Difference between revisions of "Code4Lib Editorial Committee Introduction"

Revision as of 18:04, 12 March 2010

How the Editorial Committee Functions

The Code4Lib Journal Editorial Committee works much as Code4Lib does: informally and collaboratively. For each issue, one member of the Editorial Committee (EC) volunteers to be Coordinating Editor (ie managing editor) of a journal issue. For the duration of their tenure, the Coordinating Editor is generally responsible for any loose ends tying, and making sure everything proceeds smoothly, coordinating all of the rest of us. This includes distributing the call for papers, communicating with potential authors, opening and closing editorial committee voting on submissions, notifying authors of rejected articles, and making sure that accepted articles have volunteer editors (and that those editors notify authors of accepted articles).

Everyone on the EC may vote on article proposals as they come in. The Coordinating Editor generally sets a deadline of 1-2 weeks for voting. Voting is straightforward and recorded in the Article Tracking spreadsheet. An article must have at least two 'yes' votes and more 'yes' votes than 'no' votes to be accepted. Once an article is accepted for publication, an EC member volunteers to take on editorial responsibility for that article and shepherds it from proposal to publication, acting as the journal's single point of contact with the author. Most Committee members take responsibility for about one article per issue, though the committee is large enough that there is some flexibility with editorial responsibility.

Editing an article includes making sure the article draft is submitted on time, distributing drafts to the full committee for comment, making editorial suggestions or recommendations to the author(s), tracking and enforcing submission deadlines, requesting full Editorial Committee approval of the final draft, and inputting the finished article into our WordPress site. Once the assigned editor recommends the final draft for publication, the EC again votes on whether to include that article in the current issue. Again, this requires at least two 'yes' votes and more 'yes' votes than 'no' votes for publication. We do not expect every EC member to vote on every article, but we do ask that you read an article thoroughly before voting on it for inclusion in the issue.

More detailed information describing the entire process from sending out the call for proposals to publishing a new issue is available on the Journal site:

• General outline of process and structure
• More detailed information for editors (requires Wordpress login)

Templates for notifying authors about the status of their proposals are available as on the wiki.

Above all, the Editorial Committee is informal and egalitarian. Jump in with your opinion and ideas!

Editorial Committee Discussion Lists (Required)

Much of the Editorial Committee's business is conducted via email on the C4LJ-Articles Google Group. This list is where we debate article submissions, volunteer to be editor or managing editor, discuss acceptance of articles, and take care of any other tasks in front of us that might be of a sensitive nature. Anyone may post to this list, but only editors can read the list activity. To join this list, please visit the URL and request membership, using your preferred email associated with a Google account. If that doesn't work for some reason, you can join the c4lj-discuss group (see below) and send an email requesting membership to c4lj-articles.

All other Journal business is discussed on the C4LJ-Discuss Google Group. If the conversation is unrelated to specific authors, proposals, or articles, it should probably happen on this list. We prefer to discuss other decisions about how the Journal is handled in public where anyone can participate. This list is open for anyone to join and is publicly viewable. Only list members can post. Use the URL above to join this discussion list. Due to spam, authors are moderated the first time they post.

Article Tracking Spreadsheet (Required)

Articles, from proposal submission through to publication, are tracked using the C4LJ Article Tracking spreadsheet in Google Docs. This Google document is private; only Editorial Committee members may view or edit it. Proposal votes and tentative issue assignments for accepted articles are tracked in this spreadsheet. The invitation to become a collaborator is available on the c4lj-articles list. Please use this invitation to add yourself as a collaborator for this document (you must already be a member of c4lj-articles).

Wordpress (Required)

Code4Lib Journal articles are published in a Wordpress installation hosted by ibiblio (http://journal.code4lib.org). The assigned editor for an article is responsible for entering the content into Wordpress, formatting it, and adding images and code snippets. Guidelines on entering articles are available on the wiki. We also maintain basic information about the Journal using pages in Wordpress (Mission, Editorial Committee, Process and Structure, Call for Submissions, Article Guidelines).

New editors need to request a Wordpress account:

1. Go to http://journal.code4lib.org/wp/wp-login.php?action=register
2. Register
3. Send your username to c4lj-articles@googlegroups.com so the technical editor can grant you Wordpress privileges.

Once you have an active WordPress account, please add your name to the list of Editorial Committee members at http://journal.code4lib.org/editorial-committee.

Google Analytics (Optional)

Google Analytics is used to gather statistics for the Code4Lib Journal. If you are interested in being able to view these statistics, just send your preferred Google Account information to the c4lj-articles@googlegroups.com discussion list, and the technical editor will enable your access.

Other Shared Documents (Optional)

The C4LJ Article/Author Ideas spreadsheet is used to track ideas for have for specific articles we'd like to recruit or specific authors we want to recruit for the Journal. The invitation to become a collaborative editor is available on the c4lj-articles list.