Editorial 2007
Executive Editor
We start the New Year with almost 12 months of experience of the ScholarOne online manuscript submission and management system behind us. This has been several years in gestation—I first mentioned it in my 2004 editorial—but, between late January, when the system came online, and mid-November, 129 manuscripts have been submitted using the new system. Not all of these were new manuscripts; authors have taken advantage of the system to submit revised manuscripts and final versions of electronic files for manuscripts already reviewed and accepted in principle. For everyone involved—authors, editors and reviewers—it has been a sometimes difficult and often frustrating time, but I am pleased to say that, in general, the new system has been successful. A few relatively minor problems have still to be solved and it is possible that, in the light of experience, some modifications might be made to the instructions to authors and reviewers.
The time interval between final acceptance of a manuscript and publication in the Advance Access section of the Journal website is, in some instances, now as little as 4 weeks. For this achievement the Production Team, particularly Production Editor Kay McArdle, are to be congratulated. Authors can expect papers to be published in printed form within 5 months of acceptance.
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 2005 (the most recent year for which data are available) our ISI Impact Factor was 2·641 (seventh out of 55 journals in the field of Geochemistry and Geophysics).
The publisher of the Journal, Oxford University Press (OUP), is the largest university-owned publishing house in the world, with a remit to maximize dissemination of research information, whilst maintaining the highest standards of quality. During 2006 OUP has been evaluating the Open Access publication model for a number of journals, including Journal of Petrology. Through this initiative, authors of accepted papers are given the option of paying an Open Access publication charge to make their paper immediately freely available online via the Journal website. This means that readers will not need a Journal subscription to view Open Access content. If an author does not choose to pay the Open Access publication charge, their paper will be published in the normal manner, but it will not be made immediately freely available online. Consequently, there could be a mixture of Open and non-Open Access papers within each issue of the Journal. Open Access articles will be clearly indicated as such on the online contents page.
To view the non-Open Access content a current subscription to the Journal is required. Online, print and combined subscription options will continue to be available to institutions. The amount of Open Access versus non-Open Access content in the Journal will be monitored and can be expected to influence future online subscription prices—generally speaking, the more Open Access content published in the Journal during the first phase of this initiative, the lower the online subscription price will be. As part of the Oxford Open initiative, authors from developing countries are offered special rates and waivers. In addition, under Oxford Journals’ existing Developing Countries Initiative, those based in over 60 ‘List A’ developing countries can apply for free online access to the Oxford Journals Collection. Those based in over 70 further ‘List B’ countries can apply for deeply discounted access to the collection.
The complete online archive of the Journal, back to volume 1 in 1960, is now available. Articles published prior to 1996 are not normally available via a current subscription. To view content before this time, access to the Oxford Journals digital archive is required. Alternatively, it is possible to purchase short-term access on a Pay per Article basis.
I express my personal thanks to the members of the Editorial and Advisory Boards for all their hard work on behalf of the Journal. Timely production of the Journal would not be possible without the help of my Editorial Assistant, Alastair Lumsden, our Copy Editors, Joyce Weddell and Christine Whittle, the Production Team members and the Senior Editor in the Journals Division at OUP. My task as Executive Editor would be impossible without their support, which is very much appreciated.
Finally, on behalf of the Editorial Board, I thank all those of you who reviewed manuscripts for the Journal in 2003. Peer review remains the best way of identifying high-quality science and it is a demanding task, particularly given the length of typical Journal of Petrology papers. I am conscious that the Manuscript Central system can be even more demanding of reviewers’ time—particularly in the creation of annotated pdf versions of manuscripts rather than hand annotated manuscript copies.
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