All 2 entries tagged Summer

Summer Submissions & Editorial Changes

August is traditionally a quiet month, physically, around campus. It’s also fairly quiet electronically, as here at Exchanges HQ there’s been a noticeable tailing off of email traffic: beyond the regular out of office messages popping up when we get in touch with various people across the global academy. Unsurprisingly, many scholars are using this month to take a well-earned annual vacation.

Having just returned from a delightful staycation myself though, the quiet is giving me a great opportunity to pick up on and develop some of the developmental threads and projects that I’ve naturally side-lined due to more pressing term time work. It’s a slight peculiarity that despite not working with taught course students, Exchanges remains subject to the ebb and flow of the scholastic year. However, this is more of an artefact of the academics who are writing, reviewing and editing for us being AFK (away from keyboard). Although, I’ve had more than one email response in the past week from scholars nominally on holiday!

One slightly unexpected thing I’m finding myself dealing with as Editor-in-Chief in this quiet time is handling the fallout from a couple of my Editorial Board standing down on fairly short notice. While, understandably due to the rising pressures of their other professional commitments, I’m always sorry to see any of my team leave. Partly, because it means I’ve some shuffling of assignments to handle, but mainly because I know how much the journal has benefitted from their contributions and insight, alongside their editorial labour. However, Exchanges has always seen itself as a journal providing a training and experiential boost to our editors, so I can’t complain when it contributes to their career progression. Fair sailing and every future success, Andrew and Jane!

Of course, many academics take the summer break as the opportunity to catch up on all their writing and publishing plans. If you’re an early career scholar, or PhD student, then maybe take a moment to consider writing something for Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal. We’ve two currently open calls for publication (1) a themed in-between spaces one and (2) our regular open call on any topic or theme. I should mention, if you’re thinking of writing something like a critical reflection or an interview, these are the kinds of articles we can typically publish much faster as they don’t normally undergo peer review. Which means there’s a really good chance you could appear in print in a matter of a few short months in our autumn issue.

Gareth Johnson : 08 Aug 2019 10:15 |  Tags: Calls Editors Papers Projects Submissions Summer |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Summer Time Developments Brings DOIs, Paper Metrics & New Licence Terms

The month of August is the time of year when, traditionally, UK universities slow down a bit. It’s the summer holidays, so staff with families take the time to go on vacation, meaning many an email goes unanswered for a while and progress can seem sluggish. Personally, as a former academic librarian, August was the month I was often the busiest as all those project tasks and new academic year preparatory efforts were always in full swing! As Senior Editor of Exchanges, I felt this slight pause in email traffic and article ingest was the perfect time to push ahead on some the developmental work and background research advancing the journal for the benefit of our authors and readers alike.

The most exciting new addition is that you can now see the downloads from the past year of all the articles on Exchanges. This is a great way for authors to track their papers’ engagement, not to mention for the Editorial Board to identify the areas in which our readers are most interested. This is our first step towards providing more information about how well the material published with us is being received, and over the next year, hopefully, I’ll be able to highlight further new information in this area.

Secondly, coming very soon will be DOIs for every article on Exchanges, both past and future. DOIs (digital object identifiers) are a unique alphanumeric string which provide a persistent lifetime link to a particular location on the internet, a shorthand if you like, for each article on Exchanges. This means even if we alter the journal’s website location or change our domain address, the DOI will remain a stable and viable way for readers to access an article. Additionally, I think they also make citing articles look a little tidier.

From today, we’ve also changed the Creative Commons author publishing licence for Exchanges, from the more restrictive Attribution-Non-Commercial-Sharealike (CC-BY-NC-SA), to the more desirable Attribution (CC-BY) only. The prior licence was considered the bare minimum to meet funders and governmental agencies around the world’s open access requirements. Shifting to a CC-BY licence brings us more in line with the major interdisciplinary titles, such as PLOS One, and further demonstrates Exchanges’ adherence to no-author-fee diamond model [1] open access publishing. Previously published, or submitted articles, will retain their original licences, as agreed by their authors. Newly submitting authors from now on, will be asked to accept the new licence terms at the point of submission, as part of their publishing agreement with Exchanges.

Behind the scenes I’ve also rolled out our very first author feedback system. This ties into my previously discussed interest in our author and reader audiences, and will provide some initial data towards satisfying that curiosity. It will also contribute by identifying aspects of Exchanges’ platform and process which work well, or less so, for our authors, directing my attention to where the greatest benefit can be achieved. If you’re one of our prior authors (vol 5.2), and you’ve had one of my emails about this, please do respond as it’s a very short set of questions which won’t take a lot of time. If you’ve already responded, many, many thanks!

Finally, a big welcome to the new members of our Editorial Board, who I know will make a considerable contribution to the running and engagement of the journal, and I’m really looking forward to working alongside them. Hopefully, I’ll be able to announce a few more additions to the team in the coming months, as the title continues to grow.

Hence, as you can see, the summer is continuing to be anything except quiet for Exchanges!

[1] As per Fuchs and Sandoval, although some might call this the ‘radical mode’, if they’re more a fan of Gary Hall’s work.

Gareth Johnson : 07 Aug 2018 11:38 |  Tags: Commons Creative Developments Doi Editors Licence License News Statistics Summer |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem