Ten Proposals for improving the journal: Address at CIGR Ejournal Handover Ceremony

 

By Dr. Wang Yingkuan

Incoming Editor-in-Chief of CIGR Ejournal, Managing Editor of IJABE, Associate Editor-in-chief of Transactions of the CSAE,

CSAE and CAAE

 

Dear Mr. Incoming President and Editor-in-Chief Prof Fedro Zazueta, Prof Wang Maohua, Prof Bill Stout, Prof Zhu Ming, Prof Li Shujun and other CIGR Officials and Members, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:

 

Good morning and good evening!

Thank you all. I am excited and happy to be selected as the new editor-in-chief. I will try my best to improve, publicize and promote the CIGR Journal.

 

Since all the leaders and distinguished guests have delivered excellent speeches，I will not repeat their kind words of praise and thanks. Today, I am going to share ten of my new suggestions on how to improve and promote the CIGR Journal.

First, Unify one definite title of CIGR Journal

I know from the emails that CIGR was criticized by Thomson ISI for the confusing journal titles. According to my rough statistics, we have used ten journal titles.  They are as follows:

E-Journals

CIGR Journal

CIGR Ejournal

CIGR ejournal

CIGR E-Journal (hyphen)

The CIGR Electronic Journal

Agricultural Engineering International: The CIGR EJournal

( the Presidium approved this one as the official name, but it can be changed by approval of the appropriate body)

Agricultural Engineering International: The CIGR Journal of Scientific Research and Development

The CIGR Journal of Agricultural Engineering Scientific Research and Development

The CIGR Journal of AE Scientific Research and Development

 

I will not make a decision on this, but I welcome suggestions on a good title after in-depth investigation. Frankly, I prefer “CIGR Journal”.

Second, Behave like a journal

The present practice of publishing one volume each year is not desirable and scientific. It is more like an online archive depositing some peer reviewed papers, rather than a journal. A journal is a serial publication, thus it should be published periodically. Therefore, some changes are needed. I plan to make the CIGR Journal a Quarterly publication with four issues a year, with volume and number of issues. I also wish to change the appearance, say, design a journal cover, adopt two-column format, add a page header with running title, journal title, volume and number of issue, making it more like a professional and scholarly journal.

Third, Keep aggressive contact with indexing system

I will conduct active communication with all indexing databases with the focus on Thomson ISI and EI. Certainly, we must continuously improve the quality of our journal. We also need to make some changes to meet the criteria of the indexing databases such as SCI and EI.

Fourth, Improve and customize the journal website

I will improve and customize the journal website. There are great opportunities for improving the journal website. I will provide detailed journal introduction, guide manuals for authors, reviewers and editors. To enlarge the expert databases of our journal to provide strong support to peer review is also an important task.

Fifth, Increase the accessibility and visibility of journal website

I will add a direct hyperlink to CIGR Journal in CIGR website. There is a link that leads to a brief introduction to the journal, but it cannot navigate to the journal website. What I need is to navigate directly to the journal homepage after clicking the journal link. I will also try to exchange interlinks with other related journals. After publishing each issue, I will use OJS to send an Article Alert to all the registered users of our journal. All those measures will greatly increase the accessibility and visibility of our journal and published papers.

Sixth, Organize OJS training

CIGR Journal uses Open Journal System (OJS) to receive submissions, conduct peer review, communicate with all users and publish papers online. Skillful use of OJS will improve the efficiency of handling manuscripts. The best solution to break the bottleneck is to provide OJS training. I plan to organize OJS training for our section editors and editorial staff. I may provide some online video guides for reviewers, authors and readers.

Seventh, Strengthen the team of Section editors and editorial staff

In order to strengthen our editorial team and also share the workload, I will invite more experts to serve as the section editors. I also plan to appoint more professional editorial staff, including science editors, English editors, copy editors, full time or part-time. Moreover, all kinds of training such as technical writing, editing, reviewing, proofreading for authors, reviewers and in-house editors will be provided.

Eighth, Improve journal manuscript process

Reasonable journal manuscript process will be made with a timetable for each procedure. We will monitor the review process, to ensure a timely, serious and high quality peer review with good review comments and constructive suggestions. We will ask the authors to make timely and effective revisions with a response letter addressing to the review comments. I plan to strengthen the post-review process, with more emphasis on editing, English polishing, formatting, proofreading, online publishing, to improve the writing and presentation of accepted papers.

Ninth, Invite and solicit good papers

Free submissions are not enough for a good journal. We cannot sit and wait for free submissions from authors. I will do my possible to invite good-quality papers. I will encourage our staff editors to attend symposia and meetings, contacting scientists face to face and inviting papers.

Tenth, Organize an International Editorial Board

I will organize an international editorial board of CIGR Journal. The board will consist of over 100 members from over 50 countries. An international editorial board will attract worldwide participation and support.

 

These are just some of my plans. I have a lot of new ideas to improve and promote the journal, and there are many, many things to do. Since CIGR, CSAM and CSAE trust me as the editor-in-chief, I really appreciate more liberty and decision-making power to handle the journal affairs independently. I should have a major voice in editing and publishing this journal.

Finally, I have to thank one of my best friends, Prof Bill Stout, for his selfless service and great contribution to the journal in the past ten years. He has launched this journal and has been working hard for it persistently for ten years. Thank him for trusting and recommending me as the new editor-in-chief of the CIGR Journal. I really appreciate his great assistance and guidance serving as an adviser after his resignation. Special thanks also go to Prof Zhu Ming and Prof Li Shujun for their great effort and support to host the CIGR Journal in China.

I ask all of you to support the CIGR Journal and me as ever in the future.

I wish this journal a great success in China and around the world!

Thank you,

 

 

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