Abstract
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The desire to affiliate with a journal was an outcome of an AEESP strategic planning exercise as a means to increase AEESP's global presence. EES was the journal identified. It was a journal without an affiliation and has a broad scope with a breadth of interests represented by AEESP membership, including publishing educational content and articles. In the September 2011 AEESP Newsletter, Joel Burken, AEESP president at that time, discusses the potential affiliation with EES (https://aeesp.org/sites/default/files/publications/AEESPNL.46.3.2011.pdf).
The AEESP–EES relationship has resulted in many new initiatives. Most notably, Mary Ann Liebert, publisher of EES, is sponsoring a new AEESP award, the Mary Ann Liebert Award for Publication Excellence in EES. This award is given to the authors of an outstanding article published in EES in the previous year. At least one author must be an AEESP member to receive the award. The inaugural award recently went to Travis Walker, Chen Chen, and Sharon L. Walker for their publication titled, “Food and Industrial Grade Titanium Dioxide Impacts Gut Microbiota.” In addition, there have been a number of special issues guest edited by AEESP members. A recent example is the AEESP Board of Directors endorsed special issue “Environmental Engineering Science in the 21st Century” edited by Peter Vikesland. It was an outcome of the efforts to bring the AEESP community together to contemplate the changing role of our field. Another initiative has been EES Spotlights that appear in the AEESP newsletter and in EES as an Editor's Note. These spotlights, authored by the EES editor-in-chief, EES deputy editor, and one or more AEESP publications committee members, draw attention to selected articles in EES. Approximately monthly EES sends out an announcement to the listserv with articles that are temporarily available for free access. The articles selected are based on download rates among other indicators of their impact.
As AEESP and EES just completed the first 5 years in their partnership, members of the AEESP Board of Directors and Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Editor of EES recently conducted a survey to see how well we are getting word out about our initiatives and to find out what opportunities are ripe for further increasing the integration of EES with AEESP as our official journal.
Between July and September, 88 AEESP members responded and we have started to process the data. Although the main themes in the comments addressed Focus, Engineering and Science Education, Accessibility, Impact Factor, and Content, the multiple choice questions showed that 83% of respondents would like to see articles on environmental engineering and science education published in EES, and that 56% of respondents recommended publishing a special issue of selected articles presented at the conference. The board has charged the publications committee to create an implementable plan to strengthen the relationship with EES over the next 2 years, including measurable indicators for meeting signed MOU requirements and points raised by our membership over time. Publishing more environmental engineering and science education articles is not so simple, but we must look for synergies to jump start such an endeavor. For example, one suggestion is a special issue led by the body of knowledge (BOK) committee with articles invited by persons whose research reflects the different facets addressed in the new BOK.
We look forward to strengthening of the AEESP–EES relationship that we expect will benefit the entire community.
Linda Weavers, Past-President AEESP
Maya Trotz, President AEESP