March 2001 EDITORIAL

Counselor Education and Supervision: Online Peer Review Editing, Online Submissions, and Publishing 
Articles on the World Wide Web

Marlowe H. Smaby
University of Nevada, Reno

Cleborne D. Maddux
University of Nevada, Reno

Denise Zirkle
University of Wisconsin-Stout

Norma Henderson
University of Nevada, Reno

Abstract This article presents a five-phase implementation plan that is being used by the staff of Counselor Education and Supervision for editing and submitting manuscripts for publication consideration on the World Wide Web. Documentation of the steps taken may provide guidance and help for current and future editors of academic journals. In addition, possible future uses of the World Wide Web and Internet for expanding and enhancing publication options beyond traditional print media are discussed. The last few years have witnessed phenomenal increases in the size and popularity of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Although estimates vary, the Web is currently approaching one billion pages in size (Murphy, 1998). As a result of this growth, the Web is beginning to affect nearly every walk of life. It is no surprise, therefore, that scholarly publishing is beginning to make use of the new electronic media. This trend has been accelerated by rising costs associated with traditional print publishing, and by financial crises faced by many university libraries. To respond to these financial problems and to capitalize on the popularity of the Internet and the Web, publishers and editors of scholarly journals have therefore begun to look to these new resources for alternatives to traditional hard copy publishing. According to O'Donnell, electronic media was in competition with traditional publishing even as early as 1995. At that time, he made the following prediction: Extrapolating from the success of journals that are currently published electronically, it is clear that electronic media will capture a large share of scholarly publication in the next five years, and that printed media will not be competitive in journal publication beyond a few more decades. (p. 183). According to Wood (1998), "The introduction and wide acceptance of the Internet, and in particular the World Wide Web by researchers . . . has provided exciting new opportunities for experimenting with the process of scholarly communication" (p. 173). Tomlins (1998) goes even further, and suggests that editors have "an absolute obligation to respond to the development of electronic publication" (p. 136). Different journal editors have adopted a variety of schemes for integrating the Internet and Web into the editorial process of their particular publications. Anderson (1997) identifies four different categories or models including: 1. publications that occur only on the Web, 2. fifty to 100 percent electronic publication of hard print articles, often enhanced with additional material, 3. Internet and/or Web-based tables of contents and abstracts of the hard print articles with the option for viewers to purchase full-text downloads of the articles, and 4. tables of contents intended to help market subscriptions to potential users. During the past two years, the staff of Counselor Education and Supervision have been involved in moving from traditional editorial procedures to the use of online submissions, reviewing, and editing of manuscripts. In making these changes, we quickly realized that training of everyone involved in these procedures was important. This point is also emphasized by O'Donnell (1995), who states that effective training is crucial to success. The purpose of the present article is (a) to delineate steps taken by the editor of Counselor Education and Supervision for using the World Wide Web for online peer review editing, (b) to describe plans for providing future online training for aspiring authors who use the World Wide Web to submit manuscripts for consideration of publication, and (c) to explore future possibilities for supplementing hard copy journal issues with articles published on the Web. A Five-Phase Implementation Plan The editor of Counselor Education and Supervision decided to move from traditional to online procedures through a series of phases or steps, with each step involving a more ambitious implementation of online procedures. Phase One - Planning and Implementing a System for Web Access of Submitted Articles It was decided that each submitted manuscript would be placed on the web by the editor. A computer program called a cgi-script (common gateway interface script) was written to make it possible to assign a unique password to each of the 30 reviewers, and to password-protect each manuscript so that only the three reviewers assigned to each submission were able to view that particular manuscript. The procedure would be for each reviewer to save their assigned manuscript on a diskette or hard drive and load it into a word processor for editing. Blank review forms were also placed on the web (one form each for qualitative research reports, quantitative research reports, and position papers). The form was prepared as a standard HTML form containing a SUBMIT button. After reading and evaluating the manuscript, reviewers would fill out the appropriate form on the Web, including comments about the manuscript, and then send the form to the journal editor by clicking the SUBMIT button at the bottom of the page. Reviewers could also mark up the manuscripts, either in electronic, word processing format, or on a hard copy of the manuscript. This marked copy would then be sent to the editor, either as an e-mail attachment or by FAX. Phase Two - Creating a Sample Manuscript, Testing the System with Three Reviewers, and Preparing a Training Presentation A sample manuscript was created and placed on a web site. Three reviewers who had experience using E-mail attachments and experience using the Web for scholarly communication were selected