Message from the Executive Director: Interview with Jim Cloern, Editor‐in‐Chief, L&O Letters

On August 1, Jim Cloern became Editor-in-Chief of L&O Letters. Pat Soranno, Founding EIC of the journal, accepted a temporary position at NSF that precludes her from serving as EIC during her stint at the agency. As announced to the membership by President Mike Pace in July (https://www.aslo.org/blog/jim-cloern-to-serve-as-eic), Jim is serving as interim EIC for the next three years. Jim has been a Senior Editor at L&O Letters since the journal launched in late 2016. I sat down with Jim to talk about his background, the current status of the journal, and his plans for the next three years. ED: WELCOME, JIM. AND CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR APPOINTMENT AS EIC OF L&O LETTERS. YOU HAVE A LONG ASSOCIATION WITH ASLO, INCLUDING AS A FREQUENT AUTHOR, REVIEWER, ASLO SUSTAINING FELLOW, AND 2015 RECIPIENT OF THE RUTH PATRICK AWARD. YOU HAVE ALSO SERVED AS EIC OF ESTUARIES AND COASTS. TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND AND THE PERSPECTIVES YOU BRING IN YOUR NEW ROLE WITH L&O LETTERS. JC: Thank you Teresa. I've been warmly welcomed by the ASLO community and am now fully engaged as Editor while Pat is at NSF. I guess the number one perspective I bring is that of an author. I've been publishing scientific papers for 44 years (scary to say that) and as an author I've had both positive and disappointing experiences. I hope that those who submit to L&O Letters will continue to have positive experiences with the review and production processes. I see my primary job is to work hard at making timely, fair and objective editorial decisions. Woody Allen said that 80% of success is showing up. I intend to show up by paying close attention to the editorial progress of each submission, quality and relevance of reviews, workload of Associate Editors, and so on—the day-to-day tasks of a journal editor. My personal goal is to see repeat submissions from authors because they thought the editorial process was fair and improved their papers. If we can build a reputation of this journal as one that treats authors fairly, then things like growth of submissions and increasing impact factor will take care of themselves. We serve the authors first. ED: UNDER PAT'S LEADERSHIP, THE JOURNAL HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF IMPLEMENTING OPEN SCIENCE INITIATIVES, WELL BEYOND THE OBVIOUS OPEN ACCESS FORMAT OF THE JOURNAL. WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR THE JOURNAL OVER THE NEXT THREE YEARS? ARE THERE ANY NEW DEVELOPMENTS AUTHORS AND READERS CAN EXPECT IN THE COMING YEAR? JC: I am excited to be part of a journal that not only requires data to be published, but also follows through to ensure that all data reported in an article are published in a repository. There are strong views within the scientific community about the open-data mandate. Since early in my career as a government scientist, I felt a responsibility to make publicly funded data available to the public. We've put all of our USGS data from decades of measurements in San Francisco Bay on a web page, beginning soon after the “world wide web” was created. Last count, that site has been visited from over 80 countries and used by teachers, students, NGOs, the regulatory community, and scientists around the globe. That's been as meaningful to me as any paper we've written from the data ourselves. ED: L&O LETTERS RECENTLY INTRODUCED A NEW ARTICLE TYPE, DATA PAPERS. TELL US ABOUT THIS ARTICLE TYPE, WHAT PROMPTED ITS DEVELOPMENT, AND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR FROM AUTHORS WISHING TO SUBMIT DATA PAPERS TO THE JOURNAL. JC: Purely by coincidence, Pat Soranno and I thought we should answer that question as a news piece in the ASLO Bulletin. Readers will find it in this issue at https://doi.org/10.1002/lob.10341. This was Pat's idea and I'm enthusiastic because, as we explain, it is an important step toward a fully open science enterprise. Data articles make our published data sets discoverable, available, understood, and ready for use or reuse by others. They are indexed, citable, and give authors the professional credit they merit for the hard work that went into their data production. We're looking for descriptions of published data that have a substantial information content that has not yet been fully extracted, and a high likelihood of being used by others. ED: OVER THE LAST YEAR, THE