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Editor-in-Chief's Guide

Last updated: 2 January 2026

editor_in_chief_guide.Rmd

New submissions and revisions

Downloading new submissions and revisions

Articles are submitted through a Google form which populates a Google sheet, and a Google drive. This sheet contains details of the submission, and also a zip file with the necessary files; get_submissions() will authenticate against both.

Pre-2026 form, sheet and submission files can be found in the following links: Google form, Google sheet, and Google drive. These ones were owned by different individuals, so it is advised not to use these and should not be required unless searching for historical submissions. Note that if you are creating a new form, then you must manually add a column in Google sheet named “Submission ID”, change “Email Address” to “Email address” and the sheet name “Form Responses 1” to “Form responses 1” for the get_submissions() to work. It is sensitive cases and changes to the column nmaes.

On a regular (at least weekly) basis, download newly submitted items:

This will create a new folder in the Submissions directory of the articles repo, and a DESCRIPTION file with the meta data.

You should check that this file has been constructed correctly, and that the zip file has unpacked into the top level of the folder. Common missing items are the Suppl: line which should list the .R files and any data needed to reproduce the paper.

Check relevance and reproducibility

First check that the paper fits the scope of the journal. If not, reject() the paper.

Then check that the paper is reproducible by either: (a) compiling the Rmd file; or (b) compiling both the LaTeX file and all .R files. If there are any problems, request a resubmission() from the authors.

Acknowledge submission and assigning a new article to an EE

For revisions, use acknowledge_revision() to send an acknowledgement email to the authors, cc’ing the handling editor.

For new submissions, choose one of the three active EE’s (i.e., not the previous EIC). To balance EE load, use assignments() to see how many papers each EE is currently handling, and what has been assigned to them in recent months. As far as possible, take account of the relative expertise of each EE so that papers are assigned to the most appropriate person. Use acknowledge_submission(editor = "XX"). to send an acknowledgement email to the authors, cc’ing the chosen handling editor.

Check progress of all papers

The function report() shows the status of all current papers being handled, by author and by status. Anything with 3 stars needs urgent attention.

Meetings

The editors meet roughly every month. The EIC is responsible for organizing these at mutually convenient times, taking account of the different timezones.

The associate editors meet roughly every 3–4 months. The EIC is also responsible for organizing these meetings. It is best to organize two meetings, 12 hours apart, to allow for different timezones.

New editors

New executive editor

The EIC is responsible to navigating the search for a new EE. The search for a new editorial board member should begin in the middle of the year, giving enough time to find a replacement before the outgoing member leaves at the end of December. Nominations for the new member are discussed by the editorial board first, and then preferably also with the advisory committee so that they can provide historical perspective.

Once a shortlist of candidates is created, but before approaching anyone on the list, it should be sent to the R Foundation Board members () for their feedback and approval. People on the list are then approached by the EIC or an EE, and once someone agrees, the EIC informs the members of the R Foundation (). The new editor is formally appointed by the R Foundation president.

Once a new EE is found, the following steps take place:

  • The new EE is added to the Editors team, with role changed as owner, at https://github.com/rjournal and to the rjournal.slack.com organisation.
  • The new EE is added to the editors.csv file in the inst folder of the rj package.
  • Onboard the new EE.

The EIC may take on outstanding handling editor duties of the outgoing member.

New associate editors

The EIC is responsible for recruiting new AEs, after discussion with all editors. Ideally, keywords of submissions over the past year are summarised, and compared with keywords of current AEs. New AEs should be recruited for topics where there is the most need.

Once a new AE is appointed, the following steps take place:

  • The EIC informs the other EEs.
  • The EIC sets up a GitHub repo of the form ae-articles-xx where xx is the initials of the AE
  • The new AE is added to the associate-editors.csv file in the inst folder of the rj package.

Handover to new Editor-in-Chief

Archives

[Not done since 2019. Is it needed?]

In the articles repo, the Proofs folder contains all the supporting files of Accepted articles. The Rejected folder contains all of the supporting files for rejected submisisons.

From time to time, papers with dates older than two years should be moved to the archive repo, to make the articles repo smaller. Recommend that this is done at the hand-over of the EiC role at the end of each year.