Journal of Research in Personality, Editor's Report
Richard Lucas
Michigan State University
I would like to thank all the members of ARP for contributing to and reviewing for the Journal of Research in Personality over the past year. 2016 continued a string of very good years for the journal. After a decline in submissions in 2013 (a decline that seems to have occurred across a broad range of journals in the field) submissions have leveled off and appear to be increasing for 2016. We hope that the number of papers being submitted to JRP reflects both the positive experiences that authors are having and a recognition that the quality of the articles that we are publishing is very high. Indeed, our impact factor has been steadily increasing over the past years, up to 2.25 for 2015. Although the large number of high quality papers that come in can sometimes be daunting to the editors who handle those papers, we are encouraged to see these increases and hope that people will continue to submit their best work to the journal in the years to come.
In spite of this increase in submissions, the editorial staff has been able to maintain a very short turnaround time for papers that are submitted. The overall average time to decision is still just under a month. Admittedly, the number of papers that we are rejecting without review has increased somewhat over the years, and including these in our statistics reduces the overall average. However, even papers that are sent out for review are returned an average of two months after submission, a number that has held steady over the past few years. We are always looking for ways to improve efficiency even further, and our goal is not just to average a two-month turnaround, but to ensure that almost all papers are returned within this short time frame.
As I noted in past columns, the journal is working hard to ensure that the research we are conducting is as solid as it can be, and our initiatives in this regard, we hope, have been successful. The editors are looking more closely at sample size and power, and, in accordance with our guides to authors, we have been desk rejecting papers that are seriously underpowered at an increasing rate. We are also open to publishing replication studies, and have a modified "Pottery Barn Rule" (credit for the name goes to Sanjay Srivastava), in which papers that replicate studies previously published in JRP will be assessed using an abbreviated review procedure that simply assesses whether the study is a technically sound replication attempt. Few authors have used this mechanism, but we hope that more will take advantage of it in coming years.
Readers can also look for additional changes in the coming months. Our previous policy changes were implemented in 2013, and at that time the editors noted that we would be watching developments in the field closely as we consider additional ways to improve the quality of research that JRP publishes. Since that time, the journal signed on to the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines, but had not decided on the specific levels of these guidelines we would adopt. In the coming months we will announce these decisions and discuss how they will affect manuscripts that are submitted to the journal.
We also have an exciting lineup of special issues, all of which are almost ready for publication. Specifically, we have a special issue on Replication in Personality Psychology, co-edited by me and Brent Donnellan, a special issue on Within-Person Variability in Personality, co-edited by Ryne Sherman and Simine Vazire, and a special issue on Child Personality, co-edited by Emily Durbin and Jennifer Tackett. These three issues will collect three excellent sets of papers on these very timely topics.
As is often the case, there have been some transitions in the editorial team. Both Jennifer Tackett and Kate McLean have moved on to other editorial positions, and we thank them very much for their excellent service to the journal. We are also excited to announce that Erika Carlson and Jule Specht have joined the editorial team starting in October of 2016. The 2016 editorial team consists of Brent Donnellan as Senior Associate Editor and Erika Carlson, Fred Oswald, Ryne Sherman, Susan South, and Jule Specht as Associate Editors.
Finally, I wanted to note that the journal is transitioning to a new on-line system for managing submissions, a system called EVISE. As we make this transition, there may be a few hiccups, so please bear with us as we work out all the details. If you have problems, however, please let the editorial staff know, so we can pass these comments on to the publisher.
So thanks again to everyone who has submitted to JRP or reviewed for us. We're all looking forward to another great year in 2017.