ARC: Connections: ELMAR: Posting

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Dear Scholars, Colleagues, and Friends:

I want to take this opportunity to inform you of the many changes that have taken place in the American Marketing Association’s journals department. This has been a year of great transformation for our journals operation, and each of our valued publications—Journal of Marketing, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of International Marketing, and Journal of Marketing Research—has benefitted greatly from a series of critical enhancements. Let me take a moment to summarize what we have accomplished:

• New Production Schedule – The key initiative this year has been the complete transformation of our editorial process from an issue-based production to the more immediate article-based production. This was an extraordinary undertaking that has resulted in articles reaching the marketplace faster than ever before while maintaining our high-quality editorial standards.
• Enhanced Digital Platform – We upgraded our online host (journals.marketingpower.com) to accommodate our new faster-to-market production approach. We are now able to post articles in their raw, unedited form within days of acceptance (“Just Accepted”) and formally publish fully edited and typeset articles months before they will appear in a print issue. Most importantly, our new production approach and digital platform enable us to assign digital object identifiers (DOIs) immediately upon posting; these will be consistent identifiers that will follow a paper from “Just Accepted” status, through publication, and ultimately into its respective issue, thus facilitating the formal and consistent citation of articles from the moment they become accepted to an AMA journal.
• “Ahead of Print” – Accepted articles now move into editorial production within 8 weeks (a process that could take 4-6 months under our issue-based schedule) with the goal of publishing fully edited/laid out articles in our new “Ahead of Print” section. We are proud to say that the typical turnaround time from acceptance to final digital publication has been reduced from approximately 6-9 months to nearly 3 months. Furthermore, we are committed to further reducing the time to market in 2012.
• PR – We have begun an effort to issue press releases for editor-selected articles from each journal issue. The releases are sent out to more than 5000 electronic, print, television, and radio media outlets across the country. We look forward to enhancing this program in the coming year.
• University Distribution – The AMA has recently extended our partnership with EBSCO in order to ensure the widest possible distribution of our journal content in the top universities and libraries around the world. EBSCO is the clear market leader in scholarly database distribution, and we are proud to continue a partnership worthy of our premium content.
• International Pricing – We have adopted a multi-tiered international pricing system for individual subscribers in order to increase accessibility to our ever-expanding global audience.
• LaTex for Publication – Our production team has received training on LaTex file types and we began accepting these files in early 2011.
• Plagiarism Detection Software – We are currently implementing software that will aid journal editors in identifying possible instances of plagiarism and deter the submission of such manuscripts.
• Governmental Agencies – We have requested and verified that our journals are reaching the top government departments and agencies and, again, ensuring the widest possible reach for journal content.

These improvements have been enacted for a number of reasons, but the most important is this: We firmly believe the production and distribution of AMA journals must reflect the premium content that you—as editors, authors, and reviewers –work so hard to create. Your contributions are what elevate these journals to the top of their field year after year. And, so, on behalf of the American Marketing Association, I want to extend our deepest gratitude for your valued service.

We can now confidently say that the journals are positioned to engage and innovate in this exciting era of digital publishing, and we look forward to an even more productive and successful 2012. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Christopher Bartone
Managing Editor, Journals

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