Journal of the World Aquaculture Society

Journal of the World Aquaculture Society

Report to the Board of Directors

Harry V. Daniels, Managing Editor

ITEM 1.STATUS OF VOLUME 35

The mailing of the Marchissue of Volume 35 wasdelayed approximately two weeks. Difficulties in communication with several of the authors (six articles) caused the majority of the delays. These articles were eventually removed from that issue and placed in issue Number 2 (June) to avoid further delays. The rescheduling of these papers caused the June issue to have a slightly higher number of papers than usual. The June issue was mailed during mailed during the scheduled month of publication. Galley proofs for issue number 3 (September) are being prepared at the time this report was under preparation. I anticipate that this issue will be mailed to subscribers from the printer on time, in the listed month of publication. Because of the increase in membership, we now print 3,200 copies per issue; 200 more than previous issues. Articles for the December issue have been copyedited and are being converted to PDF galley proofs by Amy Broussard. Amy will also do the layout for the entire December issue.

ITEM 2.OVERVIEW OF VOLUME 35

A total of 67 articles were accepted for Volume 35. Numbers of articles in each issue, listed consecutively, are 14, 21, 13, and 19.

Of the accepted papers, senior authors from the United States were listed on 39 (58%) of the papers. This percentage is slightly lower than previous Volumes (Volume 34 had 65% US authors). Final counts for the other papers published in Volume 35 are as follows: Four papers each were published from China and Mexico; 3 from Japan; 2 each from South Africa,Portugal,Hungary,and Israel; 1 each from Australia,Italy,Thailand, Korea, Brazil, Greece, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and Trinidad and Tobago.

ITEM 3.EDITORIAL BOARD

The current Board consists of 38 Associate Editors. Three AE’s have asked to step down from the Board. We will be replacing them with new AE’s in the next few months.

ITEM 4. OVERVIEW OF EDITORIAL SERVICES (JAN – AUG 2004)

A total of 98 papers have already been submitted for possible publication. Thirty-six of the papers (37%) were from first authors with a US address. Other countries submitting papers were: Korea (14), Brazil (10), China (8), Mexico (6), India (4), two each from Japan, Canada, Egypt, Argentina, Portugal, Turkey; one each from Saudi Arabia, France, Malaysia, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and Chile.

ITEM 5.MISCELLANEOUS

Online manuscript submission and electronic publishing – We have made no further progress in the development of online manuscript submission during the last few months.

To speed up the review and publication process we have started sending manuscripts electronically to Associate Editors outside the U.S. and have increased our email correspondence with authors, to include Acknowledgement of Receipt letters, Letters of Acceptance and summaries of reviews. To formalize and more fully integrate this process, we will begin requiring an electronic copy of manuscripts on diskette at the time of first submission.

As mentioned above (Status of Volume 35 section), we have begun converting copyedited manuscripts to PDF format for electronic mailing of galley proofs and for quicker turnaround of corrected proofs. This has saved time, reduced mailing costs, and eliminated problems with lost galley proofs.

English Grammar Service – A total of 11manuscripts have been processed through the English Grammar Service. The Service has only been advertised since June (World Aquaculture magazine).

Impact Factor – The 2003 impact factor for JWAS was 0.802. To my knowledge, this is the highest impact factor in the history of JWAS. The impact factors for related journals are given below:

Aquaculture 1.507
Aquaculture Nutrition 1.066
JWAS 0.802
Aquaculture Engineering 0.769
Aquaculture Research 0.766
Journal of Shellfish Research 0.557
North American Journal of Aquaculture 0.604
Aquaculture International 0.446

Based on an analysis of the most cited articles in Aquaculture, Review Articles are the most frequently cited and therefore have the greatest effect on the impact factor. I have begun discussions with several of our Associate Editors to formalize the solicitation and processing of Review Articles for JWAS. My goal is to have at least one Review Article per issue for a total of four articles per year. In my opinion, this is the most effective way to increase the JWAS impact factor at this time.

Special issue on Korean Aquaculture –The papers were sent out for peer review in late March. The majority of the reviews have been completed and will be returned to the authors at the end of September. Depending on the turnaround time of the revisions, I anticipate issue Number 2 (June) will be dedicated to these papers.