Primary science journal, Journal management, Peer review, Automation in publication, Publishing a research paper

The Philosophical Transactions, brought out by Henry Oldenburg in 1665 as a private venture, is considered to be the first1 published primary science journal. He was the secretary of the Royal Society, England at that time and was patronised by them for this endeavour. Before introduction of this science journal, in a gathering of members of the Royal Society, London, one member would read aloud the scientific research findings, which the others would listen. Gradually, records of such proceedings were published for those members who could not attend
such meetings. Later on even those investigations, which have not been presented in such meeting,
were included in the proceedings. As the societies got bigger and the membership increased beyond a limit, published proceedings became a practice. This leads to the premise that conception and development of a science journal was closely linked with the establishment and growth of such learned societies and professional institutions2. Printing, which is an integral component of publication, however started much earlier, way back in 1440, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. The first book he printed was a bible known as the Gutenberg Bible3.

There had been an exponential growth in the number of science and technology journals over the last three centuries and today the total figure has reached astronomical numbers. Out of these, 5900 well-cited journals are covered by the Science Citation Index brought out by the Institute for Scientific Information, Philadelphia, USA. Despite so much progress in avenues for publication in primary science, recently, in the 21st century, a group of prominent scientists accused the leading science journals of holding back the progress of science, by restricting the online access on the papers published by them for making higher profit. They are threatening to create a science journal on the web4, in biology and medicine to start with, that will have reviewed papers accessible to one and all at no cost whatsoever. There is no doubt that the scientific community will welcome this endeavour. However this author has a gut feeling that printed primary science journals are here to stay rubbing shoulders with science journals on the web. After the advent of the personal computer (PC) the world conjectured of a paperless office. But that was not to be, as time has shown that the consumption of paper has gone up with time despite a PC.

Progress in science and technology has brought in its wake cut throat competition among scientists to establish priority of publication of their research results. This has resulted in a lot of pressure on the managing editors of science journals. Whereas the papers have to be published as fast as possible, the editor cannot afford to publish them without proper evaluation by experts. He has to do a tight rope walking, trying to keep a balance. As a result more often than not they are a harried lot keeping track of all the many papers they have received for publication, trying to sieve the wheat from the chaff. Nevertheless a PC can make a science journal editor's life somewhat comfortable, by putting some order in the cumbersome and often unsystematic style of managing the editorial office.

Attempts at digitisation and automation in science publication started long back5,6. This author also presented a theme paper7 on possible automation in the publication procedure of PID (now NISCAIR) journals in a national seminar. An attempt has been made in this paper, to portray the results of digitisation of the operations of a managing editor of a science journal.

Editorial Office

Work at the editorial office of a primary science journal starts as soon as a fresh paper is received as follows: Acknowledge its receipt; Give it an identification number; Log it in a register; File it; Search for appropriate reviewers for the paper after going through its contents; Prepare forwarding letters along with a performa for comments to the reviewers; etc. Maintain a file of experts in different subjects under different headings, sub-headings and sub-sub headings. Update it regularly. Send acknowledgement / reminders to the reviewers. Send comments to the authors for revision of the paper. Send the revised paper to the reviewer again for further comments if necessary. Communicate acceptance / rejection of paper to the author. Entertain interim queries from the authors. Maintain a register to monitor the movement of hundreds of papers received. This is the first phase of activity – the job of a Managing Editor.

The second phase starts after a paper is accepted for publication. The editor has to at least style-edit it to make it suitable for the journal, as per its house style. If the paper is still not suitable and requires more information, which only the author can supply, the editor has to get in touch with him and send a list of problems encountered and need to be answered, requiring
further correspondence. Last but not the least, periodically, data regarding the present status of the working has to be prepared to review the operations of the journal so as to identify and solve problems. The act is endless, requiring the editor to be always on his toes sapping his vital energy, which keeps him away from another vital role he has to play, in updating his knowledge in the subject and write on the latest developments in the field so as to communicate them to his readers – mostly busy researchers, educationists, science planners, etc.

Computerising journal management

Computerisation of the Managing Editor's job can systematise and partly automate the whole functioning of the editorial office, using MS WORD8, as follows.

The methodology adopted is to create a front page, like the Contents page of a book. Create buttons on it for the various functions. Create files for the various functions. These files can then be hyperlinked to the respective buttons on the front page. In this way you have the entire office in the computer stacked away neatly; this cannot be lost, defaced, destroyed or stolen. That apart you can rearrange the databases you have created of referees and their field of specialisation, the papers that have been received or a status report about the papers received over a period of time at will, without putting yourself in a lot of inconvenience.

The front page can be designed to satisfy your artistic skill, keeping an eye on convenience of its use. A typical example is shown in Fig. 1. The various buttons on the front page represent various files. With a minimum knowledge of MS WORD, it is not difficult to create a front page like the one shown. It is also possible to decorate it with the logo of your institution as shown. A more elegant Front Page can be created, using the package FRONT PAGE. There is no operational / functional advantage gained however. The one designed using MS WORD and presented in the figure works as efficiently.
 

Fig.1 : Front page representing the register that shows its contents : (i) open, (ii) fresh paper, (iii) referee acknowledgement, (vi) comments, (v) reviewed paper, (vi) revised acknowledgement, (vii) query, (viii) reminder, (ix) reviewers report, (x) accepted, (xi) rejected, (xii) foreign referee, and (xiii) Indian referee

Table 1 : A typical table of contents of pagers received for publication in the journal. Since this table contains confidential information, it should be open-able only with a password. All the data presented in the table are fictitious and bears no resemblance with an actual data in our or any other table.

