Section and Main Editors' Meeting Euroforum Infantes, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain 19 August CHAIR: Gernot Kostorz Attendees: Ted Baker, Carol Brock, Howard Einspahr, Ake Kvick, Dieter Schwarzenbach, Jim Simpson, Walter Steurer, Helen Stoeckli-Evans, Matthias Weil, Manfred Weiss IUCr staff attending: Nicola Ashcroft, Jill Bradshaw, Sean Conway, Gillian Holmes, Louise Jones, Peter Strickland, Tony Weight CURRENT MAKE-UP AND STATUS OF EDITORIAL BOARDS The status of each member of the editorial board of each journal was given with regard to retirement, continuation as Co-editor and attendance at the JComm meetings. Sections Editors should consider all journals as they are all related. This will keep things united and help the journals in the future. Section Editors of different journals should communicate with one another. Chester could be involved in creating a platform for this, possibly through an internal discussion forum. This would require someone to oversee the forum and to lead discussion and could potentially be a lot of work. The International Tables on Powder Diffraction has a forum, as has the Dictionary of Crystallography. A forum can be set up easily and could be journal specific or for all journals. Topics can be set up. If the forums are journal specific then the Section Editor would be the coordinator. This could be a topic for discussion within the individual journal meetings. MEETING ARRANGEMENTS The arrangements for the meeting were outlined. At the first Plenary, people will be asked to introduce themselves and give a short comment on what they want from their journal and why they are interested in working for it. On Saturday, Sine Larsen and Sven Liden will give talks on what the journals mean for the Union and they may attend individual journal meetings. It will be useful for members of the Executive Committee to see how the journals commission works. AIMS OF THE MEETINGS The individual agendas should not be seen as rigid but merely a springboard for interesting discussions. Important points from the individual journal meetings can be brought forward at the Plenary session. The plenary will show how impact factors are calculated and it might be useful to discuss how to react to fluctuating journal impact factors. There will be a number of `submission to publication' sessions which will aim to show how the Chester Editorial office works and will hopefully be informative. Information provided might also be made available to Co-editors who are unable to attend the meetings. ONLINE STATISTICS Co-editors should let the Chester office know of any aspect of the online statistics that don't work or of anything they would like to have appear there. ANNUAL AND TRIENNIAL REPORTS An annual report is required for each journal. In Congress year, a triennial report is also needed. The Chester office can provide the annual report in a Congress year to avoid the need for two reports being produded by Section Editors in one year. In future, it is possible that reports could be standardised, with figures/statistics quoted, leaving just the text to be added by the Section Editor. OPEN COMMISSION MEETING There will be no sequential journal presentations at the open commission meeting as previously. Instead there will be a panel of Section Editors who will discuss the set of journals as a whole, independent of journal. This should provide for a more lively meeting with discussions of items relevant across all the journals. ######################################################### Section and Main Editors' Meeting (follow-up) Euroforum Infantes, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain 20 August CHAIR: Gernot Kostorz Attendees: Ted Baker, Sandy Blake, Carol Brock, Howard Einspahr, Ake Kvick, Dieter Schwarzenbach, Jim Simpson, Walter Steurer, Helen Stoeckli-Evans, Matthias Weil, Manfred Weiss IUCr staff attending: Jill Bradshaw, Sean Conway, Gillian Holmes, Louise Jones, Peter Strickland, Tony Weight Sine Larsen reiterated that we should not miss the opportunity to promote the journals during the International year of Crystallography. Reports from the individual journal meetings were presented by the Section Editors. ACTA A [Missed this] ACTA E (Jim Simpson) There are challenges ahead. Papers for Section E from Asia won't attract funding in the future. The Editorial Board is very active and it may need to be expanded if the journal continues its slow growth. ACTA B (Carol Brock) Molecular papers are being lost from the journal, possibly due to funding. Competing journals are easier to publish in and have higher impact factors so this is a difficult situation. Other areas of the journal are strong and the new Section Editor (Sander van Smaalen) has a good reputation in difficult areas of crystallography. ACTA D AND F (Ted Baker) The macromolecular community has had its own version of fraud so validation has become more important. A validation report is required with each submission and the PDB has commissioned a report on new validation criteria and will ask other journals to operate in a similar manner to Acta D with regard to validation. There was a discussion of what data should be deposited. Neutron papers need to be looked at and the area small angle X-ray scattering is becoming more popular, though the people involved are sometimes inexperienced; the journal will be providing advice on how data will be presented. Transfer from D to F is increasing and Co-editors need to be familiar with the criteria for this. The mechanisms themselves are appropriate. Advisory comments to referees should be clearer, such as they are not expected to correct grammar. With the increased impact factor (3 to 6.3), a change in the profile of submitted papers is expected. Virtual journal issues were thought to be a good idea. ACTA C (Sandy Blake, in place of Tony Linden) The proofing of Acta C papers needs to be looked at so that it appears to the author that there is a single channel of communication. This might involve a short delay in proofs going to authors. The problems of getting referees for papers was discussed. The upcoming virtual journal issue on polymorphism was thought to be a good idea and should be followed by other virtual issues on other topics. JAC (Andrew Allen, in place of Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla) A number of new Co-editors attended the individual journal meeting. The scope of the journal was discussed. The increased impact factor has attracted papers that are not appropriate for the journal. New areas are being investigated, such as free electron lasers from an application viewpoint. It was thought that the cover might change every month to give kudos to more authors. A reminder message should be sent to the Co-editor is an invited referee has not replied within 2.5 weeks. A virtual issue might appear just for the International year of Crystallography. JSR (Ake Kvick) The journal needs to increase advertising with regard to free electron lasers and the editorial board needs to tbe strengthened with people in this area. The recent new section for beamline papers should increase the journal impact factor. Co-editors should not use colour too often. The use of facility information pages should be increased. The Shanghai Synchrotron will be important in the future and a Chinese Co-editor will be needed. The profile of the journal is well defined and doesn't need to be diluted with too many new areas. ####################################