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EJMS (Electronic Journal Management System)
Valdas Diciunas [email protected] Seibak [email protected] Daudaravicius [email protected] Kriauciukas [email protected]
VTeX,Mokslininku st. 2a, LT-08412 Vilnius, Lithuania
Abstract
EJMS is a web-based manuscript submis-sion and peer-review system for scholar so-cieties and institutions. Its advantages areconciseness of menu windows and prelimi-nary manuscript evaluation function. Thelast one allows journal editor to ask some edi-torial board members or referees of their first-glance opinion on a submission. EJMS maybe integrated into a large package of vendorservices helping the authors to improve thequality of manuscript and offering the inno-vative production workflow to publishers.
1. Introduction
Electronic Journal Management System(EJMS) is a web-based manuscript submissionand peer-review system for scholarly journals andconference proceedings. The EJMS allows submitingoriginal and revised manuscripts, inviting referees forpeer-review, referees conduct reviews, upload reportsand suggest decision recommendations. Finally,editors make final decisions.
EJMS is produced by VTeX company, located inVilnius, Lithuania. The company provides LaTeX-based publishing solutions and data services tothe scientific community and science publishers (seehttp://www.vtex.lt for details.) The EJMS is fullyintegrated into VTeX LaTeX-based production cy-cle—the process from the creation of the manuscripttill the final electronic product.
EJMS was initiated by an agreement between VTeXand IMS—Institute of Mathematical Statistics (about
Proceedings of the 30 th International Conference on Ma-chine Learning, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 2013. JMLR:W&CP volume 28. Copyright 2013 by the author(s).
4000 members; http://www.imstat.org), and devel-oped in 2004-2007 by VTeX.
Integration of EJMS into the complete LaTeX-basedproduction cycle proved to be very effective in col-laboration with scientific institutions. The possibilityto utilize such integration launches the synergy effect,that allows to optimize the flow of metadata betweenthe separate workflow elements.
2. The main features and advantages
The main features of the EJMS (see Fig. 1):
• It allows authors to submit and track theirmanuscripts and revisions online.
• It allows editors, associate editors and referees tomanage and review submissions as well as gener-ate reports online.
• It provides wide spectrum of peer-review workflowconfigurations.
• It uses e-mail to communicate within systemusers. An expandable set of e-mail templates isavailable. Reminders are generated according tothe rules elaborated by the Editorial Board.
Figure 1. EJMS principal scheme and roles.
Electronic Journal Management System
• It allows editor’s assistant (Journal Manager) toproxy into the system and perform the taskson behalf of users who may be holding-up amanuscript or refuse to use the system.
• It provides both ”blind” and ”double-blind” peer-review options.
The EJMS contains the same fundamental feature setand service level as major commercial products, butcan be distinguished by some specific advantages:
• Conciseness of menu windows. User’s screensare not overloaded by multiple buttons and com-ments.
• Preliminary evaluation is available if it is worthto start the peer review or submission should berejected immediately.
• Possibility to integrate EJMS into a large packageof vendor services (see Fig. 2).
Figure 2. VTeX production workflow.
3. Publisher’s and Editorial Staff’sBenefits
• The online system improves the record keepingand efficiency of editorial process. Everything isin one place.
• The system can be accessed from any computeron the Internet and works on multiple platforms.
• Increased submission turn-around speed.
• Reduced administration time and costs. Insteadof paying to separate journal editor’s assistantsa smaller centralized editorial assistance becomespreferable. One journal manager can easily man-age several journals of a scholar society or insti-tution.
• Online submission allows the regional journalsto become more international. ”Internationaliza-tion” as well as increase of submission volume usu-ally causes increase of paper quality and overalljournal’s rank.
4. Lessons Learnt
• Launching a new journal, editorial staff training isnecessary. VTeX always provides the EJMS demoversion.
• The success often depends on Journal Managerqualification.
• Many users—many opinions. Very often systemusers have different opinion on how the user in-terface should look like.
• Particular attention should be paid to the refer-ees part of the peer-review system. The refereeswork not so often with the system, therefore theirworkplace should be very convenient and easy touse.
5. EJMS Future
• Online conversion from LaTeX and Word.
• Automatic check of art quality.
• Tool for authors for tagging the bibliography.
• Tool for authors for checking the references withreference databases.
• Automatic link to check a submission for plagia-rism.
References
VTeX. EJMS tutorial, 2007-2013. URL http://www.
e-publications.org/ejms/docs/tutorial/.
