Journal of Dairy Science 2007 Editorial Report

Article Outline

• • Impact Factor
  • Changes in Editors and Editorial Board
  • NIH-Funded Projects and PubMed Central Deposit
• Copyright

I am pleased to bring you another extremely positive report on the performance of the Journal of Dairy Science (JDS). The journal had another very successful year in 2007 and reached several new milestones for performance. The outstanding staff members at ADSA headquarters and the senior editors and section editors are to be congratulated on a fantastic job in 2007. The staff members that work on JDS are extremely efficient and very professional in their work. I would especially like to acknowledge the efforts of Susan Pollock, the managing editor of JDS and FASS director of editorial and production, and Louise Adam, who is one of several technical editors of JDS and assistant director of editorial and production. They do an excellent job of keeping me informed of new issues on the publishing front, and they make sure that each edition of JDS is ready in a timely fashion. Jeremy Holzner should also be recognized for his contributions to the publication process as he coordinates the efforts on Manuscript Central. Sharon Frick (production coordinator), Ted Veatch (figure processor), and Lisa Krohn, Susan Krusemark, and Mandy Maiden (technical editors) all help to maintain the high quality of the journal.

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Impact Factor 

The Journal of Dairy Science continues to be the best scientific journal that serves the international community of dairy scientists. The impact factor for JDS from the most recent Institute for Scientific Information report was 2.284, making JDS the top-ranked general dairy research journal in the category of agriculture, dairy, and animal science, which includes 44 major journals. The impact factor is based primarily on journal citation reports.

In 2007, JDS published a total of 619 articles and 5,849 pages (Tables 1 and 2). This would be the fifth year in a row that JDS has published more than 400 manuscripts and more than 4,000 pages. In 2007, JDS published 565 research papers, 42 Our Industry Today papers, and 5 invited reviews. In addition, JDS published 7 symposium papers in the online-only supplement.

Table 1. Journal of Dairy Science statistics for 2007 compared with previous years

Table 2. Journal of Dairy Science manuscript and page statistics by article type for 2007

The largest section in JDS in 2007 was Physiology and Management (PM) with 187 research papers (Table 3). The second largest section was the Nutrition, Feeding, and Calves (NFC) section with 171 research papers. The Dairy Foods (DF) and Genetics and Breeding (GB) sections published 115 and 91 research papers, respectively. Of the article types other than full-length research papers or Our Industry Today papers, Short Communications were most frequent. In 2007, JDS published 31 Short Communications, 7 Technical Notes, and 5 Letters to the Editor.

Table 3. Journal of Dairy Science research manuscripts and page statistics by science section¹ for 2007

The total time from receipt of a manuscript until final publication in JDS continues to be outstanding. In 2007, the average time in review for accepted papers was 127 days, and the average time from acceptance until the papers were ready for posting and printing was 106 days. It takes about 10 days to get the posting completed so total average production time after acceptance was 116 days. The average time from submission to publication for an accepted paper was 243 days in 2007.

Another important statistic for JDS is the time that it takes to get the first decision on a paper. The average time from submission to the first decision is below 44 days.

The rate of new submissions to JDS continues to be outstanding. In 2007, JDS had 944 new articles submitted for consideration. In addition, JDS had 1,211 revised papers submitted in 2007. The total number of manuscripts handled by our senior editors and section editors in 2007 was 2,155! Journal submissions also reflect the international nature of our journal. In 2007, 31.5% of new submissions (297 manuscripts) were from the United States and 8.9% (84) were from Canada. The combined percentage of new articles submitted for publication in JDS from North American authors is less than 41%.

Changes in Editors and Editorial Board 

Retiring section and senior editors from 2007 include Lorraine Sordillo (PM), Dave Schingoethe (NFC), and Zey Ustunol (DF). Frank Gwazdauskas and Jim Spain are new senior editors in their sections. New section editors for JDS include Geoff Dahl (PM), Bhushan Jayarao (PM), Sergio Calsimiglia (NFC), John McNamara (NFC), and Rafael Jimenez-Flores (DF). Three of the 15 (20%) senior and section editors are from outside the United States.

The JDS would like to thank the editorial board and the very large number of ad hoc reviewers for their service to JDS this past year. The timely and dedicated effort provided by the editorial board and the ad hoc reviewers is essential to maintaining the reputation of JDS, and the efforts of these reviewers are greatly appreciated. No editorial board members completed their final term during 2007 but 5 new members were added beginning in 2008; they include Stephanie Clark, Mary Anne Drake, Ashraf Hassan, Nicholas Odongo, and Tom Wright. The Journal of Dairy Science continues to see increased contributions from scientists outside the United States, and the editorial board is designed to reflect the importance of international participation. Fourteen of the 61 (23%) editorial board members are from outside the United States.

The current Journal Management Committee (JMC) is chaired by Rafael Jimenez-Flores. Other members of the current JMC are John Lucey, John Bernard, and Jesse Goff.

Two important decisions from this past year that will impact JDS in the future are the elimination of the special Symposium issue of JDS and the development of the policy for Open Access. Pete Hansen will serve as the “Invited Review editor.” We hope to publish 10 to 12 timely invited papers each year, and some of these papers will likely be based on topics presented at the ADSA annual meeting. Also, we published our first Open Access paper in 2007.

NIH-Funded Projects and PubMed Central Deposit 

A current issue that is important to JDS is the disposition of papers that are funded by NIH. Recently adopted policies require that all papers funded by NIH be deposited in PubMed Central within 12 months of publication. Full papers will be required, as PubMed Central is different from abstract publication in PubMed.

Although the journal does not receive many papers funded by NIH, ADSA will keep an eye on how this develops. The publishing community expects that other federal agencies may follow the NIH model in the next year or so, which could have a significant effect on JDS if the USDA and ARS adopt similar policies.