Publications Council investigating open data prospects and associate editor roles

By John Sloop, Chair, NCA Publications Council
Vanderbilt University

As is surely always the case, NCA’s Publications Council finds itself in a very busy period. Along with keeping up with the regular business of the Council (e.g., recruiting new editors, mediating between journals and our publisher, updating policies, responding to the need for new outlets), we are now having to deal with, and begin responding to, a number of both new concerns and new calls for change from our membership.

This year, the Council has actively begun a project of understanding, and defining, the role of Associate Editors. A committee has been tasked with investigating the current organic definition of the role and developing a series of recommendations regarding tasks, responsibilities and compensation. Secondly, the Publications Council is continuing its work on how to (or NOT) integrate open science/open data into our journals and research protocols. By listening to the voices of members and investigating the standards of other organizations, we hope to move toward a series of recommendations and changes this year.

In terms of outreach, the PC sponsored an NCA Video Learning Opportunity (VLO) focused on publishing books with university presses. We will host six different acquisition editors who will help guide potential authors through the publication process. Secondly, at NCA, we are hosting a panel that will focus on the article revision process. Journal editors will outline the role of reviewers and authors in the revision process and will offer advice on the most effective ways to approach reviews, reviewers, and the revision process itself.

We have announced the call for new editor positions for the following journals (for publication years 2028-2030):

• Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
• Journal of International and Intercultural Communication
• Text and Performance Quarterly

Information about the journals and application materials can be found here.

Currently, the Publications Council is considering a host of questions that we will work on in the upcoming year, including recommendations about the use of, and disclosure of, AI in research leading to publication, the use of our research in AI data mining, the inclusion of essays in languages other than English in our journals, understanding changes in readership/downloads, and various methods to globalize the outreach of our members’ research.

As always, the Publications Council ultimately operates as a reflection of the desires of NCA membership. As a result, we encourage members to contact the chair if they have thoughts or concerns about any issue related to NCA publications.