Canadian Journal of Soil Science
Editor-in-Chief Report
Joann Whalen
July 23, 2013
I begin by gratefully acknowledging our retiring Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Craig Drury, for his
leadership and continuing service as a major proponent of CJSS. Dr. Drury was responsible
for a major restructuring of the CJSS Editorial Board so that we now have three Editors for
our journal instead of one. The three editors are myself, Dr. Martin Chantigny and Dr.
Francis Zvomuya. I sincerely appreciate their hard work and efforts in handling regular
submissions, as well as the fine support from Dr. Marie Boehm (Special Issues Editor) who
is responsible for the special sections and special issues that highlight emerging topics and
research areas of interest to our readers.
I greatly appreciate the commitment of our retiring Associate Editors: Dr. Bert
VandenBygaart, who served for six years, and Dr. Jeff Strock, who assisted us for three
years. Several Associate Editors who have renewed their commitment to our journal for a
second term, and we thank them for their continued service: Dr. Jean Caron, Dr. Mario
Tenuta and Dr. Xueming Yang.
We have a dedicated team of Associate Editors, listed below, who are responsible for
soliciting reviews and making decisions about the suitability of manuscripts for publication.
Very sincere thanks for all your hard work in the past year! We welcome five new Associate
Editors this year: Dr. Nate Basiliko (Laurentian University), Dr. Miles Dyck (University of
Alberta), Dr. Richard Heck (University of Guelph), Dr. Bobbi Helgason (Agriculture and AgriFood Canada, Saskatoon Research Centre) and Dr. Yong Sik Ok (Kangwon National
University, Chuncheon, Korea). Thank you for your willingness to serve the CJSS.
In the Journals Office, we have constant support from Tim Fenton and Laurie Scott from the
moment manuscripts are submitted through to the typesetting and publication stages. They
make an important contribution to the success of our journal.
The following is the CJSS Editorial Board for 2013:
Editor-in-Chief:
Joann Whalen (2 year term)
Editor:
Martin Chantigny (3 year term)
Editor:
Francis Zvomuya (3 year term)
Special Issues Editor:
Marie Boehm (3 year term)
Assistant Editor:
O. Brian Allen
Associate Editors for 2013:
Lito Arocena
Nicolas Belanger
Jean Caron
Claudia Goyer
Newton Lupwayi
Steve Siciliano
Mario Tenuta
Xueming Yang
Nate Basiliko
Jean-Philippe Bellenger
Myles Dyck
Richard Heck
Yong Sik Ok
Bing Si
Claudia Wagner-Riddle
Noura Ziadi
Angela Bedard-Haughn
David Burton
Richard Engel
Bobbi Helgason
Paul Sanborn
Myrna Simpson
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Special Issues/Sections
Special Issues in progress/proposed:
1. Freeze-Thaw Processes and Frozen Soils (Guest Editors: Barbara Cade-Menun,
Martin Chantigny and Ymène Fouli – 13 Submissions).
2. Long-term field sites: past, present and future importance (Guest Editors: Craig
Drury, Dan Reynolds and Jeff Schoenau – 8 Submissions).
3. Eco-restoration of large-scale anthropogenic disturbances in the Boreal Shield
(Guest Editors and number of submissions to be determined)
Journal Status
We have nearly finished processing the manuscripts that were submitted to CJSS in 2012.
Of the 137 manuscripts received, a final decision has been made on 134 manuscripts. We
accepted 41% of those manuscripts, with 50% rejected and 7% withdrawn. There were 78
manuscripts submitted from 26 countries outside of Canada in 2012 (i.e., 57%), which is
similar to the percentage of papers (53%) submitted from outside of Canada in 2011.
We continue to reduce the turn-around time for submitted manuscripts. The average time
for authors of regular papers to be contacted about the status of their paper that would
ultimately be accepted was 72 days in 2012, which was shorter than the 81 days for papers
submitted in 2011. Authors of rejected papers were notified within 47 days in 2012 versus
59 days in 2011. The average time to reach a final decision for the regular issue papers was
135 days for accepted papers and 52 days for rejected papers.
Thus far in 2013, we have received 72 submissions, which include 59 regular papers, 6
short communications, 8 special issue papers and 1 review. Those submissions come from
Canada (31%) and 17 other countries. Most of the foreign submissions come from China
(43%). Other countries where submissions originate are: Chile, Czech Republic, Egypt,
Ethiopia, France, India, Iran, Korea, Lagos, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Romania, Russia,
Turkey and USA. We also received a book review, which will be published in the August
2013 issue.
Journal Impact Factor - CJSS
Total citations
Journal Impact Factor
Five-year Impact Factor
Immediacy Index
Rank in category (by
Journal Impact Factor)
2012
2158
0.912
1.059
0.136
23th of 34
journals in Soil
Science
2011
2407
0.821
1.212
0.481
24th of 33 journals in
Soil Science
2010
2014
1.121
1.196
0.086
21st of 32 journals in
Soil Science
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New Initiative with Canadian Science Publishing
The Agricultural Institute of Canada (AIC) is taking steps to boost the profile of CJSS and
other scientific journals (e.g., Canadian Journal of Plant Science, Canadian Journal of
Animal Science). They have commissioned Canadian Science Publishing to help us
improve the profile of our journal in the international community. The report on CJSS
prepared by Ms. Kelly Bogh (see Appendix to this report) gives us a benchmark of the
position of our journal compared to others in the same discipline. The idea is to identify our
strengths and weaknesses, and develop strategies to make our journal even better. The
report from Canadian Science Publishing is available on the website and will be open for
feedback and discussion at the CJSS Annual General Meeting in Winnipeg.
One of AIC’s objectives for this year is to bring more attention to CJSS and the other
scientific journals by preparing media releases on articles that are of interest to the scientific
community and public. Articles published in the May 2013 and August 2013 issues of CJSS
were selected for wider publicity. They were:
Impact of climate change scenarios on Canadian agroclimatic indices by Budong Qian, Reinder De
Jong, Sam Gameda, Ted Huffman, Denise Neilsen, Raymond Desjardins, Hong Wang, and Brian
McConkey. Canadian Journal of Soil Science, 2013, 93(2): 243-259, 10.4141/cjss2012-053
Shifts in soil microbial community biomass and resource utilization along a Canadian glacier
chronosequence by Aria S. Hahn and Sylvie A. Quideau. Canadian Journal of Soil Science, 2013, 93(3): in
press, 10.4141/cjss2012-133
One of the ways that publicity is generated on an article is by including a synopsis in the
weekly report of the Science Media Centre of Canada, which is sent to regional, national
and international media on behalf of the Canadian research sector. Starting with the August
2013 issue, any CJSS article chosen for public release will be made Open Access
immediately.
Submitted by:
Joann Whalen (CJSS Editor-in-Chief)
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