Editorial |
Jadranka Rota, Editor-in-Chief:
May 2011 – May 2017
Jadranka Rota‡
|
Corresponding author: Jadranka Rota ( jadranka.rota@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Jadranka Rota
© 2017 Jadranka Rota.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Rota J (2017) Leaving Nota in good hands Jadranka Rota, Editor-in-Chief: May 2011 – May 2017. Nota Lepidopterologica 40(2): 141-141. https://doi.org/10.3897/nl.40.14662
|
 |
As an outgoing Editor-in-Chief I am now reflecting on the past six years, since I took over the journal at the SEL congress in Luxembourg in 2011. Much has happened with our journal in this period of time. In the first place we introduced the subject editor system, so that subject editors handle the review process of submitted manuscripts and make a decision on their acceptance. We now have thirteen subject editors, covering diverse taxa and subjects, from non-ditrysians to macro-moths, and from systematics and taxonomy, molecular phylogenetics, biogeography, conservation, ecology, biological invasions, and other topics. The full list of all subject editors and their expertise is available on the Nota website (https://nl.pensoft.net/editors/). The Editor-in-Chief still has a responsibility to go through every submission and work with the authors and/or subject editors on any issues that may arise.
From the beginning of 2014, we transitioned from in-house production to a professional publisher – Pensoft – and we have been very happy with this decision. The result was an immediate improvement in the visibility of the journal. Each paper is now published online when it is ready, with final pagination. In addition to having a modern website and a professional editorial management software that allows for an easy overview of all the active submissions, we receive a lot of other support from Pensoft, including professional help with press releases and any technical issues that may arise during the submission and/or review process.
The number of submissions to Nota has been increasing. This year we have already published 11 papers in issue 1 (totalling 140 pages). These papers deal with many different topics, including descriptions of new species from several different families (Geometridae, Nepticulidae, Pterophoridae, and Psychidae), as well as new and surprising species records. However, by far the most popular paper based on the number of unique views on the Nota Lepidopterologica website has been Gunnar Brehm’s paper describing a new LED lamp for night-time collecting (https://nl.pensoft.net/article/11887/). This is now the second most popular paper published in Nota since our transfer to Pensoft and is en route to become the number one!
Looking back at that day in May of 2011 in Luxembourg, I am glad that I accepted the challenge of editing Nota. My experience has been extremely positive at many levels. I learned a lot as a lepidopterist and I got to know many people in their role as authors, reviewers, or subject editors. Luckily, our society has many members with a high level of expertise, and two of them, Maria Heikkilä and David Lees, have accepted to become the new Editors-in-Chief of Nota – I am very happy to be leaving the journal in their hands! They are both experienced lepidopterists with expertise in several groups of Lepidoptera and in various subject areas, and I hope that they will enjoy their new roles. I will remain on the editorial board and continue contributing to the journal as a subject editor.