and assigned user names and passwords. Brief instructions were sent to each of these reviewers. They were instructed to visit the web site, copy and save the sample manuscript placed there, load the sample manuscript into a word processor, and mark it with editorial comments. Then, they were instructed to fill out the appropriate evaluation form (also placed on the web) and submit it to the editor. They were also asked to send the marked up manuscript file to the editor in the form of an e-mail attachment. These three reviewers successfully completed all these tasks and reported no special difficulties. A 34-slide PowerPoint tutorial presentation was then created to train all reviewers to use the system. This presentation, entitled Training Module for the CE&S Electronic Review Process, provided instruction on how to submit their evaluations on the web and how to submit editorial comments on an electronic copy of a manuscript. The presentation also included a brief evaluation of the effectiveness of the training module. Each reviewer was asked to fill out this evaluation form and submit it over the web. (The presentation can be viewed on the Web, starting at http://www.scs.unr.edu/~smaby/presentation/trans1.html.) Phase Three - Evaluating the Training Program for Reviewers In this Phase, 17 of the 30 reviewers engaged in all activities described above in Phase Two. (Seven reviewers were in the final months of their terms as editorial board members, and six had just been appointed and were not familiar with journal editorial policies and procedures. Therefore, these 13 reviewers were not invited to participate. However, the six new appointees have been encouraged to complete the training prior to reviewing and evaluating manuscripts.) The following steps were taken: 1. Reviewers were sent an initial letter describing the changes in the review process of Counselor Education and Supervision. Reviewers were given a tentative timeline for the conversion to the electronic review process for the journal. 2. Three weeks after the initial letter, reviewers were sent, via U.S. mail, a paper copy of the actual training module in PowerPoint notes pages format. The accompanying letter described how the training module could be accessed on the Internet, and the Internet address was provided. Reviewers were given a 4-week time line for completing the on-line training module and the evaluation form that followed the training. Receipt of the evaluation form (automatically emailed to the CES email mailbox upon completion) was necessary so that the editor could track who had completed the training. 3. Following the 4 week deadline, reviewers who had not returned the evaluation form were send an email reminder, which included the Internet address for the reviewer home page, the editorial assistant's office number, and an invitation to telephone the editorial assistant in the event of problems completing the form or the training module. 4. Two additional reminders were sent over a period of eight weeks. The final reminder was faxed to the remaining reviewers, and followed up with a phone call. 5. Reviewers also were asked to provide informal feedback and suggestions on the training module and electronic review process. Skills of Reviewers Prior to Training. A total of 17 reviewers participated in the training program, and completed the evaluation form. Table 1 provides details of reviewers self rated skill level in computer applications and Internet use. Reviewers' Perceptions of Training. Table 2 provides information on group ratings of the usefulness and helpfulness of the training module. Reviewers recorded the length of time for completing the module. The average time was 21 minutes, with a range of 10-40 minutes. Phase Four - Implementing Online Reviewing It had previously been the journal policy to require all manuscript revisions to be submitted in electronic format on a diskette. Potential authors were told that the preferred electronic format was WordPerfect or Word for Windows, but that ASCII or Apple MacIntosh text files would also be accepted. Beginning September 1, 2000 all resubmissions of manuscripts will be posted on the password-protected World Wide Web site for evaluation by reviewers. Reviewers will also submit all evaluation forms via the web. In addition, they will use E-mail attachments or FAX for sending comments formerly written directly on paper copies of manuscripts. The September, 2000 issue of the journal includes guidelines for authors specifying that initial submissions be on diskette. During this phase, the journal will provide a transition that will eventually result in all manuscripts being submitted via the World Wide Web. At first, this will be a voluntary procedure. Eventually, however, it will be a requirement. To help smooth the transition to this final phase, a series of PowerPoint training modules will be developed, posted on the journal web site, and potential authors will be instructed to study it in order to learn how to properly post their manuscripts. These modules will make use of a step-by-step format that can be used for training or for identification of errors and will include directions for rectifying common submission problems. (See Smaby, Zirkle, Maddux, and Henderson, 2000, for a more detailed description of the five-phase implementation plan.) Summary and Conclusions The journal editorial board members' mean self-ratings of their own computer/Internet/E-mail skills prior to training were 4.0 or higher on a 5.0 Likert scale (1=poor; 5=excellent). These preexisting skills were higher than the editor had expected. Thus, editors and technology experts who are formulating plans for implementing online editing may be justified in assuming that reviewers have good technical skills that can be adapted to an online editing system. The online training program for peer reviewers received mean ratings of 4.8 or higher on (a) items relating to organization