Editorial boards are very important to your journal, and recruiting editorial board members can be challenging to do.
When it comes to actually building an editorial board, how do you do that? How an you convince academics, experts, etc., to give your their valuable time?
The truth is that this isn’t as complicated as you might think. So in this article, we’ll go over three tips to build your editorial board.
Why do you need an editorial board?
Just to briefly recap our other article, an editorial board is made up of subject matter experts in the field that your journal covers. These experts help you to publish journal articles by reviewing submissions and checking them for validity and novelty.
While not all board members will want to (or can) provide the same degree of effort, many view membership to an editorial board as an important job. Because an editorial board is important to the success of your journal, picking your board is crucial. Once you have decided what the scope of your journal will be, you can start to look for candidates. Of course, the most sensible places to look for candidates are academic institutions. This doesn’t mean it’s the only place.
Experts in any number of different fields might not be connected directly to academia, and might also be involved in industry. Take time to research potential candidates.
Recruiting editorial board members
When it comes to recruitment, there are several steps that you might want to take. For example, making sure that your potential candidate is active is a good choice. Depending on the field, research might evolve quickly. If your contact someone to join an editorial board but they’ve been retired for ten years, the might not have up-to-date information. This doesn’t mean that “all retired people are not good choices”, but it could mean that they may have limited knowledge of newer information.
Another important thing to keep in mind is whether or not candidates for your editorial board are experts in your field. The more specific your journal’s content, the more challenging it might be to find potential candidates.
It is important to remember that not all board members will want to have the same involvement in your journal’s direction. Some will want to be hands on and very actively involved, others less so.
In this article, we’ll go over three important things to consider when recruiting editorial board members.
- Do your research
- Be clear about expectations and benefits
- Come to a clear understanding
These three things can help to ensure that your board is healthy and effective.
Do your research
We briefly touched on this above, but let’s go over it in a bit more detail.
Editorial board members are one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. They are informed experts that can help to make sure that the work published by your journal is important, timely, and novel. They can provide you with important information about the field, and also lend you their reputation. If you have reputable experts making up your editorial board, that reputation can translate into more submissions to your journal.
It’s important to understand that careful research and communication can lead to long-term success (or headaches).
First of all, make sure that any potential board members truly fit with your journal’s scope. Academics generally do not appreciate being invited to join the editorial boards of journals that they know nothing about. This shows a lack of interest and research on your part, and puts the invited candidate in the position of having to say that they don’t know about the journals you are sending to them for review. Less-reputable journals might develop a habit of using a shotgun theory approach to inviting candidates (sending out dozens of requests into the world and hoping that some of them hit). But you want to make sure that your board is curated carefully and that the experts know the field.
Candidates will appreciate that you took the time to make sure that their areas of expertise match the journal’s scope.
As noted above, there are also other considerations to keep in mind. Are they retired? Do they already belong to several editorial boards? Are they on sabbatical?
Remember to do your due diligence, your reputation is important and so is theirs.
Be clear about expectations and benefits
Any member of your board should know these two things. They should know what you expect of them, and they should know what they will get in return for their services.
Importantly, all of these things should be considered to be “negotiable”. While you might want editorial board members to commit to specific things, that might not always be possible. Remember, flexibility is key when working with a team. They are volunteering their time for you (and your journal).
Some standard expectations that you might have of a board member might be: handling manuscripts (an initial check and providing feedback), determining the validity and novelty of work, and recommend acceptance or rejection. In exchange, board members might gain benefits such as being able to steer the trajectory of the journal, gain experience about the publication process, and some minor perks. Hopefully, as your journal grows, and the reputation grows as well, more and more candidates will see being an editorial board member as a major benefit to their reputation and career.
For candidates, being a part of an academic board has a series of important networking opportunities attached to it.
Come to a clear understanding
More important than anything else is to reach a clear understanding with your editorial board members. They should know what expectations are, and also you should know what you will contribute. Being able to have all parties on the same page makes the entire process of the board being involved in the journal more efficient. Further to this, they should also be able to rely on the journal being stable. An occasional request here and there is fine, but if your journal is constantly needing to contact them (especially for matters unrelated to previously discussed actions) there might need to be discussion to clarify the situation. Make sure that you’re reliable.
If you find that an editorial board member is not fulfilling the journal’s needs, there might be need to have a discussion with them. After all, there should be some give and take in this arrangement.
As you build an editorial board
The process to gather a board can take time, sometimes years. Being able to keep focused on the end goals is important. Knowing that your editorial board will lead to success in the long term, might be enough of a motivator.
Remember that in order to have a successful journal, one of the most important things that you have to manage is your reputation. Make sure that you remember the points above when planning out your editorial board, and remember that communication is critical.