Abstract
This is our last editorial. The previous editorial appeared in 13(3) (April 2013). This one covers similar ground: impact, submissions, special issues; the new re-bundled virtual special issues; changes to the editorial board; refereeing; book reviews; and the change of editors.
Impact
The Thomson Reuters Citation Report for 2012 gave Qualitative Research an Impact Factor of
For 2013/14, the journal has achieved an Impact Factor of 1.416. Qualitative Research is ranked 13 out of 92 in the Social Sciences category and has climbed to 23 out of 137 in the Sociology category. This is very much in line with prior years, although a slight decrease, and suggests that the journal has a relatively stable level of citation activity and a strong profile within the academy.
Special Issues
There was one special issue in 2013: August 2013; 13(4) Public Ethnography, edited by Phillip Vannini and Heather Mosher.
No special issues have been planned, as a new team will take on the editorship from 1st January 2015.
Virtual Special Issues
The intention of these re-bundled online collections is to bring together a selection of choice papers from across the journal’s archive, centred around key themes and important debates in the field. Themes published online so far are:
Ethics
Children and Young People
Challenging Fieldwork
The next topic planned for a re-bundled online issue is Qualitative Research and its New Frontiers.
Editorial Board
Andrew Gitlin of the University of Georgia joined the Board in January 2013.
Submissions
The number of submissions rose again to
The rejection rate 2013 was
The published papers came from the following territories:
The submissions between August 2012 - July 2013 and August 2013 - July 2014 came from the following regions:
Qualitative Research has remained at 6 issues per volume, despite the increase in submissions, and thus the proportion of papers being rejected in the editorial office (that is without blind peer review), and after blind peer review have both risen.
Refereeing
The Qualitative Research mission of being interdisciplinary and international is sustained by getting all papers refereed in different countries from that of their author(s).
The latest list of those who have refereed papers since 2012 appeared in volume/issue 14(3). We are keen to recruit more referees for our growing number of submissions, so if you have colleagues, especially early career colleagues, who could enrol on the referees’ database at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/qrj please encourage them to do so.
Rewards for reviewers: SAGE Publications rewards reviewers by providing one month’s free access to SAGE content, and a 25% book discount on SAGE titles ordered online. Details of how to register for online access and order books at a discounted rate are given on completion of a review.
Book reviews
As Qualitative Research is unusual in having a strong book review section we are pleased that in Volume 12 there were 31 reviews, including a symposium, review essays and articles. In Volume 13 there were 62 reviews including symposia and review articles. The new Book Review Editor, Robin Smith, [
QR editorship
From January 1st 2015 the editorial team in charge of Qualitative Research will be:
Professor Bella Dicks, Cardiff University
Professor Karen Henwood, Cardiff University
Professor William Housley, Cardiff University
Dr Robin Smith, Cardiff University
We wish them all the best.