and accuracy of the material, (b) helpfulness, and (c) overall usefulness. A mean rating of 3.2 was given for the match between the training difficulty and skill level of those being trained. This may have occurred because some reviewers felt that the information provided was either too elementary, or too advanced. Editors planning to provide online training for reviewers may want to consider providing both basic information for those with elementary skills, and advanced training for those with more sophisticated skills. Trainees might also be encouraged to skip those sections that cover skills they have already mastered. In the future, the editor of Counselor Education and Supervision will be planning and developing an online PowerPoint training program for potential authors. This program will cover how to submit manuscripts to the journal. It will be organized according to specific skills needed to submit manuscripts on the Web. Potential authors could then either complete the entire training program or selected components. In addition, the editor could use the program and/or specific modules, for providing directions to potential authors who have submitted disks with technical problems. The journal staff believes that carefully planned and sequential implementation of an online system for submitting and editing manuscripts to journals is a challenging and rewarding experience. In addition, it seems important to document these steps so that future editors of the journal can replicate and improve upon the system and the training methods provided for staff, reviewers, and submitters. After successfully completing the above five phases, the journal editor will continue to consider the use of technology in creative ways. Such strategies might include publishing on the web of a group of articles that might not appear in the traditional, printed version of the journal, providing a web site that includes information and material that is related to, but supplementary to journal articles. These might include streaming video, audio clips, and links to related articles (Anderson, 1997). References Anderson, K. (1997). A journal publishing hybrid: Creating electronic pages for Pediatrics. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 29(1), 21-35. Murphy, J. (1998). It's Not the Size That Counts, But How You Measure It. Retrieved August 3, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ukans.edu/~geog-ku/Geog575/Readings/It_s_Not_the_Size_That_Counts__but_How_You_Measure_It.htm O'Donnell, M.J. (1995, April). Electronic journals: Scholarly invariants in a changing medium. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 26(3),183-199. Smaby, M., Zirkle, D., Maddux, C., & Henderson, N. (2000). Professional counseling journals: Implementing online editing and peer review. Counselor Education and Supervision, 40(1), pp.2-8 Tomlins, C.L. (1998). The wave of the present: The printed scholarly journal of the edge of the Internet. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 29(3), 133-150. Wood, D.J. (1998). Peer review and the Web: The implications of electronic peer review for biomedical authors, referees and learned society publishers. Journal of Documentation, 54(2), 173-197. September 2000 EDITORIAL (Vol. 40, No.1, pp.2-8) PROFESSIONAL COUNSELING JOURNALS:  IMPLEMENTING ON-LINE EDITING AND PEER REVIEW Marlowe H. Smaby University of Nevada, Reno Cleborne D. Maddux University of Nevada, Reno Denise Zirkle University of Wisconsin-Stout Norma Henderson University of Nevada, Reno   One of the most significant developments of the last decade has been the growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW). During that time, the Internet has gone from a small computer network used by a few academics to a worldwide communication system used by over 200 million people in 52 nations (NUA Limited, 1999). Over 110 million of these users are in the United States and Canada. Growth of the WWW has been more impressive in light of the fact that there were only about 50 pages on the Web in 1992, whereas today there are 800 million pages on the Web, containing more than 6 trillion characters (Lawrence & Giles, 1999). The popularity of the Web is evident in a 1996 study finding that in one 3-month period in 1995, Americans and Canadians spent as much time surfing the Web as the total playback time of all rented videotapes in the two countries (Masotto, 1995). More recently, NetRatings, Inc. (1999) reported that by November of 1999, 74 million people in the U.S. were using the Web and 118.4 million had Web access. Given the size and popularity of these new media, it is logical for editors and publishers of academic journals to ask if the Internet and Web could be used to provide more efficient, more timely, and less expensive ways to carry out the peer review and editing procedures that previously depended on the traditional mail system. At present, many journals, including Counselor Education and Supervision (CES), as well as all 15 other publications of the American Counseling Association (ACA), have moved to what might be termed a quasi-electronic system, requiring all accepted articles to be submitted to ACA's Publication Department by mail on a diskette. The preferred format of the computer file is WordPerfect or Microsoft Word for Windows. (ASCII or Macintosh Text file format is also acceptable, but not preferred.) Mail-based systems, including the quasi-electronic one described earlier, have been criticized on several grounds. First, every author is aware of the considerable time lag between submission and publication. Peters (1996), for example, pointed out that the entire process from manuscript submission through final publication is considered rapid if it requires only 6 months and 2-year time spans are not uncommon. When the CES staff receives a manuscript, an evaluation packet must be assembled and mailed to the reviewers, and the reviews must be mailed