2011Q1 Reports: CL Journal

CL Journal Report for Calendar Year 2010

Robert Dale, Editor

Wednesday 2nd March 2011

1 Summary

A good year for the journal: a healthy increase in submissions, with first submissions up from 69 last year to 78 this year, and the total number of papers processed, including resubmissions, up from 93 to 133. At the same time, our reviewing turnaround time has also improved very significantly, from 148 days to 58 days. The year saw some changes in our administrative processes (described below), as well as the signing of a new contract with MIT Press.

2 Submissions

2.1 Papers

See the attached tables (Media:Submission Counts.pdf, Media:Submissions_by_Country.pdf) for submission statistics for 2009 and 2010. As noted above, our submissions are up, but it should be pointed out that our immediate rejection of papers considered to be inappropriate for CL more than covers our submissions increase.

2.2 Book Reviews

[Report by Graeme Hirst]

Book reviews are edited by Graeme Hirst. We publish two or three reviews in each issue. In order to avoid a conflict of interest, reviews of books in the Morgan & Claypool series that Hirst edits are coordinated by our squibs editor, Pierre Isabelle, with Hirst out of the loop.

3 Administrative Matters

3.1 Editorial Assistance

Mary Gardiner and Suzy Howlett shared the role of editorial assistant in 2010. As of the beginning of 2011, this role is now solely carried out by Suzy, while Mary has separately contracted to do some work on extending the functionalities of the Open Journal Systems manuscript management software that we use.

As always, running the journal would be impossible without the help of both Suzy and Mary; we’re very fortunate to have such capable and proactive assistance.

3.2 Editorial Board

Eight new members have joined the editorial board for the period 2011-2013:

Eneko Agirre, University of the Basque Country Anja Belz, University of Brighton Hal Daumé III, University of Maryland, College Park Julia Hockenmaier, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Anna Korhonen, University of Cambridge Ryan McDonald, Google, Inc. Roberto Navigli, Sapienza Universita' di Roma Martha Palmer, University of Colorado

At the same time, the following members of the board have reached the end of their three-year periods on the board:

James Curran, University of Sydney Daniel Gildea, University of Rochester Jan Haji?, Charles University, Prague Katja Markert, University of Leeds Raymond J Mooney, University of Texas at Austin Patrick Pantel, Yahoo! Inc Mark Stevenson, University of Sheffield Ming Zhou, Microsoft Research Asia

Their invaluable assistance in conscientiously reviewing papers for the journal is much appreciated.

3.3 Manuscript Processing

In 2010 we completed the transition to the Open Journal Systems manuscript management system. During the year we implemented a number of workflow enhancements to the platform, and incorporated a new structured review form that makes it easier to process reviews.

3.4 Author Support

As a consequence of some of the streamlining of the workflow process, some of Suzy’s time has been freed up; this has allowed us to commence work on updating the style guide, to work on documenting the journal’s LaTeX style files, and to begin creating a list of 'recommended packages’ for use with LaTeX.

4 Upcoming Changes

During 2011 we will switch to the new production workflow, where the copy editor will make changes to the source LaTeX files (previously changes were indicated on a hard copy by a copy editor, and input by a third-party typesetting company). This was a key element in the reduction in costs we negotiated as part of the new contract with The MIT Press.

The journal is getting bigger: I foresee that within one or two years we will be 50% above our current target page count of 640 pages per year. This will have cost implications.