Our look behind the scenes at the ASA continues with an overview of the ASA’s journal publishing operation. Meetings and journals were identified by nearly 90% of members in a 2009 survey as being fundamental to the ASA. Encouraging the advancement of knowledge in our field and disseminating that knowledge is indeed at the core of promoting the practice and profession of statistics.
There are 17 journals that have the imprimatur of the ASA. You can find them listed on the ASA website here. From an operational standpoint, the journals fall (broadly) into two categories, those that are owned by the ASA, and those that are operated in partnership with other societies.
The ASA-owned journals are:
Our journals operated with partners are (partners in italics):
Making each of these journals possible is an enormous core of volunteer editors, associate editors, peer reviewers, and, of course, authors. The service provided by these volunteers is absolutely the foundation of the journals.
From a production standpoint, every journal listed above is a partnership, because the journals owned by the ASA (except the Journal of Statistics Education) are published in a partnership agreement with Taylor and Francis Publishers. Because the production work is outsourced, of the thirty four members of the ASA staff, only one is devoted full time to the journals. However, that one staff member, Eric Sampson, is an extraordinary person.
There are many parts to the production process, from manuscript submission and tracking through the review process, to copyediting, typesetting, proofreading, and final publication both in print and online. Most of these tasks are handled by the ASA’s publishing partners and editorial coordinators for the various journals, with Eric overseeing the entire process, including creation of journal schedules; helping Editors assemble individual issues; ensuring that the submission and tracking sites are working as smoothly as possible; assisting authors with their submissions and answering production questions; reviewing manuscripts to ensure they are complete and ready for production; reviewing copyedited and typeset proofs to ensure that the work meets ASA’s standards; helping to market and promote the Association’s journals; and helping to organize and conduct searches for new Editors.
In this 175th anniversary year, journals are more important than ever. They are also more complex, because today’s publishing environment has moved from paper as the primary medium to electronic as primary, allowing for new types of articles and a vast array of supplementary materials. We’re grateful to our editors and associate editors, reviewers, authors, publishing partners, and to Eric and other ASA staff for the rich variety and high quality of our journals.
In 2014, the American Statistical Association is celebrating its 175th anniversary. Over the course of this year, this blog will highlight aspects of that celebration, and look broadly at the ASA and its activities. Please contact ASA Executive Director Ron Wasserstein (ron@amstat.org) if you would like to post an entry to this blog.