Mission of an Online, Open-Access, Peer-Reviewed Publication
The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a global leader in the development of science and engineering tools for environmental assessment and management. As a center for research, education, service and outreach, the University has, for more than a decade, hosted the Annual International Conference on Soils, Sediments and Water. This colloquium is a “must attend” for academics, students, regulatory authorities, policy makers, and the private sector. The Conference is particularly noteworthy for its success in bringing practitioners and analysts from across the globe to share experiences and contribute to the deliberations.
Through 2006, conference proceedings were published annually in the hardcover series Contaminated Soils. Now, the University is building on the success of the Annual Conference and the Proceedings series. We are launching a new publication, The International Journal of Soil, Sediment, and Water. This publication incorporates selected manuscripts from the Annual International Conference on Soils, Sediments, Water and Energy and expands the opportunity for investigators to exchange innovative, high-quality, important and time-critical research findings.
The objectives in launching this new journal are to harness the advancements of emerging information technologies, and provide the worldwide community of environmental scientists, engineers, and educators with a powerful tool for communication. The International Journal will be issued online, quarterly, in open-access format. Research reports and review articles will be fully peer-reviewed, and printed in English. To enhance the international content, the Editors-in-Chief anticipate structuring the Editorial Board so that detailed text editing can be provided to authors for whom English is not the primary language but whose findings are otherwise appropriate for publication..
In addition to peer-reviewed research reports, we will be taking advantage of the e-format to provide other avenues for information exchange. Review articles on important topics will be accepted for peer review when submitted by authors, and the Editors may identify and request timely review articles, either by open solicitation of volunteer authors or by direct request. We encourage authors with ideas for review articles to contact the Editors to discuss content in advance of preparing the manuscript.
We will also include other categories of communications that will not be peer-reviewed. Every issue will include one or more opinion editorial(s) on timely topics. These will be relatively short, to-the-point columns on particular aspects of environmental assessment and management. We anticipate requesting these from specific authors, but will also discuss opinion topics proposed by prospective authors. We will also accept short notices regarding research projects being initiated or seeking sponsorship, brief notices regarding people and places (job changes, obituaries), and appropriate nontechnical material—cartoons or other visual art, short fiction, humor, poetry.—anything that contributes perspective to the role of science and engineering in human life and the environment. As an online, open-access journal, we believe that this publication can provide a lively, entertaining, and scientifically powerful forum for practitioners in our field. Freed from the logistical constraints of paper documents, this is an opportunity for us all to open up, think broadly, and communicate effectively.