I spent the last two days going over the program of the AWRA Spring Specialty Conference on GIS, looking over the abstracts of the talks and posters, and emailing authors of those showing potential as a JAWRA paper. It’s not an exact science, so please don’t be offended if I didn’t email you. I’ll be in New Orleans this March to learn more.
I just rejected a manuscript where the author failed to cite a closely-related article he had published in another journal. The two weren’t identical, but were close enough to require explanation.
Duh! Do these guys think we don’t check anything? A diligent Associate Editor made a quick search and found it. Hard to hide stuff on the Internet!
We expect authors to be forthcoming about related work, so we can make a fair, informed decision. It is not acceptable for our reviewers and editors to find it themselves.
So far, I’ve sent out over 60 emails encouraging presenters of talks or posters to consider developing them into JAWRA papers. I personally reviewed all the posters and sat in on many of the talks. For others, since I couldn’t be everywhere at once, I conferred with an Associate Editor or others who attended. Only as a last resort did I simply invite a promising title. I’m even looking into a Featured Collection on one topic. The Associate Editors and I will be contacting additional potential authors in the future.
Don’t feel bad if we didn’t contact you! Not all interesting talks lend themselves to JAWRA papers. Many are very critical for practitioners but are not candidates for a research journal. Similarly, panel discussions often give up-to-date insights into agency procedures or regulations but do not provide materials for JAWRA.
If you think we inadvertently passed over inviting a potential paper, please still feel free to submit it via our ScholarOne Manuscripts system.
Dr. Wolfgang Wagner, Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Remote Sensing, has resigned over controversy concerning a recently-published paper on climate change. You can read his full statement here. Remote Sensing’s peer review process apparently failed to pick up fundamental methodological errors and false claims, which many researchers subsequently have pointed out in discussion fora. (See the BBC article published today.)
The situation is every editor’s worst nightmare. I have to commend Dr. Wagner’s integrity in recognizing where the buck stops. I’d like to think it couldn’t happen here, but I know I’d be fooling myself. JAWRA’s peer review process has a couple of procedural rules which might have helped — no JAWRA Associate Editor, for example, is required to recommend acceptance, even if all reviews are favorable — but only constant vigilance, skeptical eyes, and (for lack of a better name) the “smell test” are all that really protect us.
Every journal wants to publish groundbreaking science. Papers which challenge conventional wisdom often open the door to major advances — but only if they have the scientific chops to stand up to the inevitable storm of criticism. In pushing to publish the latest advance, we must not lose sight of good science.
Ironically, in the bizarro world of citation counting, the controversy likely will push Remote Sensing’s Impact Factor through the roof. Every cite counts, even if the citer is saying the paper is rubbish. Hmmm…
It’s summer, and travel is wreaking havoc with our manuscript review schedules.
One nice thing about having Associate Editors with so many international connections and interests is their experiences bring a broader perspective to their work. Unfortunately, travel presents its limitations to communications. Lugging a laptop onto an airplane seems to get harder and harder, and foreign connections can be pricey, if available at all. So, we’ve experienced a few delays in our usually quick review process.
It hasn’t helped that more than a couple of reviewers have defaulted on their obligations. I won’t rant again, you can look up earlier posts. I’ll just note our system has a long memory. Keeping track of errant reviewers can be particularly difficult when an Associate Editor is overseas, with other interests at hand and with a tenuous internet connection.
In any event, I think most of the lagging manuscripts are getting back on track. Authors can always log in to ScholarOne and see how their manuscripts are progressing. And, my apologies for any delays.
I got my June issue of Washingtonian in the mail yesterday. Guess who is featured in an article? Hint: “This man lives in Georgetown and works in Foggy Bottom, so why is he likely to be the next president of France?” Actually, by the time the issue finished printing, the man was in a cell at Rikers Island accused of a very serious crime. The online version, of course, was updated. Those printing delays will kill you!
Back on the JAWRA home front, we’re already adding August papers to our Early View queue. A big featured collection on nonstationarity is nearing completion and will take up much of the June issue. It’s nice to have this flexibility so good articles do not have to sit around waiting for room in the paper copy.
We appreciate that for some authors publication in JAWRA can be an important step towards tenure. This time of year, we often get requests to move a manuscript along to meet a tenure committee deadline. Let me explain here what we can and cannot do regarding such requests.
We CAN:
We CAN NOT:
The William R. Boggess Award is given to the author or authors of the paper, published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association during the preceding year, that best describes, delineates, or analyzes a major problem or aspect of water resources from either a theoretical, applied, or philosophical standpoint. Established in 1973, the Award honors William R. “Randy” Boggess, a member of AWRA, one of the first Directors, and a former President of the Association, who has also made significant contributions to AWRA as an Editor of JAWRA.
The winner is selected by the JAWRA Editor and Associate Editors, and announced by the AWRA President. In past years, we’ve reported only the winner. Often, this left several fine papers on the cutting room floor, so to speak. So, we decided to do something different this year and announce all papers reaching the final rounds. This year we have four excellent papers under consideration. Congratulations to all our finalists!
Hot Spots and Hot Moments in Riparian Zones: Potential for Improved Water Quality Management, by Philippe Vidon, Craig Allan, Douglas Burns, Tim P. Duval, Noel Gurwick, Shreeram Inamdar, Richard Lowrance, Judy Okay, Durelle Scott, and Steve Sebestyen, Volume 46, Issue 2, pages 278–298, April 2010
Future U.S. Water Consumption: The Role of Energy Production, by Deborah Elcock, Volume 46, Issue 3, pages 447–460, June 2010
Sources of Suspended-Sediment Flux in Streams of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed: A Regional Application of the SPARROW Model, by John W. Brakebill, Scott W. Ator, and Gregory E. Schwarz, Volume 46, Issue 4, pages 757–776, August 2010
Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge, and Season (WRTDS), with an Application to Chesapeake Bay River Inputs, by Robert M. Hirsch, Douglas L. Moyer, and Stacey A. Archfield, Volume 46, Issue 5, pages 857–880, October 2010
AWRA Past President Ari Michelsen tipped me off to this incredible all-directional panorama produced for the Utah Ski Areas by Utah photographers, Alexander Piket and Perry Van Schelt.
Imagine using this technology to document, say, a biological stream sampling site. Add a staff gage or two to help define scale, and in one file you can see the whole sampling site and vicinity. Anybody game for trying this in JAWRA?