Page 58 - Summer 2018

Publications Quality Spotlight
ticipants a feel for what an author, reviewer, and AE might do in handling a deeply (and purposely) flawed sample manu- script and its attendant correspondence. The New Orleans workshop turned out to be both educational and quite a bit of fun for the participants. The scientific, ethical, and communi- cations problems posed by the sample manuscript were based on real life but also a bit exaggerated and even comic so that this wasn’t just a dry exercise. Based on the positive response, we are planning for these workshops (and similar ones for the Society) to be repeated in the future at reasonable intervals.
As to giving out an yearly early-career award, most journals do so these days, and it is time that our journals do so as well. Additionally, awards are being discussed for all career stages, not just for our early-career professionals.
Staying a little while longer with our younger demographic, we should also mention the ASA and ASA publications so- cial media efforts. While there is a small to medium num- ber of older (e.g., baby boomer) acousticians who use social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), the younger gen- erations have grown up with social media being an integral part of their lives and communication network, and social media impact is considered in the altmetrics for an article. So, to reach this younger demographic, technical societies and their publications need to develop a strong social media presence, and the ASA and its publications are doing just that. ASA publications now have a presence on Facebook (@ASAPOMA; @JournaloftheAcousticalSocietyofAmerica) and Twitter (@ASA_POMA; @ASA_JASA). ASA publica- tions recently partnered with Kudos (acousticstoday.org/ kudos), which is a Web-based service that helps authors fur- ther promote their publications. A broad, coordinated plan between the ASA and its publications is in development and should be of real value to our social media users.
In addition to social media, we are actively working with AIPP to better utilize the journal sites and also do more email campaigns to promote and disseminate our publica- tions. The new journal site for JASA features four articles per quarter in a “Technical Area Picks” section (acousticstoday. org/TAP), which are chosen by the TC chairs, with this ma- terial being made free access while featured. A Special Con- tent landing site (nearing completion) will feature all Special Issues, Review, Tutorial, Guest Invited, and Forum papers, again with additional promotion and free access. In addi- tion to these Web initiatives, email promotion campaigns are also being routinely deployed for ASA publications, giving our authors’ publications further visibility. And for the old-fashioned members who prefer print, physical fliers 56 | Acoustics Today | Summer 2018
and brochures describing the ASA publications and featured papers are given out at many of the meetings that acousti- cians routinely attend. Although advertising and promotion of published papers may not seem initially to be a “quality” factor, making sure your work gets read and used really is a piece of a publication’s overall quality and is being taken seriously.
What Do You Really Think of Us?
Along the lines of outreach to our publication stakeholders, there is one more category to mention: surveys, suggestions, and complaints. In February and March 2018, we had KWF Consulting design and conduct an author and reader survey for JASA and JASA-EL, where 16,000+ email requests were sent out (Hager and Rivera, 2018.). We received nearly 2,000 replies, and we are currently reviewing the analysis and re- port. The overall feedback is positive, but we will examine the survey results closely to create action items in areas we can further improve. The results from this will be discussed extensively at the Minneapolis ASA meeting. Also, AIPP supplies ASA publications each month with the results of a brief postpublication “author survey” that includes both comments and statistics. And finally, we always welcome author, reviewer, reader, and editor feedback on any of the components of our publications and their processes. We welcome both positive and negative comments as we learn from both. And we do try to reply to all we receive, although we are occasionally a bit slower than we’d like to be. Address such correspondence to either our managing editor or the editor in chief, if you would.
Some “Very Boring Basics”
That Keep the Wheels Turning
Besides external inputs from our readers, authors, reviewers, etc., JASA and JASA-EL also benefit from a lot of internal communication and evaluation. On the peer-review side, the Editorial Manager’s Enterprise Analytics Reporting (EAR) status reports are assembled by our managing editor to be reported at each ASA meeting as well as for reporting for quarterly key metrics reports and other process tracking or analysis. On the publications side, AIPP provides quarterly reports and a yearly synopsis of our published paper activity, which again provide updates to our ASA meetings with the Executive Council, Technical Council, and Editorial Board. We are trying hard to keep up-to-date statistics to inform us of our status, and these are two internal ways we do so.
Additional inputs from within the publications world also help us monitor and maintain our quality factors. We have