Bayesian Analysis, the journal

[Rob Kass]

I am very pleased to announce that the new electronic
journal Bayesian Analysis, published by the International
Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA), is taking submissions at
         http://ba.stat.cmu.edu
For a brief description of the journal and its editorial
board, see that web page. We are interested in
outstanding research and scholarship. Please submit
your work!! Some comments follow.

Bayesian Analysis will be published on our web site
and will be freely available. It will be dedicated 
to rapid editorial turnaround of manuscripts, which 
will be facilitated by (1) a large board of editors and 
associate editors who will handle most refereeing, and 
(2) an electronic manuscript-handling system that
will greatly reduce the book-keeping overhead for
the editorial board.

Much effort has gone into creation of the 
automated manuscript-handling system. 
Written in PHP/MySQL, it not only enables
reviewers to get papers, but also keeps track of 
all editorial activities and allows instant access
to the status and complete history of manuscripts.
My hope is that the system will not only reduce the
organizational effort required of editors and associate 
editors but that it will, in addition, relieve the 
editorial assistant from most of these chores as well 
(thereby reducing the assistant's job to only a 
few hours per week, and making the cost 
of running the journal very small).

The system has the following features:

  Articles are submitted in pdf format and are accessible 
  to relevant referees and editorial board members 
  on the system web site.

  Articles are tracked by a unique article reference number, 
  and authors may use this number to check on the status of 
  a submitted article.

  Editors, AEs and referees may view a list of the articles 
  assigned to them, and may then examine the history and current 
  status of any of these articles.

  Editors have access to an editorial load monitor
  so that editors and AEs can be picked taking account
  of load over the past 12 months.

  The system automatically sends email reminders of response 
  due dates to editors, AEs, and referees.

  Letters to authors are composed by Editors, checked by the 
  Editor-in-Chief, and sent to authors using the system. They are 
  then archived by the system and are accessible to relevant 
  past and future reviewers.

  The system allows editors, AEs, and referees to compose messages 
  for other users of the system and archives all such correspondence.  
  This is intended to help with organization of all internal email 
  discussion concerning an article.

  The system maintains logs of all editorial activities related 
  to each article.

The system could not have been constructed without the supervisory 
advice of our Electronic Production Manager Pantelis Vlachos,
the extremely proficient programming of Adrian Rollett,
and the miscellaneous help of our very capable editorial assistant 
Heather Wainer. I am personally grateful to all of them and 
pleased to acknowledge their work.

As you use the system, please don't hesitate to let us know of 
any comments or suggestions for improvement. 

I'm excited to be involved in a much-needed vehicle for communication 
across the ever-widening network of people interested in Bayesian methods.
I expect Bayesian Analysis to begin publishing sometime in 2005 and 
will send an announcement when this occurs.

  Rob Kass
  Editor-in-Chief
  Bayesian Analysis