TASH Journal Switches to Electronic Review System

I am pleased to announce that Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities has switched to an electronic review system as of February 1, 2011. The majority of professional journals in special education already use such web-based systems, and, speaking for TASH and the editorial staff, we welcome this change. The system to be employed is Manuscript Central, which uses the ScholarOne Manuscripts review process (Thomson Reuters). This system will expedite the peer review process, improve manuscript tracking, provide better communication between editors and authors, provide better file management, reduce mailing costs and eliminate the inconvenience of mailing hard copies, and provide detailed outcome data summaries.

Additionally, journals that have electronic review systems have benefited from an increase in manuscript submissions, a continual goal of this journal. For those of you who either have reviewed for or submitted manuscripts to journals that utilize electronic review systems, you will find this conversion to be straightforward and manageable. For others who have limited or no experience with such systems, it will no doubt take a number of months before we (editors and authors) feel comfortable and fluent using and responding to the system. Let me provide an apology in advance for the many problems we will no doubt have. That said, over time (and with some practice) we will all become proficient using the system and reminisce about the “old” days when we had to send multiple hard copies of manuscripts back and forth between editors and authors.

If you or someone you know is interested in submitting a manuscript to RPSD simply go to https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rpsd and create a user account.  If you have any questions please contact Eirin Grimes, RPSD Managing Editor at rpsdjournal@gmail.com and she can forward you more detailed instructions on the electronic manuscript submission process.

Switching to an electronic review process has been a long-term goal of this journal and I am pleased that the time has finally come.  This change will not only make the review process easier, faster, and more efficient for editors and authors, but will allow the journal to fully benefit from online review processes.

Dr. Martin Agran
Editor
RPSD

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