An engaged editorial board can be an asset to a journal. We recently asked editors whether they felt they were achieving the full potential of their editorial boards. Only one in six respondents said yes.  We hope that the ideas shared in this article can help more editors to engage with their editorial boards successfully.

In this article, Peter Creaton from Wiley’s Editor Engagement team shares his thoughts on why editorial boards are important and how Wiley can support you. This is followed by Edward Pyzer-Knapp, the Editor-in-Chief of Applied AI Letters, who shares his experience of building, and engaging with, an editorial board on a new launch title.

Peter Creaton, Manager, Editor Engagement

Why are editorial boards important?

The editorial board is a highly visible part of a journal. A prospective author will look at the list of names when checking to see if the journal is going to be the right fit for their paper. A carefully chosen editorial board can help a journal to show the author:

• The full breadth of the scope by including researchers with different expertise, including any emerging areas.
• That it reflects the diversity of the field and is representative of the diversity of the authorship. Diversity will look different for different research communities but diversity on an editorial board rarely happens organically. In most cases, it is the result of careful consideration.

However, an editorial board can be much more than just a list of names. When an editorial board is really engaged, it can be a powerful resource to aid the editors.

• Editorial board members can provide invaluable help with reviewing manuscripts, especially in cases where finding reviewers has proved difficult or there is a need for special attention.
• They can provide critical feedback. Not only will the journal be serving the community better but having a range of perspectives helps guard against blind spots and enables editors to implement strategies with more confidence.
• They can be a fantastic source of ideas, including development opportunities, possible articles, special issues, or emerging areas of research.
• An editorial board that understands and is invested in what the journal is trying to do will also be the best advocates for it in the wider research community.

How Wiley can support you

In the first instance, the journal manager you work with will be well placed to advise. Your journal manager can help perform bibliometric searches to identify suitable candidates or set up an open call for applications.

Wiley can also help:

• To assess the diversity of the editorial board.
• To set up surveys to canvass ideas or feedback from the board.

Wiley has a fantastic team in China that can help identify editor and editorial board candidates based there. They can perform a candidate search based on criteria specified by the editor. Once an appointment has been made, they can promote through local channels too. China has overtaken the US in terms of total research output but that is not yet fully reflected on editorial boards. If China is underrepresented on your journal, I would recommend you get in contact with your journal manager so they can advise on the next steps.

Edward Pyzer-Knapp, Editor-in-Chief, Applied AI Letters

Applied AI Letters had the luxury of being a new journal with the small challenge of setting up a legacy for the editorial board.

Building the team

The Editor-in-Chief is a strategic role, and underneath my position, I've appointed senior editors as well as an associate editorial board for junior and emerging researchers. We like to think of them as our rising stars in the community, giving them a chance to get exposure and to understand how the publishing model works.

Because of the broad remit of Applied AI Letters, we needed to make sure that we had reasonable coverage of expertise in networks and in reputation, and, after shortlisting and interviewing, I appointed three senior editors. 

The associate editorial board however was deliberately constructed in a different manner, to make sure that hiring was based on people's skillsets and reputations, and so we went for a blind process. We put a call-out onto the Applied AI Letters website, amplified through social media, asking those interested to submit to me their CVs and cover letter, which I then edited to redact information based on ethnicity, gender, age, etc. I sent those redacted applications to the editorial board who independently scored each candidate. Those blind scorings were compiled into an overall rank, and we chose an associate editorial board of six people based on the best scores, which helped us attain a diversity of experience, geography, and expertise. The process was openly communicated, so the board members know that they were chosen based on merit. 

Engaging with Board Members

Once these boards are built, we want to engage them, and I have four philosophies to maximize this engagement as much as possible.

First and probably the most important, and because all the others stem from this, is to create a culture of community amongst the boards. We launched a month before lockdowns hit globally which forced us online but allowed us to set up a regular cadence of meetings. The senior editors talk once every two weeks and the associate editors join every other call. I know that that might feel like a lot compared to some journals which either meet once a year or once a quarter, but we have found that this allows you to create that community feeling, and people feel like they can share, ask, and learn. This is essential for the next three points.

Once we have this community of engaged board members, we want to empower them to create. One of the mechanisms that we use to do that is we give responsibility for the promotion of special issues. Special issues are a really good opportunity for board members to put a stamp on what they think is important and have their views broadcast to the community. This again increases engagement, not just between the editorial board members themselves, but also between the journal and the community. A really good example of this is our last issue of 2021 which is a special issue focused entirely on the work in explainable AI of DARPA, the American Research agency. This was pioneered by one particular editorial board member who is extremely passionate about it and has driven it, and it's been probably one of our most successful issues already and is already generating excitement pre official release.

However, in order to create, we must also allow people to feel like they have the ability to disagree. Because we're meeting so regularly and we don't work to a strict formal agenda, we have these conversations at the board level where people feel like every voice is allowed to be heard. And everyone, regardless of seniority, is able to put forward ideas to create, but also to disagree and offer other points of view based on different expertise or experiences. This culture of trust helps us create better content and more engagement.

Finally, I tell every member of the editorial board to treat this membership as a growth opportunity, not a job, and not a badge.

What are the benefits of being involved with the journal?

Our senior editors have the opportunity to hone their mentoring skills, while our junior team gains a lot from being paired with a mentor. When we hired the associate editorial board members, we paired each of them with a senior editorial board member so that they have a point of contact to ask questions, learn from, and develop a particular relationship with.

Our board members have the opportunity to improve their network. Being an editor on a journal affords you opportunities that you may not be afforded otherwise and grows your networks and connections into potentially new and exciting parts of research.

We feel that this allows our board members to create this community and reinforces all of the positive emphasis that we're trying to put on the board. In all of this, we've really focused on generating value for our members.

• Hear from Co-Editor-in-Chief Toni Haastrup on her experience of building an inclusive editorial board in this podcast: Building an Inclusive Editorial Board: JCMS Model in Context
• Applied AI Letters - Wiley Online Library