Message from the Executive Director: Interview with Paul Kemp, Founding Editor-in-Chief, L&O Methods

At the end of July, Paul Kemp will step down as Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of L&O Methods. As the Founding EIC of the journal, Paul's tenure has spanned an incredible 22 years—overseeing the planning and launch of the journal and leading it since 2002. I sat down with Paul to discuss the origins and development of the journal, and the growth, challenges, and changes in both the field and in scholarly publishing in the intervening years.

ED: WELCOME, PAUL. MANY ASLO MEMBERS DO NOT KNOW THE ORIGINS OF THE JOURNAL. TELL US ABOUT THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE JOURNAL. WHAT PROMPTED ASLO TO START A NEW JOURNAL, AND HOW DID YOU BECOME INVOLVED IN ITS LAUNCH?

PK: ASLO's flagship journal, Limnology and Oceanography (L&O), was founded in 1956 as a printed publication mailed to ASLO members and subscribing libraries. That business model meant that the size of the journal (pages and number of articles) was constrained to a scale where subscription fees would cover publishing costs. Eventually, short articles (then called “Notes”) and methods articles were dropped from the journal to reduce publishing costs.

L&O was very successful, and by 2002 it was financially secure enough for the ASLO Board to consider starting a second publication. A working group was tasked with identifying opportunities by answering two questions:

What are the emerging fields in aquatic sciences not specifically served by an existing journal?

What journal(s) might serve our diverse community of biologists, physicists, geologists, and chemists in both freshwater and marine systems?

The working group suggested that the new journal could break from tradition and be delivered as an all-electronic publication, rather than in a more expensive print format.

The Board decided to investigate both ideas for a new journal; I chaired one of the two working groups. Ultimately, I wrote an implementation proposal to create an L&O: Methods publication that would employ electronic submission and peer review, and that ASLO would self-publish on its own website. It would not be printed. Subscribing individuals and institutions would have access to all of the journal's content, and at a nominal cost authors could purchase the right to have their article freely available to everyone—ASLO coined the term Free Access Publication to describe what is now called Open Access Publication. The Board accepted the proposal essentially without modification, and I became the founding Editor-in-Chief of the new publication. The first manuscripts were submitted late in 2002, and the first articles were published in 2003. L&O: Methods is now in volume 22, and it has published more than 1200 articles and 15,000 pages.

ED: THE FIRST PAPER PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL (LAURION ET AL., 2003) APPEARED ONLINE 19 JUNE 2003. WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES IN LAUNCHING THE JOURNAL, AND HOW DID YOU ATTRACT AUTHORS TO SUBMIT THEIR PAPERS PRIOR TO THE JOURNAL BEING AWARDED AN IMPACT FACTOR?

PK: ASLO could afford to start a new journal, but it couldn't afford to support a failing journal. Two decisions were made to reduce the risk. First, the new journal was named L&O: Methods, which in effect borrowed L&O's reputation with authors. Of course, that meant L&O: Methods had to live up to the standards and quality of the parent journal, but that was always the plan. Second, the Board agreed to bundle L&O: Methods with L&O and offer both journals for one subscription. That decision took some pressure off the new journal, and it still increased subscription revenue because libraries would now get two publications for one price. Submissions increased rapidly and by its third year L&O: Methods was about one-third the size of L&O.

ED: YOU DECIDED AT THE OUTSET TO ADOPT NEWLY AVAILABLE TECHNOLOGY TOOLS TO STREAMLINE SUBMISSION AND REVIEW OF MANUSCRIPTS. TELL US ABOUT THAT.

PK: This was a time of rapid evolution in publishing. It's hard to imagine now, but PDF files were invented in 1993. Manuscripts were printed and mailed to the editor, copies were mailed to reviewers and mailed back to editors with marginal notes and printed comments. Proofs were printed and mailed to authors, and mailed back to the publishing company. Imagine offices with hundreds of file folders!

When L&O: Methods was created in 2002, the first electronic peer-review systems were only 2 years old. The new online Manuscript Submission and Review systems (MSRs) were efficient and very cost-effective because they reduced the staffing (and paper!) needed to operate an editorial office. ScholarOne's Manuscript Central was the pacesetter for the MSR industry, and it enabled L&O: Methods to have a small and affordable editorial office. It also shaved considerable time off the typical time-to-decision. In recent years, the ScholarOne MSR offers added value by suggesting potential reviewers from among authors with related expertise. This is immensely helpful, because it now takes considerably more effort per manuscript to find willing reviewers.

ED: WHAT ROLE HAVE THE JOURNAL ASSOCIATE EDITORS PLAYED IN THE SUCCESS OF THE JOURNAL?

PK: The Associate Editors (AEs) are really the heart of the journal. They frequently apply their own expertise to reconcile conflicting reviewer recommendations, and I often ask the assigned AE to look at a manuscript and recommend whether it merits review or should be rejected without review. Although it's difficult to quantify, I am convinced that the AEs' broad professional networks help to attract authors from outside North America.

ED: HOW HAS THE FIELD CHANGED SINCE THE LAUNCH OF THE JOURNAL, AND HOW IS THAT REFLECTED IN THE PUBLISHED PAPERS?

PK: Methods and their field and laboratory applications go through reciprocal cycles. Paradigm shifts often can be traced back to methodological innovations, and new paradigms lead to a demand for further methodological innovation. Newly available data—or reduced cost and increased volume of data—then lead to new ideas. Past examples include satellite oceanography, the development of autonomous underwater vehicles, and the application of genomic tools to aquatic systems. It's happening again today with the application of machine and deep learning methods to automated image analysis and object recognition. These methods became so ubiquitous that in a 2022 we compiled a virtual issue (https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1002/(ISSN)1541-5856.machine-deep-learning) to show the diversity of their applications.

ED: WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE MAIN CHALLENGES IN SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS? BASED ON YOUR LONG SERVICE TO THE JOURNAL AND THE COMMUNITY, WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR ANYONE CONSIDERING SERVING AS AN EDITOR OF A SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL? WITH THE BENEFIT OF EXPERIENCE AND PERSPECTIVE, WHAT IF ANYTHING WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENT IN LAUNCHING AND LEADING THE JOURNAL?

PK: When I wrote the original implementation proposal for L&O: Methods, I was an academic researcher, not a scientific publishing expert, but the world of science publishing was much simpler, and I could make reasonable predictions about the best structure for a new journal. Today, governmental decisions and multinational agreements (e.g., regarding open access and data availability) have complicated the publishing industry to the point that partnering with publishing experts is absolutely necessary—the Editor can't devote enough time to follow the changing publishing landscape. If asked for advice, I'd tell a new EIC not to try to do it all by themselves; I've learned something about teamwork and the art of collaboration over the years, and I'd tell the new EIC to take a team-based approach and rely on the team!

ED: PAUL, ASLO IS INDEBTED TO YOU FOR OVER TWO DECADES OF DEVOTION TO L&O METHODS, AND THE ADVANCEMENT OF AQUATIC SCIENCES RESEARCH. AS YOU PREPARE TO TURN OVER THE REINS TO INCOMING EIC KRISTA LONGNECKER, WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF AS EIC OF THE JOURNAL?

PK: I am proud of having created something that has survived for more than 20 years and is well positioned to continue. I'm proud that L&O: Methods gave so many authors good advice and opportunities to revise and resubmit, and proud to have contributed to the careers of so many students and early-career researchers.