Journal of Clinical Microbiology, June 2009, p. 1617-1618, Vol. 47, No. 6
0095-1137/09/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JCM.00495-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
| EDITORIAL |
Reflections 
Editor in Chief, Journal of Clinical Microbiology
It is hard for me to believe that I have served for almost 10 years as Editor in Chief (EIC) for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology (JCM). The last decade has been defined by almost continuous change for JCM and the other journals published by the ASM. When I began my tenure in July 1999, I inherited a journal that was well respected by clinical microbiologists but clearly experiencing growing pains, as evidenced by the increasing numbers of manuscripts received each month. My goal for the Journal was simple: to publish good science that was clinically relevant. The processing of manuscripts was predicated on a paper system that required authors to submit multiple copies of the manuscript, figures, and tables to the Journal. The information about the Editorial Board for the Journal and their expertise areas was handed to me as a printed document that was about 70 pages of names, addresses, and listings of expertise areas. There was little uniformity to the terminology that we used to identify specific reviewers. Expertise could be as vaguely defined as "virology" or as specific as "C. difficile toxin B." I remember that one of the first things that I did as EIC was to set up an Excel file that listed all of our reviewers, the year they were appointed, how many terms they had served, and their expertise areas. I tried to refine the expertise terms to make it easier to sort through the Editorial Board members and ad hoc reviewers to find appropriate reviewers for specific manuscripts. Because we had no way to know which reviewer had other manuscripts, the whole process was cumbersome because we kept getting manuscripts sent back to us with the "sorry, I have two other manuscripts to review" apology. Our turnaround time from receipt of manuscript to editorial decision was over 4 months. We accepted well over 50% of manuscripts received. In 1999, we had five editors and an EIC for JCM, but the number of manuscripts being received clearly indicated that we needed to expand the number of editors to handle the increased workload. Today, we have 12 editors and an EIC to handle the nearly 2,800 manuscripts received each year. We currently accept less than a third of the manuscripts we receive.
At our Publications Board (PB) meeting in 2000, it became clear to me that all of the ASM journals were experiencing similar problems with respect to how we processed and reviewed manuscripts. It was at that meeting, led by the PB Chair, Sam Kaplan, that I first heard about the plans to go to an electronic reviewing system and to possibly publish online versions of our journals. While the archived journals were slowly being made available in an electronic format, our actual publications were still published only as paper copies. I was excited by the prospect of getting rid of the paper reviewing system and volunteered to be the "guinea pig" when it came time to test the new electronic reviewing system. In 2003, after much work by the PB and the ASM publications office, we went "live" with Rapid Review. While not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, Rapid Review allowed us to eliminate the paper reviewing system. We could now tell who had manuscripts and how many. We could track reviewer performance using a scoring system for quality of reviews. We had a uniform list of terms to search for reviewers in our database, and we had electronic archives of all of our letters, reviews, and manuscripts. This change in how we handled manuscripts has had a profound impact on authors, reviewers, and editors alike. I now find that I can perform my editorial duties from anywhere in the world where I have access to an Internet port. Our reviewers receive manuscripts via the Internet and can file reviews electronically. The system prompts both reviewers and editors when some action is required. All of this has made our job easier for processing manuscripts, but the real changes facilitated by going "electronic" are much more profound.
I well remember discussions at the NIH with Harold Varmus and several other editors for various scientific publications in which Dr. Varmus outlined his vision for open-access publication of scientific information. While the vision sounded wonderful, there were a lot of very practical considerations that needed to be dealt with for such a system to be put in place. Issues included who would pay for archiving publications, where they would be archived electronically, and how soon after publication articles would be made available, and, of course, the financial considerations for publishers had to be resolved. While open-access publication made information available to all quickly, someone still had to pay for processing and reviewing the manuscript, as well as the actual publication costs for each manuscript. Was this going to be the responsibility of the author, or would it be supported by dues paid to scientific organizations such as the ASM? Under the leadership of Sam Kaplan and with the support of the PB, the ASM developed plans for making articles available within a few months of actual publication without bankrupting either the authors or the ASM. Of particular concern to libraries and archivists was the fidelity and viability of electronic records. While society has had several thousands of years to learn how to maintain and archive written records, we have less than 50 years of experience with electronic records. Let's not forget that over the last 20 years we have gone from tape drives to floppy disks to CDs to hard drives to flash memory cards for data storage. With this many changes in such a short period of time, one can honestly ask how we are going to provide any uniformity for keeping electronic records when the storage medium changes every few years. Remember that each time the method for storing data changes, millions of published articles must be converted to the new format as part of the archiving process.
After the tragic events of 11 September 2001, we have also been confronted with ethical issues surrounding publication of scientific information. I attended the meeting at the National Academy of Sciences when editors for the major scientific publications were confronted with the reality of "dual use" and what that might mean for the free exchange of information among scientists. Information that might be used by bioterrorists to create or manufacture weapons was now a concern for any publication dealing with pathogens that might be used as weapons. I was also present at the follow-up meeting when representatives of various security organizations met with the EICs for many of the major scientific publications. We were told that if we did not come up with a plan to review "sensitive" publications, then most certainly the U.S. government would come up with a plan that would probably restrict publication of certain types of information. I am delighted to report that the ASM came up with a policy that has been in place for a number of years and that the policy has not proven to be intrusive for authors or prevented publication of scientific information. With the advent of electronic publication, new challenges have also arisen for editors. Because electronic files can be downloaded easily and subjected to word recognition programs (not dissimilar to finding common base sequences in DNA or RNA), the number of reported instances of plagiarism have increased. In addition, it is easier to spot instances of dual publication by the same author(s) due to the ease of finding publications by the same author(s) that are stored electronically, even when published in different languages. While our ability to identify ethical issues surrounding publication have improved, the amount of time involved in resolving such issues has increased for journals and editors as well.
Perhaps the only thing that has not changed over the last decade is our reliance on a strong peer review system. Our editorial board members and ad hoc reviewers serve as the major strength for all of the ASM journals and are in large part responsible for the respect that our publications receive within the scientific community. The quality of the review process is the most essential part of the publication process. As I complete my tenure as EIC, I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every reviewer personally for helping to make the Journal of Clinical Microbiology a most successful scientific publication.
FOOTNOTES
Published ahead of print on 25 March 2009. 
The views expressed in this Editorial do not necessarily reflect the views of the journal or of ASM.
Journal of Clinical Microbiology, June 2009, p. 1617-1618, Vol. 47, No. 6
0095-1137/09/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JCM.00495-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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