All entries for February 2024

What's Exchanges About? Your brief reminder

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/

Having a conversation this morning with my line manager, who asked me to write a few words about Exchanges and what it does and offers for use in a general promotion. Thought it might be useful to share here, as a small reminder - given people often ask me to talk (briefly) about what the journal does.

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Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journalis a non-fee charging, open-access, scholar-led, interdisciplinary journal, published twice-annuallyby Warwick’s Institute of Advanced Study(IAS) since 2013. Primarily run by and for early-career researchers (post-docs and some PGRs), it attracts articles from around the world which are read by an international and cross-disciplinary audience. Since 2020 it has increasingly published a series of highly regarded special issues, dedicated to particular themes in collaboration with scholars around the world. Alongside its publications, Exchangesalso has a particular mission supporting support early-career researchers' development of high quality authorial, reviewing and editorial skills, as contributors and collaborators, alongside various contributions to workshop and seminar events. The journal also produces a companion podcast the Exchanges Discourse, featuring author insights, publishing advice and career explorations, now entering it's fifth broadcast season.

Contact the Editor-in-Chief, Dr Gareth J Johnson(gareth.johnson@warwick.ac.uk) to learn more about Exchanges.

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Naturally, there's a whole lot more about the journal elsewhere - but if that taster above has gained your interest - get in touch!

Gareth Johnson : 20 Feb 2024 10:38 |  Tags: Advert Details Marketing Promotion |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

February '24 Board Meeting Held

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/about/editorialTeam

Periodic meeting of Board and associate editors held to share updates and inputs to Exchanges

As long-time readers and contributors will be aware, Exchanges tries to keep its behind the scenes operations as relatively informal as possible, while maintaining our quality bar and editorial standards. In part, this informality helps generate a better working environment and ethos among the editorial team, and it allows them each to be able to raise any matter of concern or questions with me at any time.

Despite this, periodically, in my role as Chief Editor, I like to draw everyone together for a more formal meeting to talk through the various activities going on across the journal and its activities. The major rationale is because other than myself I suspect most of my Board and associate editors are only partially aware of the scale and scope of Exchanges’ full operations. Hence, in the interests of transparency I like to give them all a chance to periodically get up to speed, to hear about what’s new, what’s coming soon and also to air any general points of discussion.

Those who have attended any of these meetings do know I keep them relatively brief – although from time to time we do have quite extensive discussions when there’s been a recent point of particular interest. Certainly, right now, with our growing editorial family [1], we’re moving through a phase where there’s a lot of activity going on but other than me, no one is involved with it across the board. Or indeed, the Board. Hence, the need for a Board meeting was rather pressing this month I thought.

Now because it’s quite challenging to find a time when everyone can gather, given our numbers and geographic distribution, my approach these days is every six months or so to schedule a couple of Board meeting opportunities in a week. Attendance is never mandated, but encouraged, and the meetings are open to anyone working in an editorial capacity with Exchanges.

This week’s meetings went well – with a stronger attendance than we’ve had for a while, with Board and associate editors both well represented. Topics for discussion included:

• Practical steps towards the April issue of the journal.
• Forthcoming workshops and projects with Exchanges’ involvement.
• Special issues in progress/under discussion.

As always it was great to be able to share what we do across the team, and also to see their faces too. [2] I am looking forward to the next Board meeting in the autumn, but also to the interim meetings I’ll be having with our associate editors working on the special issues too.

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Endnotes

[1] We currently have 39 editors, plus myself, on the team. With another dozen or so waiting in the wings as we move towards launching future special issue projects.

[2] I think we had editors based in 6 different countries in attendance – including one of our wonderful Monash based editors!

Gareth Johnson : 15 Feb 2024 12:13 |  Tags: Board Editorial Meeting Report |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

State of Play in February 2024 for Exchanges

A February update on the special issue fun and games, and everything that's going on with the journal right now.

My apologies to regular readers for neglecting the blog somewhat in recent weeks. I have had quite a busy few weeks dealing primarily with the submission deadlines for two special issues [1] coming at the end of January which has been followed by a huge wave of submission to Exchanges. I’ve also taught a couple of classes and had a filthy cold too. However, in terms of the manuscripts we have had far more submissions in a relatively short period than I’ve ever dealt with before. Certainly in all my years on the journal at least! Even our biggest issues to date – the Nerds and Cannibalism special issues, had submissions spread across a much broader period of time as I recall. In the past two weeks though with the two issues I’ve had at least 50 new articles to deal with – which for Exchanges equates to about the number we can have submitted in an entire year.

So, yes, it has been a busy old time. But I’ll say it’s been a really exciting one too. To have so many potentially fantastic papers by so many wonderful authors around the world, entrusted with the journal for consideration is deeply gratifying. It’s at times like these I wonder if Exchanges might be better off being a special issues journal all of the time, as each of these special issues have had such a high volume of contributions. Although perhaps not quite this high!

Of course, part and parcel of this workload for me has been training and supporting the small new army of associate editors we now have working on the two issues. I have to say they are all acquitting themselves superbly, and while there are a lot of questions – that is to be expected! And indeed, encouraged! I don’t expect associate editors to be able to run before they can walk, so such guidance is freely and gratefully given. It is also refreshing to have many new people working on the journal. Not only for the fresh energy and enthusiasm they bring, which they certainly do, but also for the new insights they offer. Things I might not otherwise have thought about. Elements I’ve not considered for a while. Or new perspectives from angles I might not even have otherwise taken. Consequently, they’ve gotten me thinking about a few tasks on the back end of the journal that would benefit from my attention. Tasks that otherwise might have sat on the back burner indefinitely.

We’re also in a week of Library Board and Team meetings, a chance for me to update all of the team about what’s going on broadly with Exchanges. But also for them all to reflect back on the experience and share their opinions on topics of mutual interest. There’s probably a separate post I’ll write about that next week.

In the meantime, it’s back to dealing with yet another new submission this morning. One thing I can say about February 2024 for Exchanges – it isn’t a quiet month – and all the better for it!

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Endnotes

[1] The MRC @ 50 and Research Culture issues respectively. Read about them both earlier in the blog!

Gareth Johnson : 14 Feb 2024 07:44 |  Tags: Associate Editors Issues Progress Special Update |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem