Journal of Dairy Science® 2016 Editorial Report

We published volume 99 of the Journal of Dairy Science in 2016 with a record number of pages—more than 10,000. At the same time, we reduced time from submission to publication. The goal for 2017 is to continue our long history as the leading source of high-quality scientific publications in dairy science. A large team is involved in publishing the Journal of Dairy Science, including section editors, editorial board members, ad hoc reviewers, technical editors, and production staff. The FASS office staff includes Susan Pollock (managing editor), Louise Adam (lead technical editor), and Shauna Miller (editorial assistant), all of whom I interact with almost daily. There are additional individuals on the FASS publications staff whose efforts are essential in making the journal a success, including Chris Davies, Sharon Frick, Christine Horger, Ron Keller, and Lisa Krohn. We could not publish such a large volume of scientific information in a consistently readable format without the dedication of the FASS employees mentioned. Section editors make decisions with respect to the quality of the science that we publish in our journal. Their work is absolutely essential to maintaining the tremendous reputation that we have. None of our section editors completed their terms in 2016. Ten new section editors were added in 2016 to reduce the overall workload for each section editor and to shorten the time to publication. New section editors for 2016 were Lisbeth Goddik (Oregon State University; Dairy Foods), Federico Harte (Penn State University; Dairy Foods), Yves Pouliot (Université Laval; Dairy Foods), Zhongtang Yu (Ohio State University; Animal Nutrition), Nicolo Macciotta (University of Sassari; Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics), Dan Weary (University of British Columbia; Health, Behavior and Well-being), Stephen LeBlanc (University of Guelph; Health, Behavior and Well-being), Pam Ruegg (University of Wisconsin; Health, Behavior, and Well-being), Albert De Vries (University of Florida; Management and Economics), and Stephen Butler (Teagasc; Physiology). In addition to these new section editors, we have John McKillip (Ball State University; senior editor) and Phil Tong (Cal Poly State University) in Dairy Foods; John Vicini (Monsanto; senior editor), Paul Kononoff (University of Nebraska), Masahito Oba (University of Alberta), and David Beede (Michigan State) in Animal Nutrition; Jennie Pryce (Department of Primary Industries, Australia; senior editor) and Christian Maltecca (North Carolina State University) in Breeding, Genetics and Genomics; Tanya Gressley (University of Delaware; senior editor) in Health, Behavior, and Well-being; Kerst Stelwagen (SciLactis Ltd.; senior editor) and Helga Sauerwein (University of Bonn) in Physiology; John Roche (DairyNZ; senior editor) and Normand St-Pierre (Perdue AgriBusiness) in Management and Economics; and Filippo Miglior (Canadian Dairy Network/University of Guelph) for Invited Reviews. The editorial board included 75 members in 2016, an increase from 2015. Editorial board members are expected to have additional expertise and to review 1 to 2 manuscripts each month. Their service ensures that our authors will receive high-quality reviews as soon as possible after submission. We sent out over 2,000 “thank you” letters to reviewers who served JDS in 2016. Based on reply emails to me, I learned that this effort was very much appreciated by our reviewers. Our reviewers ensure that our excellent time to publication and high scientific standards for accepted manuscripts will continue. We sincerely appreciate the time that our reviewers generously contribute to the journal. The Journal of Dairy Science ranked third for Impact Factor (2.573) among 58 journals in the Agriculture, Dairy and Animal Science category and 28th among 124 journals in Food Science and Technology. We published 10,242 pages in the Journal of Dairy Science in 2016 (Table 1). This number of pages exceeded the 2015 count by more than 1,000 pages. Average review time was 10 d less than in 2015 and we averaged 175 d (under 6 mo) from submission to “in press.” The average total time (submission to print) in 2016 was 1 d less than in 2015 and averaged just over 7 mo. My impression based on numerous conversations is that authors are very happy with the timeliness of the review process in the Journal of Dairy Science. Credit for these very good numbers goes to our editors, reviewers, authors, and staff.Table 1Journal of Dairy Science statistics for 2016 compared with previous years201620152014201320122011201020092008Avg. papers received/mo14212411711210297878685Avg. papers accepted/mo787566646355564948Avg. papers published/mo797065656255525344Pages published10,2429,1028,0588,1347,4666,2986,0646,3065,134Average review time (d)1191125 d if including 25 papers that were in review > 300 d.129137139141144140127141Average production time2Print production. (d)1019289871059394107102Average total time (d)220221226226246237234234243Average accept to in press (d)5346494760————Average submit to in press (d)175178184189200————1 125 d if including 25 papers that were in review > 300 d.2 Print production. Open table in a new tab There were 1,698 new submissions in 2016, 154 more than the number of new submissions in 2015 (a 10% increase). The journal accepted 931 accepted papers in 2016 (55% acceptance ratio). The acceptance ratio for 2015 was 59%. Most papers are published as research articles (Table 2). The next largest publication type is “Short Communications” followed by “Dairy Industry Today.” We published 12 invited reviews and 23 symposium papers in 2016. The number of invited reviews is twice that published in 2015. The large number of symposium paper publications is a result of our efforts to invite authors to submit papers based on talks given at the annual meeting.Table 2Journal of Dairy Science manuscript and page statistics by article type for 20161Table does not include hot topics, letters, errata, news, or editorials.MonthResearchDairy Industry TodayInvited ReviewShort CommunicationTechnical NoteSymposiumPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesJanuary59724——1171275——559February60679674118737————March4953833312116100318223April58658331230736——446May6774418222741——339June606902322251375214558July71797560——106416339August6677323412473519110September597064451191387212——October61682221——116416——November59719333——1277424——December5869567611785516——Total7278,40537447121931237461595232741 Table does not include hot topics, letters, errata, news, or editorials. Open table in a new tab About 30% of the papers that we publish are in Dairy Foods (Table 3) and the remaining 70% of papers are in Dairy Production (Table 4). For Dairy Foods, the largest sections are Chemistry and Material Science and Microbiology and Safety. We published 43 papers in Bioactivity and Human Health, which appears to be a rapidly expanding topic in JDS. For Dairy Production, the largest sections were Physiology, Animal Nutrition, and Health, Behavior, and Well-being. Breeding, Genetics and Genomics followed by Management and Economics were our fourth and fifth largest sections. We published very few papers in Resources and Environment.Table 3Journal of Dairy Science research manuscripts and page statistics published in the Dairy Foods section1BHH = Bioactivity and Human Health; CMS = Chemistry and Materials Science; MS = Microbiology and Safety; PE = Processing and Engineering; RE = Resources and Environment; and SA = Sensory Analysis. Table does not include Dairy Industry Today manuscripts or invited reviews. in 2016MonthBHHCMSMSPERESAPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesJanuary439432763231——551February779112762339——18March43954154132219——April334892886————224May14878535116112337June22298787016——238July548897886443——345August335760551443——111September553668758222——110October219765977————218November225551869443——112December552678884566——216Total43449747618578229331221232701 BHH = Bioactivity and Human Health; CMS = Chemistry and Materials Science; MS = Microbiology and Safety; PE = Processing and Engineering; RE = Resources and Environment; and SA = Sensory Analysis. Table does not include Dairy Industry Today manuscripts or invited reviews. Open table in a new tab Table 4Journal of Dairy Science research manuscripts and page statistics published in Production section1AN = Animal Nutrition; BGG = Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics; HBW = Health, Behavior, and Well-being; ME = Management and Economics; P = Physiology; and RE = Resources and Environment. Table does not include Dairy Industry Today manuscripts or invited reviews. in 2016MonthANBGGHBWMEPREPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesPapersPagesJanuary15174897910356413153——February1415078813130435999114March109110901213532917182——April11133330108954715159——May15167894111176741718515June1114010991111332719181——July15152881109844117176——August161805651615833314181——September1013610981617632813146110October192231010412116550780——November16192455161683291517016December1011478276721815179——Total1621,852909831431,470464751711,8914351 AN = Animal Nutrition; BGG = Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics; HBW = Health, Behavior, and Well-being; ME = Management and Economics; P = Physiology; and RE = Resources and Environment. Table does not include Dairy Industry Today manuscripts or invited reviews. Open table in a new tab Author recognition is an important component of what we do. Research papers are highlighted through the monthly “Editor's Choice” program. Selected papers must be novel, topical, and of the highest quality. The articles are featured on the journal homepage for one month and then included in the Editor's Choice collection (http://www.journalofdairyscience.org/content/edchoice), where they are freely available to all. Authors receive a letter recognizing their submission. Awards for the most highly cited manuscripts continued during 2016. Four authors of papers published in 2013 were recognized at the 2016 ADSA Awards Ceremony for authoring the most cited papers in each section of the journal. We continued the member-author loyalty reward program. This program recognizes ADSA member-authors who publish and review for the Journal of Dairy Science. Authors meeting the specific criteria receive a waiver for page charges (10-page limit) that can be used for their next Journal of Dairy Science publication. This is a very popular program among our authors. Several new initiatives began in 2016. Most of these initiatives arose from a Journal of Dairy Science strategic planning session held in Orlando, Florida, in February 2016. Many of these initiatives happen “behind the scenes” and are designed to speed up time to publication and increase the quality of our journal. We hope to roll out a new “instructions for reviewer” document in 2017 that should help create a more uniform review for submitted manuscripts. We have implemented a new copyright form that accepts digital signatures. This should make submissions easier for our authors. We will be publishing a Special Issue of the Journal of Dairy Science in 2017 to commemorate our 100th volume. We appointed a special editor (John McNamara, Emeritus Professor of Animal Sciences, Washington State University) to lead this project. In addition, authors with 100 or more publications in the Journal of Dairy Science will be inducted into the new “JDS Club 100” at our 2017 annual meeting in Pittsburgh. We continue to work toward reducing the time in peer review and increasing the Impact Factor for the journal. Increasing the Impact Factor can be achieved by soliciting high-impact authors to publish in our journal. We are also considering our content and attempting to reduce the total number of published papers. One possibility that we are exploring is the development of a new online open access journal that will publish some of the content that currently appears in the Journal of Dairy Science. We feel that a new journal that maintains all of desirable aspects of the parent journal and an online-only open access format will be appealing to our authors. It is a great pleasure to serve the Journal of Dairy Science as the editor-in-chief. I look forward to the continued success of the journal.

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