Area Editors

The Area Editor serves as the main contact point for authors when they submit papers for possible publication in Operations Research. Therefore, the Area Editor has a highly visible and valuable role in the editorial process.

Responsibilities of the Area Editor

- Each Area Editor is responsible for writing a statement that describes the area and the type of papers that will be considered. This statement is submitted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief; however, it may be reviewed, rewritten, and resubmitted at the discretion of the Area Editor as well.

- The Area Editor is responsible for suggesting names of individuals to serve as Associate Editors for the journal. These names are submitted to the Editor-in-Chief for approval and appointment. Note that Associate Editors serve the entire journal; thus, some Associate Editors may handle papers from more than one area. As Area Editor, feel free to use any of the journal’s Associate Editors (except OR Practice associates) best suited to handle a given paper.

- Authors submit papers directly to the Area Editor through Manuscript Central. If an author is unsure of which Area Editor is most suitable for his or her paper, the author may submit the paper to the Editor-in-Chief for disposition. If an Area Editor receives a paper which is not appropriate for his or her area, the Area Editor may transfer the paper to the appropriate Area Editor (or to the Editor-in-Chief if the Area Editor is unsure).

- The Area Editor should review the paper quickly. (See the Operations Research Review Process policy). If the Area Editor feels the paper warrants review, an appropriate Associate Editor is selected. The Area Editor should always check with the Associate Editor, before sending the paper, to be certain he or she is available to review the paper in a timely fashion.

- The Area Editor is responsible for following through with Associate Editors to be certain that reviews are obtained in a timely fashion. Feel free to enforce the Operations Research Review Process policies as needed.

- The Area Editor should review the Associate Editor procedures and Referee procedures.

- The Area Editor may choose to serve as the Associate Editor for any paper. The Area Editor then performs both jobs.

- When the reviews have been received, the Area Editor reads and compiles the reports, then sends the reports to the author with an appropriate cover letter. The Area Editor should be certain that the reports are polite and constructive. The Area Editor may edit a report before sending it to an author if the tone is inappropriate. If a revision of the paper is being requested, be certain to give some guidance for the author. If the paper is being rejected, try to be constructive and informative as to how and why that decision was reached. The letters do not need to be lengthy. The Area Editor has the discretion to disagree with the assessment of any reviewer or Associate Editor. There need not be consensus among the reviewers for a decision either to either reject or request a revision.

- The Area Editor should also consider if the paper is a candidate for an online companion. For example, an appendix that is not recommended to be part of the printed version of the paper, but could be placed online for interested readers to access; data files and/or software used in the paper; or other supporting materials that are best accessed online. If so, the paper should be revised accordingly.

- Papers rejected from the journal cannot be resubmitted unless specifically authorized by the Area Editor.

- Second, third, fourth, etc. versions of the paper should be returned to the same Associate Editor and referees who originally reviewed the paper. If the Associate Editor or reviewers were inordinately slow in returning reports, it would probably not be a good idea to send the paper to those individuals again. If the paper only needed minor changes, the Area Editor may make a decision without sending the paper out for another round of reviews. The author is, of course, informed that the revision has been received and the reviews have begun.

- If and when a paper is deemed ready, the Area Editor transfers the paper to the Editor-in-Chief with a recommendation to accept the paper. The letter/e-mail to the author should only indicate that the Area Editor is recommending the paper for acceptance. The final decision on all papers rests with the Editor-in-Chief.

Management Processes

The role of the Area Editors is to achieve the editorial mission in their corresponding areas and to serve as a Board whose objective is to move the journal, and the field of operations research forward. Thus, Operations Research has implemented the following processes.

Area Editors will attend a quarterly conference call scheduled in advance by the Managing Editor. The objective is to review the status of the journal and to identify new initiatives that the journal should take.

Area Editors are invited to attend a working luncheon at the annual meeting of INFORMS, generally held in the fall. An invitation is sent by the Managing Editor about 8 weeks prior to each meeting. Attendance is not required, but encouraged, as this is one of the only opportunities for face-to-face meetings with other members of the Editorial Board, the Managing Editor, and the Editor-in-Chief.

Guidelines for requiring the revelation of inputs to published analyses

There are several purposes for publishing the results of empirical or computational analyses, ranging from methodological to applied:
1) Authors might want to test methodologies they or others propose on real or artificially generated data. Here the goal is to evaluate the intrinsic merits of these methodologies (e.g., computational efficiency, accuracy of results, size of problem instances).
2) Authors might want to emphasize the importance or usefulness of methodologies they propose by illustrating that problems with real stakeholders can or have been solved.
3) Authors might need to substantiate actual policies they are recommending for real stakeholders.

In any of these cases, authors might not want to reveal input data or aspects of model structure. Below we will refer to these as inputs. Usually this would be due to issues of confidentiality or ownership of data or procedures by either the authors or their collaborators.

1) In all cases, the ideal is that empirical work should be sufficiently well described that readers can replicate the results (perhaps up to sampling error), potentially with the aid of an online companion for complicated models.
2) However, exceptions to this ideal may be allowed according to the judgment of the Area Editor. If authors do not wish to reveal inputs, then the Area Editor may require any or all of the following to be included in the manuscript:
a) the solution of related problems using artificially generated or disguised inputs that are revealed;
b) a description in reasonable detail of how model inputs were derived without necessarily revealing these inputs;
c) a statement that results of analyses are based on unrevealed inputs.

Regular Papers and Short Technical Notes

Operations Research publishes both regular papers and short Technical Notes. Substantial contributions are published as regular papers independent of their length (but not exceeding the journal's page limit). Thus, the journal encourages and publishes short papers that make important, substantial contributions. Technical Notes are different. These are short papers with a narrow scope. Of course, these papers also need to be original, relevant, clear and of high quality. The length of Technical Notes must be no more than 15 page, double-spaced with one-inch margins on all four sides of the page and with text in 11-point font.

Papers Submitted by Area Editors

Area Editors may submit their own work for possible publication in Operations Research. All of these submissions, regardless of the subject area, should be sent directly to the Editor-in-Chief who will serve as the Area Editor. Special associate editors and referees will be selected to review these submissions.

Policy on Potential Conflict of Interest

When carrying out their journal duties, Area Editors may receive submissions from authors with whom they have close relationships. This includes for example, former students, recent collaborators and colleagues from the same department. In these situations a potential conflict of interest arises. Of course, the journal recognizes that Area Editors are senior people in the field with many collaborators and former PhD students. If every former collaborator is a potential conflict of interest, the journal will soon run out of reviewers for a particular paper. Thus, our objective is to ensure that potential conflict of interest is well managed without sacrificing the quality of the review process or significantly increasing its complexity.

Potential conflict of interest occurs when an Area Editor receives a submission from:
1) Authors who collaborated with the Editor in the 3 years prior to submission.
2) Current or former PhD students who were advised by the Editor and who graduated within the past 5 years.
3) Colleagues from their own department or school.
4) Other authors whose relationship to the Editor could reasonably be expected to prevent the Editor from judging the paper fairly.

In all these cases, the Area Editor will forward the paper to the EIC. The EIC will decide the most appropriate process for handling the paper. This would typically entail either transferring the paper to a different Area Editor or handling the paper directly.