WikiJournal of Science/Editorial board

Editorial board members are expected to participate in the coordination of the peer review process of submitted articles to the board. This includes corresponding with the author, identifying potential peer reviewers, corresponding with peer reviewers and reminding peer reviewers of the review due dates. An editorial board member does not need to participate in the peer review coordination of every submitted article.

The purpose of the editorial board is to form consensus about whether to include upcoming articles in the journal, based on multiple factors such as scope, peer reviewer recommendations and utility for Wikipedia. In the same manner as Wikipedia is not a democracy, the means of decision making is discussion leading to consensus; Straw polls can be used to test for consensus, but polls or surveys can impede, rather than foster, discussion.

Editorial board members will be notified by email to wjsboardgooglegroups.com (only accepting emails from board members) when an article submission is up for decision, together with whether it needs to be held strictly confidential or not. An editorial board member does not need to comment on every article submission. In addition, editorial board members should join the public group of WikiJSci to stay updated about what's going on in the project. In practice, members of the editorial board have substantial communication by email, especially for confidential submissions. Public submissions can be discussed at their pages. Anyone may add their opinions and comments for such online discussions.

The main outcomes from inclusion discussions are:

• Acceptance of the article
• Rejection until there is an acceptable peer review of the article
• Rejection until article is modified
• Rejection outright

The editorial board also discusses and makes decisions regarding the overall operation of the journal. However, major issues that do not involve confidential matters should be discussed at the journal's public forums, at Talk:WikiJournal of Science, and/or the public Google Group of the journal through wikijscigooglegroups.com. Editorial board members are encouraged to invite potential additional participants to the journal.

Editorial board members may also opt to include themselves in the mailing list about matters related to the overall WikiJournal organization at the general WikiJournal mailing list. Matters that are important to the WikiJournal of Science should be emailed to its own mailing list as well. Editorial board members may also participate in online meetings, whose dates are usually announced by the board email list.

All positions in the journal are voluntary, that is, for no financial gain.

The editor-in-chief has final responsibility for all operations and policies.

The assistant to the editor-in-chief will act in place of the editor-in-chief on the event of his resignation or incapacity.

Both the editor-in-chief and the assistant to the editor-in-chief are expected to participate in public relations of the journal, including interviews and articles when opportunities arise. They are expected to add newly elected board members to the wjsboardgooglegroups.com, whose presentation page (visible to members only) contains additional information for board members.

At least the editor-in-chief and the assistant to the editor-in-chief are entrusted with the journal's password to administer the journal's WikiJSci.org domain at GoDaddy. This domain needs to be renewed every other year, at a cost of approximately $30 each time. Logging into the domain's account at GoDaddy also avails for changing the email addresses included in the common email address (known by the editorial board) for updates about the journal. This site is also where redirection to another target than the current one may be done in the future.

Duties of the editor-in-chief

The editor-in-chief has final responsibilities for the operations and policies of the journal. Contact details of the editor-in-chief should be stated online. The editor-in-chief should act as the point of contact for questions relating to research and publication ethics. The editor-in-chief should acknowledge receipt of communications from institutions and should promptly bring the matter to the editorial board for action. The editor-in-chief should keep the public informed about any changes in the aims and scope of the journal.

The editor-in-chief should not disclose confidential details about work submissions with editor-in-chiefs of other journals, unless the following requirements are fulfilled:

• Such sharing is a necessary part of fulfilling the obligation to prevent and respond to suspected research misconduct
• The authors of the work have been informed about the issue at hand, and have not given a response, or the response was not satisfactory
• The disclosure is limited to journals which are suspected of having been targeted by the research misconduct at hand, or are believed to have pertinent information of the case at hand.
• The recipient editor-in-chief is notified about the sensitive nature of the information.

The amount of disclosed information should be limited to the minimum required. The shared information should be factual, while avoiding conjecture and speculation.

Further reading

• Sharing of Information Among Editors-in-Chief Regarding Possible Misconduct, by COPE