2020Q3 Reports: TACL Journal Editor

Journal indexing

We are pleased to report that TACL was accepted for inclusion in Scopus in May, and will be incorporated into the index within the next few months. Our application for inclusion in Web of Science (WoS) is ongoing and we expect to have the approval in the next year. Earlier this year, we were approved and are now present in the Directory of Open Access Journals.

Personnel updates

Editors-in-chief

Mark Johnson's term as co-Editor-in-Chief (co-EiC) ends on June 30, 2020, and the remaining editorial team extends our thanks to him for his work on behalf of the journal over the past 4+ years. Mark took on several special projects for the journal over the years, including spearheading the hard work to prepare TACL to apply for inclusion in the above mentioned indexing services. This involved establishment of formal policies and guiding principles, such as a publication ethics statement, which Mark took principle responsibility for. Our recent success in that sphere, highlighted above, is in large part due to his efforts.

The expansion to three concurrent co-Editors-in-chief in 2016 was due to the need for TACL to handle several such initiatives, and we now revert to two co-Editors-in-chief. Brian Roark’s term ends June 2021, and Ani Nenkova's June 2022.

Action editors and reviewers

To keep our reviewing workloads consistent given increased submissions (see below), we have recruited over 100 new reviewers to our standing reviewer team, and shifted over 20 veteran reviewers to action editor roles. The process of identifying and recruiting candidates for these roles required a sustained effort to ensure that any candidate reviewers meet the prerequisites for each role. We expect reviewers to be several years beyond PhD with a record of sustained publication in the field, and action editors must be at the associate professor (or equivalent) level of seniority in order to issue signed decisions on behalf of the journal. We have established consistent procedures to identify candidates for these roles that reflect the diversity (geographic, demographic, and topical) of the ACL community. We are fortunate that a relatively high percentage of those we contacted were willing to serve, and also that we have experienced relatively low attrition from the standing rosters. We extend a big welcome to our newest members of the editorial team (a list of which can be found on the TACL website) and a big thanks to all of those who have contributed to reviewing at TACL over the past year.

Reviewing process

In the first half of the year, we have received a high number of submissions every month, with levels consistently at or beyond previous year peak months. While not an unexpected increase, we are pleased with the recent additions to the reviewing team, which will allow us to keep up with the increased volume.

The pandemic has also caused some stress on our reviewing process, over and above the relatively high volume. This has led to some delays in the review cycle, but beyond that, our reviewers and action editors have collectively worked very hard under trying circumstances to preserve our high reviewing standards. In the most recent months, as people have settled into their working conditions, the reviewing cycle has normalized somewhat, so that we are back near our pre-pandemic turnaround averages. Thanks to reviewers and action editors for carving out time for this important process, and thanks to authors for understanding when the decision process for some papers has run slightly longer than usual.