Journal of Petrology vol. 46 issue 1 © Oxford University Press 2005; all rights reserved
Editorial 2005
Executive Editor
Once again I am pleased to report that Journal of Petrology remains widely acknowledged as one of the leading journals in the field of igneous, metamorphic and experimental petrology. In 2003 (the most recent year for which data are available) our ISI Impact Factor increased slightly from 2.903 to 2.948 (ranking 5th out of 52 titles in the Geochemistry and Geophysics category) compared to 3.283 (2 out of 47 titles) in 2001, which was our best year ever. Despite this slight increase in Impact Factor, Journal of Petrology slipped to third place in the subject area, behind Geochimica Cosmochimica Acta and Earth & Planetary Science Letters. We look forward to re-gaining our rightful place in 2004!
In 2004 we experienced some delays in setting up an on-line manuscript submission and editorial management system; however, the software is now ready and trials by the Editorial Office are about to begin. We are confident that the system will be operational early in 2005. The learning curve for both editors and authors will be quite steep, but we expect that in future the system will be beneficial to all concerned. We anticipate that submission of paper copies of manuscripts will continue to be allowed for up to six months after the on-line system goes "live". Up-dates on progress will be published on the Journal of Petrology web site.
Journal of Petrology continues to receive a very satisfactory number of high quality submissions. The time between acceptance and appearance in the Journal is again down to an average of five months, largely due to an increase in our printed page allocation from OUP. However, the length of this interval has become much less meaningful because of the new system of Advance Access publication launched during Autumn 2004. Papers are now published on the Journal of Petrology web site within 8 weeks of final acceptance, followed by the printed version in due course. The Production Editor is working hard to reduce this interval still further, perhaps to as little as 4 weeks.
As a consequence of changing pricing policies in the OUP Journals Division, subscribers can now elect to take electronic (online), paper (print) or both (online and print) versions of the Journal. The lowest cost is for electronic access and the benefits are substantial. These include access to the Advance Access section of the website and supplementary data sets. Readers whose institutions have not yet agreed to take the electronic format no longer enjoy these facilities and are, therefore, encouraged to make the case to their librarian.
Oxford University Press is wholly owned by the University of Oxford and is a not-for-profit publisher. Nevertheless, in 2004 we agreed that Journal of Petrology could be linked with 20 other top-rated international journals in the virtual journal-Experimental Earth, which provides web-links to journal articles in experimental mineralogy, petrology, geochemistry, geophysics, volcanology and tectonics. Experimental Earth is hosted by Elsevier on behalf of a group of publishers who have agreed to participate on a strictly non-commercial basis. Commercial or academic publishing will be a significant factor in the current debate on Open Access Publishing, which we are monitoring closely.
In July 2004 we published a collection of papers which were originally presented as oral contributions at the International Mineralogical Association meeting in Edinburgh in September 2002. We are most grateful to Guest Editors Simon Harley and Leonid Perchuk for their hard work in putting this volume together.
In December 2004, as a tribute to the work of Mike O'Hara on the occasion of his 70th birthday, the Journal published a selection of contributions from invited authors on the theme of Magma Generation and Evolution in the Earth. A number of these oral presentations arose from a dedicated symposium held at the joint assembly of the European Geophysical Society, the American Geophysical Union and the European Union of Geosciences in Nice, France, in April 2003. We are grateful to Claude Herzberg and Yaoling Niu, both for the organisation of the Nice symposium and the invitations to authors.
As usual, I express my personal thanks to the members of the Editorial and Advisory Boards for all their hard work on behalf of the Journal. Repetition each year of this expression of gratitude does not detract from its sincerity, for without that work the Journal would not appear. In 2004, after long and distinguished service on the Editorial Board, Kurt Bucher and Richard Arculus have stood down, although their advice will still be available as they become members of the Advisory Board. Reto Gieré has now joined the Board as a replacement for Kurt Bucher.
I also thank my Editorial Assistant, Alastair Lumsden, our Copy Editors Joyce Weddell and Christine Whittle, Production Editor Saraswathy Rajagopalan and Cathy Kennedy, who is the Senior Editor in the Journals Division at OUP for all their help. My task as Executive Editor would be impossible without their support, which is much appreciated.
Finally, on behalf of the Editorial Board, I thank all those of you who reviewed manuscripts for the Journal in 2004. Peer review remains the best way of identifying high-quality science, and we recognise that we ask a lot of both Reviewers and Editors to maintain our high standards of publication.
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