Fig. 2 : Shows a dialog box for hyperlinking. Clicking ‘Insert’ on the main menu, when a dropdown menu appears, click ‘Hyperlink’.

The method adopted is as follows. Open a New Blank Document page. Go to File Menu. Click Page Setup. Click page Size. Click Landscape. OK it. You get a landscape-sized page. OPEN represents the main register containing various details about the papers received as follows :

• The reference number of the paper

• Full title of the paper

• Authors' names and addresses

• Names and addresses of the referees

• Date on which the paper is sent to the referees

• Date on which the comments are received back

• Date on which comments have been communicated to the author

• Date on which the revised paper has been received back

• Decision on the paper (accepted/rejected)

• Remarks

One can create, as many headings as required depending on ones imagination. However the number of absolutely necessary headings should be kept to a minimum to avoid making the table of data unwieldy yet functional. A representative example is presented in Table 1. The OPEN button on the front page should be hyperlinked with Table 1, kept in a separate file. Because of the confidential nature of the data, like names of referees, which in no case should be divulged or leaked to the authors, the table should be operable only with a password.

The procedure of hyperlinking is as follows. Save Table 1 in a file preferably contained in a folder in C-Drive. Highlight the box OPEN in the REGISTER (Fig. 1). Bring the cursor on the box OPEN and reverse-click the Mouse. A drop-down menu will appear, one item on which is 'Hyperlink'. Click that item. A dialog box for hyperlink will appear (Fig. 2). It will have a button by the name of FILE. Take the cursor to File and click. Then another dialog box will open (Fig. 3). Click 'My Document', then click 'C-Drive' and go to the folder and then to the  File containing Table 1, which holds data about the papers. You will notice that in the Hyperlink Dialog Box (Fig. 2) under the eyelet 'Type the file or web page name', the path showing the way to the file containing Table 1 will be displayed. Click OK in the Hyperlink dialog box, when you notice that eyelet.

OPEN in the Front page you have made is hyperlinked. In other words, if you bring the cursor on the eyelet OPEN, a hand sign will appear. On clicking, straight away Table 1 containing fresh paper data will appear on the screen.

A number of standard letters are required to be sent at various stages of the paper to the reviewers and to the authors. In the same way as described earlier, create files of data for the letters you are to send to Reviewers and Authors; as also acknowledgement, Reminders, for Rejection, for Acceptance, etc. These files can then be hyperlinked to the different eyelets
in the Front page given in Fig. 1. Sample text of these model letters in the respective files is presented in
Table 2 for convenience. Each file can store any number of a letter, sent to different authors / reviewers, for record.

Panel of reviewers

One of the most critical of an Editor's activities is to prepare a list of experts in different fields, its sub-fields and sub-sub fields along with their full address and email addresses. It is a very tedious task and has to be continued over a period of time, constantly updating it depending on response received from them from time to time. Names have to be kept on being added as well as deleted. The easiest way to start such a Referee's data file is to access the websites of different educational and research institutions and download the names of the faculty members along with their fields of specialisation, papers published, etc. A list of papers published by a peer is very important, as it will have the necessary keywords, so very essential to locate an appropriate reviewer for a paper submitted for publication. A separate data file should be created for international reviewers.

Two eyelets can be created on the Front page, one for Indian reviewers and the other for international reviewers. These then can be hyperlinked to the respective files, as described earlier.

A soft copy of different papers received should be kept in different files in a folder. For this purpose always insist on a soft copy of the paper from the authors, as soon as a manuscript is received. Make it mandatory for the authors to submit a soft copy along with the hard copies (printed version) of the paper during submission. Ask for it in the acknowledgement letter, if not already submitted. Immediately on receipt of the soft copy on a floppy or a CD, open the file in your system and copy it in a file with a proper reference number. All paper files should be contained in a folder. From this file, the title of the paper, the authors' names and addresses can be copied and
pasted in Table 1. This will not only save the trouble of inputting data laboriously and avoid spelling mistakes, but also save time. The different files for papers can then be hyperlinked to the Reference Numbers given in Table 1.

There are several advantages and a few pit falls of editing a paper on the computer screen.

More often than not, a paper in theoretical physics or mathematics contains a lot of mathematics, requiring the use of 'Microsoft Equation' to edit it. Microsoft Equation can be reached by clicking 'Insert' in the Main Menu, then click 'Object' in the Dropdown Menu, and finally clicking 'Microsoft Equation', which opens the tools for formatting mathematics (Fig. 4). It is quite complicated and time consuming in itself. It can however be mastered by practicing it over time.

Although the methodology described in the Computerised Editorial Management Practice is rather simplistic, based on some knowledge of MS WORD alone, it has been found to be very useful and user friendly. As it is not very complicated, an Editor, without any knowledge of say C++, or Java computer software, can design it. However there are certain precaution to be taken, and certain pitfalls to be avoided, as follows :

Although the methodology described in the Computerised Editorial Management Practice is rather simplistic, based on some knowledge of MS WORD alone, it has been found to be very useful and user friendly. As it is not very complicated, an Editor, without any knowledge of say C++, or Java computer software, can design it. However there are certain precaution to be taken, and certain pitfalls to be avoided, as follows :

Conclusions

Acknowledgements