back to the editor. This operation, including 30 days for the reviewer to complete his or her work, takes approximately 44 days, 14 of which are devoted to processing the reviews and transporting them in the U.S. marl. An on-line system could conceivably result in reducing this time period by as much as one third. Although it would be possible to eliminate this problem by eliminating peer review, most professionals recognize that peer review is an essential part of the scientific method. Harnad (1995) suggested that without peer review, readers will have no idea what is worth reading, and he added that peer review is an essential feedback mechanism for quality control. CES staff actually does quite well on the time lag between manuscript submission and publication. The journal currently has an average period of 8.4 months between initial submission and publication. Of course, everyone concerned would welcome any improvement in this record. Another disadvantage to the mail system is the postal expense involved in sending manuscripts back and forth between authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers. Another major expense is the considerable photocopying of the reviewers' critiques, the editor's comments, and so on. Although the Internet and the Web are certainly not free, there is currently no charge for individual Web pages or e-mail messages, and Internet access fees are typically paid in a lump sum by institutions such as universities. CES spends approximately $1,600 per year on postage and photocopying. If the process were carried out completely by electronic means, this expense could theoretically be eliminated. The purpose of this article is to present the basic steps and experiences of the staff of CES in implementing an on-line peer review and editing process for that journal. It is hoped that these steps and experiences will be useful to other journal editors and publishers who wish to move toward adopting on-line peer review and editing procedures. PLANNING THE CHANGE The first step was to discuss the idea with our college's Webmaster, a professor with expertise in information technology in education. This person indicated that the idea had merit, but that authors and reviewers would likely encounter many technical problems. More specifically, the most difficult problem would be lack of technical training and expertise by submitters and reviewers and difficulties caused by the great diversity of computing resources used by potential authors on campuses across the world. Based on this advice, the decision was made not to try to begin by requiring on-line submissions (although that became a goal for a future stage). Instead, it was decided the initial effort would involve on-line review and editing, but initial submissions would continue to be accepted on paper by regular mail. It was thought that involving only reviewers and the editor would provide important experiences and insight into problems and their solutions and that it would be overwhelming to try to simultaneously educate both reviewers and potential authors to carry on their activities on-line. Next, an editorial board meeting was held involving all of the journal reviewers who attended the 1999 American Counseling Association World Conference in San Diego, California. At this meeting, the idea was discussed, it was unanimously decided to proceed, and a 1-year, three-phase implementation schedule was adopted. Phase 1 The first task was to decide how manuscripts would be made available on-line to reviewers in such a way that only authorized reviewers would have access to those manuscripts assigned to them. It was decided to place each manuscript on the WWW using the university Web server assigned to the journal editor. Then, a computer programmer wrote a cgi (common gateway interface) -script that would enable the assigning of a unique password to each authorized reviewer and create a system to restrict access to those reviewers assigned a specific manuscript. Specifically, each of three reviewers could be assigned a given manuscript and provided with, through e-mail, the title, number, and the URL of the CES Web page (http://www.scs.unr.edu/~smaby/). Once this page was accessed, reviewers would see a list of "hot links" to all manuscripts on the Web site (by manuscript number). The reviewers would then locate the manuscript assigned to them and select that link. At this point, the reviewer would be prompted for a username and password. If authorized, the manuscript, which the editor would have converted to rich text format (.rtf) and placed on the Web site, would be saved on a diskette or the hard drive of the reviewer's computer and then loaded into any word processor. (The rich text format was selected to preserve formatting regardless of the word processor used.) On the Web site, there would also be links to three blank review forms for use with each of the three kinds of articles published by the journal (qualitative research, quantitative research, and position papers). These would actually be standard "html" forms containing a submit button to enable reviewers to send their completed form to the editor. (Reader's note. A test page is now up and running on the Web. Readers of this article are encouraged to visit this page available at: http://www. scs.unr.edu/~smaby/and try out the process with the manuscript titled "10-6-99: Test Manuscript." Use the username reader and the password test.) There are also available non-password-protected versions of the review forms that can be accessed by links located immediately under the link to the test manuscript. These sample forms are identical to the ones that will actually be used, except that they do not contain a submit button to permit the sending of the form to the editor. Reviewers will also have the option of writing comments directly on the manuscript that they have opened in their word processors. Reviewers will be asked to write