Submission/Review Guidelines/procedures

There are many details to work out with this journal, not the least of which will be the submission and review guidelines.  Two of the many issues to discuss include the following:

1) Turnaround time

One of the greatest advantages of an online journal, and a fitting one for covering a field which prides itself on rapid posting of information, is the ability to publish articles in a timely fashion. Not constrained by a print publication schedule, we can publish an article as soon as it is reviewed, revised and ready to be uploaded to our site.  Naturally, that means also having a quick turnaround time for reviewers.  Tim B shared with me that an online journal he works with required from its reviewers a three-week response to submissions.  I don't want to impose such a requirement unless we have consensus about such a time frame.  As for myself, my background in journalism has led me into the bad habit of lacking motivation until deadlines approach--and thus I'm better off with a short response cycle and don't have the guilt accompanying projects hanging over my head for a long time.  And, unless it comes at a bad time in the semester, three weeks is usually sufficient time to juggle a review with my other work.

But, what say you?  Is three weeks too onerous? Should we go with a month or more?  Or cut it down to two weeks?

2) Submission methods

Since we'll be publishing hypertexts on our website, it makes sense to have the authors submit these same hypertexts--but, do we want to require them to submit them via CD-ROM/DVD?  Or just give us a hyperlink to their submission that has been placed on the web--which is probably much better, outside of the concern that the hypertext could be altered during the review process.  Thoughts?

Feel free to also use this thread to raise other concerns about the submission/review process.  I strongly encourage you to visit the submissions guidelines page for the Kairos journal I mentioned earlier (http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/submissions.html).  There are a lot of technical and other guidelines we may want to borrow/revise/consider, and using their guidelines page as a starting point might prevent us from having to reinvent the wheel.

Editorial Board members

I'll be making edits to this post as we add a few more members, but I thought it would be good for you all to know who is a part of this group.  Frankly, I'm very happy with the composition of the group–we've got a great mix of people with industry experience in print, broadcast and online, we've got representation from several countries and four continents and we've got a mix of scholars with different specialties from small, medium and large schools.  That diversity will come in very handy, as I expect that we'll be getting very diverse submissions.

Thanks again, one and all, for agreeing to serve on this board.  Please let me know if there are any errors in omissions, names, affiliations, etc.  And, let me know via email if there others who you think would be great additions to the board.

Tim Bajkiewicz, Virginia Commonwealth University

Jody Brannon, Arizona State University/Carnegie-Knight News 21 Project

Ralph Braseth, University of Mississippi

Tim Brown, University of Central Florida

Steven Chappell, Middle Tennessee State University

John Cokley, University of Queensland (Australia)

George Daniels, University of Alabama

Tony DeMars, Texas A&M-Commerce

Bill Densmore, University of Missouri/Reynolds Journalism Institute/Media Giraffe Project

Mark Deuze, Indiana University/Leiden University (Netherlands)

David Domingo, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Catalonia, Spain)

Vince Filak, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, VP, College Media Advisers

Steve Fox, University of Massachusetts

Augie Grant, University of South Carolina

Alfred Hermida, University of British Columbia

Edgar Huang, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Tom Johnson, Texas Tech University

Ken Killebrew, University of South Florida

Janet Kolodzy, Emerson College

Robert Mercer, Cypress College

Mindy McAdams, University of Florida

Bryan Murley, Eastern Illinois University/Innovation in College Media

Jennifer Palilonis, Ball State University

Chris Paterson, University of Leeds 

Stephen Quinn, University of Technology Sydney (Australia)

Kenneth Rosenauer, Missouri Western State University, President, College Media Advisers

Andrew Schrock, University of Southern California/Annenberg

Norman Sims, University of Massachusetts/Media Giraffe Project

Dave Stanton, University of Florida

David Thompson, Kennesaw State

Leslie-Jean Thornton, Arizona State University

Deb Wenger, University of Mississippi

Jeff Wilkinson, United International College (China)