From the desk of ARJ Editor in Chief, Hilary Bradbury-Huang.

We are experiencing an upsurge of submissions/offerings to the journal right now. I guess it may be related to the end of the academic year which allows people a chance to turn back to their writing.

And with regard to the board's work: we are preparing for our quarterly board meeting. We, i.e., the members of the associate editors board,  meet by teleconference on the third Thursday of the quarter (July, October, January, April). Each of us calls in from a different time zone around the world. Because there is no perfect time, I (in LA) get up too early and Ernie (in Queensland, Oz) gets to bed too late – and other board members suffer more or less between those poles. The perseverance award however goes to Meghna who suffers electricity blackouts in Bangladesh to meet with us. No shortage of effort here!


We have been meeting quarterly for a year and a half now. At the outset of each meeting we use the old Kurt Lewin practice of “checking in” – which means that each person shares how they’re doing and what they are up to vis a vis action research. It is, I’m sure, the favorite part of each meeting.

Our business agenda is sent out in advance with back up (homework) material as needed. We define “business” as whatever is important for the journal. Being still in our youthful stage (or maybe since the inclusion of ARJ in the Science Citation Index we would rightly refer to the journal as “adolescent”?) we place a lot on emphasis on strategies for growing the reach & inclusion of the journal. For example we've been discussing "Special Issues" on particular topics and how to include more guest editors in this work. More recently we have begun to devote time and attention to continuous improvement of our own board work too.

Transparency is important in everything we do. If any reader/friend of the journal wishes to be present at a quarterly board meeting, please drop the Editor in Chief a line (hilary@bradbury-huang.net). You could either be an auditor on the call itself, or request a copy of the audio recording of the meeting, available within 24 hrs after each meeting. Reasonably detailed written minutes are also made after each meeting and are kept in the ARJ archive.
More on our work in another blog!