All 2 entries tagged Update

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!

---

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

New Exchanges Webpages Launched

Writing about web page https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/exchanges/

As part of a revamp of web presence for the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS), where Exchanges is based, I am pleased to report that we now have a whole suite of new webpages as part of this project. Given for the past couple of years there’s only been a minimal presence of Exchanges on the IAS pages, I could not be happier in how we now have the chance to be a lot more visible as part of our wonderfully supportive department front-page.

You can find Exchanges’ new pages here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/exchanges/

The hope is, more people will be able to discover the journal in this way, and perhaps consider contributing or collaborating with us in some capacity. Given the IAS’ national and international reputation as a site of scholarly excellence, I expect we’ll likely have a much wider potential audience before – than with our journal pages alone.

However, don’t worry! The original journal site remains the main primary location for hosting our author guidance, the journal and its articles themselves. These new pages though, let us represent some of that information in a more ‘bite-sized’ format, which some people may find more illuminating or readily accessible. We have also taken the opportunity to expand out on some areas – like what our editors do, profiling the EIC and exploring the steps needed to initiate a special issue project.

Hence, on the new pages you can jump into information about things such as our operations and mission, how to contribute and engage with us, plus news and updates on our social media presence, training agenda and notably our podcast too. I hope you find them useful, and if there’s anything about the journal you’d wish we’d included – leave a comment or get in touch.

Gareth Johnson : 02 May 2023 16:03 |  Tags: Ias News Site Update Visibility Webpages |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem