WSSA Journals Move to Cambridge University Press

 As reported at the annual WSSA business meeting in February 2016, the Board of Directors voted to establish a new partnership with Cambridge University Press (CUP) to publish the WSSA journals starting January 1, 2017.  Weed Science, Weed Technology, and Invasive Plant Science and Management will be managed and marketed by a team based in the CUP New York office, and CUP recently hired Tracy Candelaria as our new Managing Editor to handle day-to-day manuscript processing for all three WSSA journals.  Many of you will remember Tracy, who was our journal Managing Editor until 2014. We are happy to have Tracy back on board, especially as she is already familiar with WSSA.

We are now in the midst of the transition to CUP.  Key changes that you will notice:

1.      From January 2017 onwards, all 3 WSSA journals will be published online only.  Online subscriptions to all 3 journals will automatically be included with all categories of WSSA membership.

2.      Weed Science and Weed Technology will be published as 6 issues per volume year instead of the current 4.  IPSM will continue as 4 issues per volume year for the time being.

3.      New and revised manuscript submissions for Weed Science and Weed Technology are already being handled through the new CUP journal websites at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/weed-science and at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/weed-technology.  You can access these sites directly, or if you click on the journal submission links on the WSSA Publications page at http://wssa.net/publications/ you will be automatically redirected. Your current WSSA logon information remains unchanged for accessing Cambridge Core.

4.      IPSM submissions will be handled through the old Allen Press system until the final 2016 issue is complete.

5.      Accepted manuscripts will be published online by CUP as FirstView articles ahead of being assigned to a journal issue.   The first 2017 FirstView paper for Weed Science has just been published at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/weed-science/first-view.

6.      All 2016 published articles and older journal content will be maintained by Allen Press until the end of December.  To access this content, go to wssa.net, click on “Member Access” under “WSSA Journals” in the grey menu bar on the left, and log in as a WSSA member. We are transferring all archived journal content to the Cambridge Core, but complications with some of the older material going back to 1951 is causing a few delays. All archived journal content will continue to be available through BioOne and JSTOR.

So far the transition for Weed Science and Weed Technology has been smooth: the Cambridge IT folk switched over the manuscript handling system in a single night without disruption, so AEs, reviewers and authors working with files in Editorial Manager barely noticed the change.  We hope we can complete the transition as smoothly, and that you enjoy the new look for WSSA journals. If you have questions or concerns about the transition to CUP please contact Dr. Sarah Ward ([email protected]), the Director of Publications, Weed Science Society of America.

-Notification prepared by Dr. Sarah Ward for the WSSA journal readership