At the UCP, they only move to copyediting for articles that will appear in the *next print issue.*
Thus, when there's a backlog, it pushed out the publication process many months. I don't see how this process can survive, as informed association heads will understand the UCP's competitive disadvantage relative to other presses.
And we aren't that far out from a world where print copies mean absolutely nothing
Anyway, I wanted to alert JOP authors and would-be JOP authors to this. Our team always wanted to get manuscripts in the pipeline as soon as we could -- we were simply constrained by the press protocols.
Also wanted to note that today is the last day for the current team. We talked and decided a clean break was best at the New Year. So any R&Rs that are currently in the system will be handled by the next team.
My time, going forward, will be to build up the two new field journals I started recently: @JPIPE_journal and @HPE_journal. Please keep them in mind for your future submissions!
At some point, though, I would certainly entertain being EIC of another top general journal. We'll see!
And I do think the world is ripe not only for some new journals, but some new publishing models as well. There is simply too much good work out there for space in the APSR, AJPS, and @The_JOP.
Thanks to everyone who did referee reports for the journal these last 6 years! I would say that I was mostly pleased by the refereeing. Some people were outstanding. Most people were good. Some people weren't good at all. Such is life.
There were very few serious complaints these last 6 years. Probably less than a half dozen. Most came from very senior people who couldn't believe they had a manuscript desk rejected! "(Huff) Don't you know who I am??!!!"
I think that's about it. I can't think of anything else. I hope that I left the JOP in better shape than when I started. And I will be around and available to help the new team get started, should they need it.
Thanks everyone!
Addendum: As I noted on another thread, thanks much to @NicholasNapolio, @JoeySaraceno, and @whitney_hua for their assistance as RAs on the journal. They made the @The_JOP go every day!
Addendum 2: in addition to @JPIPE_journal and @HPE_journal, I've also rolled out a new blog: @BlogBroadstreet. This is in keeping with my general view that there are multiple ways for academics to learn and to disseminate their research.
Addendum 3: one thing that probably creates some misunderstandings in the review process is the "editor box" in Editorial Managers.
It's a way for referees to provide additional information to editors. But those comments are seen by the authors of the paper.
This creates scenarios where it appears "R2" is driving the reject decision. Or that "all three reviews are positive, so why are you rejecting my paper?"
But it's very often the case -- and editors at other journals can probably confirm -- that JOP editors received much more unvarnished critiques via the editor's box. At least on some manuscripts.
Why? Hard to say. For some referees, they want to provide positive comments to the authors, while making clear where they stand to the editors. For others, they may worry about being "outed" for a negative review -- even though the EM process is blinded.
I can see where some would-be authors would say -- "you should get rid of the editor's box!" But, as editors, we want and need information in order to make reach good decisions. And getting rid of it probably would lead to reduced (quality) information.