all comments with their word processors in a bold, uppercase font, inserted into the proper place in the file. The manuscript can then be returned to the editor as an e-mail attachment in rich text format, or by fax. The only technical complexity involved in setting up the system was in writing the cgi-script for the username and password security. Alternatively, it would have been possible to use a simpler JavaScript program to assign a unique password for each manuscript, but that would have eliminated the need for authorized usernames and passwords for each reviewer. Under this simpler system, reviewers would be given the password of each assigned manuscript. Many variations of such simple JavaScript programs are available free from hundreds of sites on the Web, such as the one maintained by Website Abstraction (http://wsabstract.com/cutpastejava.shtml). The disadvantage of this solution is that it is not as secure as the one constructed with a cgi-script. However, because manuscripts can hardly be considered sensitive data that might be subject to unauthorized hacking, a simple JavaScript password system would probably be as appropriate as the more secure, but more complex one that was adopted. Phase 2 The first step was to place a link to a sample manuscript on the test Web site. Then, three reviewers were selected to test the process. They were assigned usernames and passwords and were sent brief instructions. They were asked to save the sample file, use their word processors to mark it with editorial comments, complete and submit the appropriate standard evaluation form (quantitative research form), and return the edited manuscript as an e-mail attachment. They were asked to complete the aforementioned process within 2 weeks. All three reviewers reported no problems. Based on these reviewers' experiences, a 20-slide PowerPoint training presentation was prepared to orient all the reviewers to the new process. (This entire presentation can be viewed by choosing the link to it from the CES Web page. The presentation included an overall orientation as well as step-by-step instructions for reviewers. The presentation was given at the 1999 Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. The session was attended by 10 of the 29 reviewers. All reviewers were informed that the presentation was available on the Web. Phase 3 During Phase 3, journal staff asked all reviewers to work through the process using the "10-6-99 Test Manuscript" located on the Web site. Each reviewer was asked to download and save the manuscript, make comments using a word processor, resave the manuscript in rich text format, return it as an e-mail attachment (preferred) or as a fax, and complete and submit the standard evaluation form for quantitative research articles. All reviewers successfully completed this process with the test manuscript. Staff then decided to implement this on-line system on a limited basis, with all manuscripts currently in the "to be revised for reconsideration" category. Staff decided to begin with these manuscripts because the authors could be told to send their resubmissions on a diskette in rich text format. After each diskette is received, the file is to be placed on the Web site, the reviewers are chosen, and the cgi-script is modified to include the proper authorizations and passwords so that they can be viewed by the three assigned reviewers (usually the same three reviewers who provided the initial review). Reviewers are then given their assignments through e-mail and asked to immediately contact the assistant editor if any problems are encountered. Staff decided to keep careful records of any problems encountered and to use these experiences to refine the training presentation used at the CES Editorial Board meeting that was held at the ACA World 2000 Conference in Washington, DC. Phase 4 Beginning in June 2000, the journal staff will require all submissions, both initial and subsequent, to be made on diskette in rich text format. After that time, the entire on-line process described earlier will be fully operational. Data will be kept on all problems encountered as well as all solutions. Phase 5 When the aforementioned process is operating smoothly, the journal staff plans to implement the final phase, which involves a system that first permits and then requires all authors to submit manuscripts, not on a diskette but on the Web itself. It might even be possible to fully eliminate all postal and e-mail communication between the editorial staff and the authors and to conduct all such transactions completely on the Web. CONCLUSION We believe that it is important to bring in an on-line system slowly, with plenty of time to solve problems that occur in each phase before moving on to the next phase. We believe this system will eventually reduce cost and shorten the time lag between submission and publication. If it achieves this goal, it will have justified the considerable time and effort devoted to its gradual implementation. REFERENCES Harnad, S. (1995). Sorting the esoterica from the exoterica: There's plenty of room in cyberspace: Response to Fuller. Information Society, 11(4), 305-324. Lawrence, S., & Giles, L. (1999). Accessibility and distribution of information on the Web. Nature, 400, 107-109. Masotto, T. (1995). The CommerceNet/Nielsen Internet demographics survey executive summary [On-line]. Available: http://www.commerce.net/resources/work/pilot/nielsen_96/exec .html NetRatings, Inc. (1999). Internet usage statistics for the month of November 1999 [On-line]. Available: http://209.249.142.16/nnpm/owa/NRpublicreports.usagemonthly NUA Limited. (1999). How many online. [On-line].Available: http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/index.html Peters, J. (1996). The Hundred Years War started today: An exploration of electronic peer review [On-line]. Available: http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/works/PeterHundr.html