Birth and survivorship

Many journals have come and gone, and I believe that it is very important to convince authors and funding agencies that the journal will last, especially if the site will serve as a data depository. One option would be for an existing society to develop the journal. My personal preference would be a joint effort among various societies, organizations, and NGOs. I am willing to dedicate much of my time to this effort, but the guidance and support for fundraising from different groups will be invaluable.

I strongly believe that the journal should be open access, but this eliminates one source of income. Another source of income could be page charges. The e-journals PLOS Biology and Ecology and Society are charging each article $US 2500 and $US 500, respectively. I think the journal should establish page charges, but if they are too high this will create another barrier for publishing. Furthermore, I can imagine that the page charges for many articles will be waived. So, where will the funds come from? The options that come to mind are: grants from foundations and government agencies and advertising. Personally, I do not find Google Ads offensive, but I do not have any idea of how much money they can generate. This is a topic I will investigate during the next week.

Competition with other journals?

I would like to create an environment (e-journal and webpage) that facilitates the interactions among scientists with diverse interests in conservation. The traditional academic journal does not stimulate much interaction, and in many cases more personal interactions are often limited to annual meetings, which many people cannot attend. The internet and associated technologies provide many tools (e.g. unlimited space, easy access, search engines, quick communications, and videos) that can greatly increase these interactions.

Will this new journal “compete” with existing journal or will it be complementary? Given the high rejection rates of most ecology/conservation journals (>80%), initially I do not think there will be any competition, rather relieve for the editors of these journals who must reject so many papers.

In 2006, Conservation Biology, Biological Conservation, Animal Conservation, and Ecology and Society published 348 articles and 47 (13.5%) were studies located in tropical Latin America and Caribbean. Of the 70 articles published by Biotropica, ten were in the conservation section and eight of these were from the Neotropics. Although these are not the only journals publishing conservation research in the Neotropics, only 55 articles in one year from these five journals does not seem like much.

Quality, peer review, and impact factor

Although I feel the high rejection rate in many journals is a problem, I do not want to sacrifice quality. All articles will be peer reviewed in detail by a subject editor, but without the pressure to reject. If the paper meets the minimum standards, and the authors successfully respond to the review (decision of editor) the paper will be published. A discussion forum will be associated with each article, and this should facilitate further “review”/interactions. I would like to create a long list of subject editors (>100) so that each editor would not review more than 2-3 articles per year. Would you be willing to review 2-3 articles per year for this journal?

Another important concern is that many institutions use ISI- impact factor for evaluation purposes. Some e-journals such as PLOS Biology (14.7) and Ecology and Society (3.9) have high impact factors, but if this journal publishes many papers, papers in different languages, and papers without a strong conceptual component it will probably have a low impact factor. Personally, I believe that the impact of each article is more important than the mean of all articles in a journal. What this journal could provide are other measures of impact of each article (e.g. number of times it is viewed, downloaded, and cited, and the number of comments).

What needs to be done to attract submissions from you?

Geography and Language???

What should be the geographic range and language(s) of the journal?

People have suggested three geographic options:

1) Tropics (America, Africa, Asia, Australia, Pacific)

2) Neotropics

3) Latin America and Caribbean (Mexico- Tierra del Fuego… the same area as the Society of Conservation Biology’s regional section, Austral and Neotropical America)

Clearly, the geographic range of the journal will influence the language(s). The journal could be English-only, as are virtually all scientific journals, or we could have a multi-language journal. English-only could simplify the editorial process, but for many authors English is the second language. If papers are not published in English, this could reduce the number of people that will read and cite the article, but it could make the article much more accessible to local policymakers and managers. If the journal covers all the tropics, I think the language would have to be English. For option 2 or 3, English, Spanish and Portuguese, and possibly French, could be the languages of the journal. What are your opinions?

Time for a new conservation journal?

A proposal for the establishment of an electronic journal

Tropical Conservation: science, policy, and practice
(e-tropicalconservation)

T. Mitchell Aide

March 14, 2007

Problems:

1) Most journals in the fields of ecology and conservation are rejecting 80% of the manuscripts that are submitted. For example, Biotropica and Biodiversity and Conservation, journals with relative low impact factor are now rejecting more than 85% of the articles they receive. The major reasons for the increase in the rejection rates are: 1) an increase in the number of papers that are submitted, which should be good news; more research is being conducted, and 2) there has not been an equivalent increase in the number of pages in the journals. Given these conditions editors have few options other than increase the bar for acceptance.

2) A major implication of the increase in rejection rate is that many studies that are fundamental sound do not get published. This is unacceptable given that new information has been created, but it is not being shared with the scientific community and public.

3) An additional consequence is that many young scientists and scientists whose first language is not English are discouraged from publishing and do not continue as researchers.

4) The format of most journals does not encourage interactions/dialogue between readers and the authors.

5) Most journals do not require the supporting data and analyses.

Solutions:

1) An electronic journal will not be limited by the number of pages, and thus the decision of accepting or rejecting an article can be solely based on scientific criteria.

2) The journal will be a peer-reviewed journal, which will require that articles 1) are clearly and concisely written and 2) are properly designed and analyzed, and that the authors 1) have responded to an initial peer review, and 2) provide all data, metadata, and analyses.

3) To facilitate the publication process we will accept publications in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

4) To promote greater interaction among scientists, a discussion forum will be established for each article. This should encourage additional peer review, to which the author will be expected to respond.

5) The journal will require that each figure and table be accompanied with the supporting data and analyses.