JOURNAL GAINED INCLUSION IN A VARIETY OF INDEXES AND DIRECTORIES INCLUDING DIRECTORY OF OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS (DOAJ) AND EMERGING SOURCES CITATION INDEX (ESCI), AND ARTICLES ARE NOW DISCOVERABLE ON THE WEB OF SCIENCE. THESE ARE VITAL STEPS TO BEING EVALUATED AND ACCEPTED INTO THE SCIENCE CITATION INDEX EXPANDED (SCIE) AND ACHIEVING THE IMPORTANT JOURNAL IMPACT FACTOR (IF). WHILE THE JOURNAL IS ON AN ACCELERATED PATH TO GETTING AN IF, HOW DO YOU APPEAL TO AUTHORS TO PUBLISH IN THE JOURNAL NOW? I UNDERSTAND A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF EARLY CAREER RESEARCHERS HAVE AUTHORED PAPERS IN THE JOURNAL. THIS IS A HIGHLY POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT, BUT DOES IT SURPRISE YOU? JC: Launching a new scientific journal takes courage and patience. It takes time for a new journal to become established and for its performance to be assessed with metrics like online views, downloads, and citations. Our patience is being rewarded because we recently learned that L&O Letters has been accepted for indexing in the Science Citation Index Expanded. Acceptance means that our newest journal has met 28 quality and impact criteria used to identify the most influential scientific journals. Papers published in L&O Letters will be indexed in Web of Science, and the journal will have its first impact factor when the next Journal Citation Report is released next year in June. These advances reflect the inspiring leadership from Founding Editor Pat Soranno. They should give prospective authors the confidence they need to submit, knowing that L&O Letters is on track toward recognition as one of the high-impact journals in the aquatic sciences. No, I'm not surprised that ECRs are submitting because they embrace the new faster than us codgers. Now we need to bring them into the fold of peer reviewers. ED: L&O LETTERS' FIRST SPECIAL ISSUE ON CARBON CYCLING IN INLAND WATERS WAS VERY SUCCESSFUL AND GENERATED A HIGH LEVEL OF INTEREST BASED ON FULL-TEXT DOWNLOADS AND CITATIONS. I UNDERSTAND YOU HAVE A SECOND SPECIAL ISSUE IN DEVELOPMENT ON MICROPLASTICS IN MARINE AND FRESHWATER ORGANISMS. TELL US ABOUT THAT, AND THE ROLE THAT SPECIAL ISSUES PLAY IN THE JOURNAL. ARE YOU SEEKING OR SOLICITING IDEAS FOR FUTURE SPECIAL ISSUES, AND ARE THESE MARINE OR FRESHWATER FOCUSED? JC: Pat Soranno served as Editor-in-Chief of the first special issue published in 2018 (https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/23782242/2018/3/3), and she will continue to serve as Editor of the second that we expect to appear in early 2020. The last two papers I published in an ASLO journal were unplanned until I saw announcements of special issues of L&O on “Headwaters to Oceans” and “Long-term Perspectives in Aquatic Research.” This illustrates how special issues can be strong attractors for submissions. L&O Letters is still a young journal, and we will continue to use special issues to attract submissions and grow interest in and awareness of our newest journal. Special issues are also invaluable resources on focused topics. I'm using papers from the special issue on carbon cycling in my own research and looking forward to learning about the emerging topic of microplastics in the upcoming issue. And, YES. We are just beginning to explore topics for the next special issue of L&O Letters and welcome suggestions from the scientific community. If readers have a topic in mind, or would like to lead production of a special issue, please contact me (loletters-eic@aslo.org). ED: AUTHORS ARE ALWAYS SEEKING THE BEST VENUE TO PUBLISH THEIR WORK. ARE THERE ANY TOPICAL AREAS YOU ARE SPECIFICALLY TARGETING FOR INCLUSION IN THE JOURNAL? JC: The main message I have for readers is that, from my perspective as Editor, the scope of L&O Letters is broad and extends well beyond our core research areas of ecology and biogeochemistry. I want to find ways to recruit papers in fields that are under-represented in ASLO journals, such as physical limnology/oceanography. One of my colleagues received comments from a reviewer that his submission was not acceptable in an ASLO journal because “it wasn't an ecology paper.” This perception is wrong. L&O Letters will consider submissions across all domains of aquatic sciences including studies of sediment dynamics, changing water chemistry, aquatic socioecological systems, viruses, chemical ecology, science to support decisions, discoveries from new technologies and