The journal had another year of success, and I am looking forward to the 2023 volume of JSHAP. There is an interesting line-up of manuscripts planned for the early issues and many others undergoing the peer-review process. The journal’s success remains possible due to the strong support of reviewers, the editorial board, the industry support council, the staff in the AASV office, the journal staff, and of course the authors. Thank you for all your hard work in 2022.
You will see a slight change in this editorial section of the journal for the upcoming issues. The journal staff wants to share with you what happens behind the scenes. We thought you would find it interesting to have a quick peek into what goes into putting an issue together and how journal staff accomplish this. We have put together a “Behind the Scenes” series for you and I am going to kick off this series and share with you some of the tasks that I do.
My primary role as Executive Editor is to oversee the peer-review process for the journal. What that really means is - a lot of reading. I read the manuscript when it is submitted to the journal. At this point, I decide if it is within the scope of the journal and contains appropriate animal use and conflict of interest statements. If there is a concern in any of these areas, the manuscript is returned to the author for clarification or not accepted for review. The journal has a very broad scope and we aim to publish topics with an applied focus. Deciding if a manuscript is within the scope of the journal is probably the most challenging aspect of my decision making.
Once the manuscript is accepted for review, I recruit the help of an editorial board member to act as a lead reviewer. This is a critical component of the review process. The work of the editorial board members is essential as it brings a wealth of expertise to the review process, the journal, and the body of published scientific literature in general. Then, typically, 2 or 3 additional reviewers are identified for each manuscript and are given time to return their reviews. Once the reviews have returned, the lead reviewer takes all of them into consideration and makes a publication recommendation to me.
Then, it is my turn again. Yes, more reading and compiling all the reviews and the publication recommendation. I re-read and review the manuscript, I read all the external reviews and the publication recommendation, and then I make the final decision to conditionally accept the manuscript, request revisions, or reject the manuscript. If revisions are requested, the manuscript is returned to the authors, who are given time to respond. As you can imagine, this back and forth can take some time and often, I have read the manuscript 3 to 4 times by this point. Depending on the revisions received from authors, the manuscript may be conditionally accepted at this time, returned for further revisions, or rejected. I meet many times with Publications Manager Rhea Schirm during this process to discuss the manuscript life cycle. Once the manuscript is conditionally accepted, it is forwarded to Associate Editor Sherrie Webb.
Watch this space for more behind the scenes with journal staff.
I hope you enjoy reading this issue – I know I did!
Terri O’Sullivan, DVM, PhD
Executive Editor