Editorial 2006

Promoting, featuring and encouraging the connectivity between disciplines in the aquatic sciences has always been a strong feature of Marine and Freshwater Research and one of its great attractions. Given research programs must increasingly ensure that collaboration is a core part of the research process, I believe the journal’s broad coverage and emphasis on exploring interdisciplinary connections stands it in good stead for the future. That said, the rapid pace of change in science and science publishing means that it is vital the journal connects with its readers to ensure that we provide you with the papers that you want, delivered in a format that you need.

I believe that MFR is successfully doing this. The current impact factor of MFR is 1.478 – a 50% increase from last year and the highest it has been. Further, the large increase in the number of publishable papers submitted to the journal has made it vital for us to increase our publication rate to 12 issues a year. The increase in issue number will keep acceptance-to-publication times low and afford us the opportunity to deliver different content, more often, to our readership.

To this end, we are continuing to develop the content in journal – the ‘Research Forum’ on internal waves and coastal currents in Issue 3 of this Volume demonstrates this. We also plan to have other new features, such as Research Fronts, topical Mini-Reviews and Perspectives or Opinion pieces. We hope these new sections will help stimulate debate and discussion in the scientific community. The increase in publication frequency and the rapid communication tools now available will ensure currency, and the high standards demanded by MFR will ensure quality. We will also continue to publish topical and high-quality Special Issues. The editorial team is very keen to hear from authors interested in being involved in any of the above forums, and I urge you to contact me – my details are below – if you have an idea or topic we can consider.

An important role of publishers is to add value to the work of authors. This can take many forms, and CSIRO PUBLISHING is working hard in this regard. In the last few years, we have introduced full-text HTML format, ‘Most Read’ and RSS features; we now publish online paper-by-paper, have uploaded the entire archive of MFR papers and introduced an online submission and peer review system, OSPREY. The future, though, holds even greater promise: combining the dynamic connectivity engendered by the inter-net with developments in presenting, organising and mining information will change the way papers are presented and utilised. I encourage those keen to develop what is presented in papers and how they are delivered to contact me so we can engage in how to best use the new tools available.

As well as publishing the best science, we want to encourage the next generation of aquatic scientists to be as innovative and demanding as the preceding generation. In this spirit, MFR will be awarding a substantial prize to the best student paper published in the journal in a given calendar year, starting with papers published in 2006. This will be awarded in 2007 and the prize will be AU$1000. The Editorial Advisory Committee and the Managing Editor will judge the papers against strict criteria that will soon be available from the website.

I am excited by the challenges and opportunities that are before us in the aquatic sciences and scholarly publishing. Looking beyond the hyperbole, I believe that close collaboration between publishers and researchers to best utilise the new tools and technology becoming available will result in quite different ways of communicating – and perhaps undertaking – research in the aquatic sciences.

July 2006

Dr Dugald McGlashan
Managing Editor
Marine and Freshwater Research
CSIRO PUBLISHING
PO Box 1139
Collingwood
Victoria 3066
Australia
Tel: +61 (0)3 9662 7618 Fax: +61 (0)3 9662 7611
Email: dugald.mcglashan@csiro.au
www.publish.csiro.au/journals/mfr