observing systems, forecasting, mixotrophy, large rivers, ecosystem-based management, extreme environments, genetic diversity and its meaning, disturbance, the sedimentary record, air-water-land connectivity, as well as currents, waves, mixing, and stratification. I would also take great personal satisfaction if we could expand the geographic range of papers published in L&O Letters by publishing more studies from outside the northern temperate zone. If authors have any questions about the scope of L&O Letters, I encourage them to contact me directly. ED: YOU HAVE A HIGHLY SKILLED AND PROMINENT GROUP OF SENIOR EDITORS AND ASSOCIATE EDITORS (AEs) WORKING WITH YOU TO ENSURE THAT THE JOURNAL PUBLISHES THE BEST OF SHORT-FORMAT ARTICLES ACROSS THE SPECTRUM OF LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY. ARE YOU SEEKING NEW ASSOCIATE EDITORS AND REVIEWERS IN ANY PARTICULAR SPECIALTY AREAS? HOW SHOULD INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS CONTACT YOU IF THEY ARE INTERESTED IN SERVING AS REVIEWERS OR ASSOCIATE EDITORS? JC: One of the important roles of Editor-in-Chief is to build a talented and dedicated group of Associate Editors. Pat Soranno has built an exceptional editorial board. However, she and I agree that we need to add (AEs) with areas of expertise (e.g., physical oceanography) and from geographic regions (e.g., South America, Asia) currently under-represented on that board. Editors are always looking for ways to add talent and diversity to the team of (AEs) who make the critical evaluations of submissions and recommendations for editorial decisions. And, (AEs) are always looking for members of the scientific community who are ready, willing and qualified to review submissions but aren't being asked. So, YES. I am looking for nominations, including self-nominations, for Associate Editors and reviewers. I especially encourage experienced students, postdocs, and early-career scientists to let me know of your interest in serving as a reviewer. We need you. ED: WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE CHALLENGES, NOT JUST FOR L&O LETTERS, BUT FOR ALL SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS? HOW IS THE JOURNAL POSITIONED TO MEET THESE CHALLENGES? JC: From an Editor's perspective, the biggest challenge is finding timely and constructive reviews of submissions. Again, we need to find the untapped pool of aquatic scientists who are qualified to serve as peer reviewers. From a publisher's perspective, the biggest challenges come from the fast-paced changes that have developed over the past decade in the publication of scientific journals. Those changes include, for example, the growing practice of posting preprints of papers online before they are submitted to a journal, and evolution of new business models as the author-funded open access model displaces the traditional subscription-funded model. I spent an information-packed day at Wiley headquarters in July and was impressed by the Wiley team's understanding of these kinds of challenges and strategies for adapting to them. ED: WHAT ARE THE TWO OR THREE KEY REASONS AUTHORS SHOULD SUBMIT THEIR WORK TO L&O LETTERS, AND WHAT ADVICE DO YOU GIVE TO AUTHORS HOPING TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL? JC: I suspect there are still some ASLO members who are unclear about the distinctions between our flagship journal L&O and our newest journal L&O Letters. The distinctions are significant for authors. L&O Letters was conceived to publish compact (3000-word limit, with minimal figures and tables) papers that have potentially high impact. One of my favorite journals is AGU's Geophysical Research Letters. Its papers are easy reads where every word counts, packed with information and new ideas, and they are widely cited. For me, this is the model for a letters-type journal. We now have one as part of the ASLO portfolio dedicated to freshwater and marine sciences. Every article in L&O Letters is freely available online to anyone with an internet connection. L&O Letters will soon publish Data Articles, a new article type in ASLO's publications portfolio. For my aquatic sciences colleagues: if you have a short-format paper in mind or want to publish a Data Article or Essay or Current Evidence piece, we on the Editorial Board will give it a fair and timely evaluation. As a young journal, the editorial process is not (yet) overwhelmed with submissions. We welcome yours. Executive Director, ASLO, execdir@aslo.org