Taylor &; Francis India organized the Journals Editorial
Forum on 9 November 2012 at Hotel Royal Plaza, Delhi It incorporated not just
presentations but also a workshop for the attendees, most of who were already
involved in various journals either as Editors, Referees or Authors. This event
was organized jointly by the Journals Editorial Team, India, and the India
Marketing Team. The e-invite and print cards that were sent by India Marketing
Team included names from the Indian Journals Editorial database of existing
clients, previous Roundtable attendees, members from the editorial boards of
competing journals and Dr. Shrikrishna Singh’s contacts in India. A total of
800 people were invited for this event. The invitations were handled in 4
rounds as listed below:
1. ‘Save-the-date’ e-mailing, which included the
agenda, that was done by Journals Editorial Team in September-end was to inform
all contacts of the upcoming Editorial Forum by T&F.
2. E-invites to all 800 contacts in the second week of
October.
3. Print invites were sent to 300 important contacts in
the second week of October.
4. Tele-calling those who had confirmed or acknowledged
the invite previously until a day before the event.
At the Forum, we welcomed 34 participants (excluding
Dr. Manjit Kang, who was our Guest Speaker). All participants were required to
register at the registration table where they were given name badges along with
the welcome kit comprising promotional postcards of our journal Strategic Analysis; pamphlets on our
initiative, STAR; information pamphlets on ‘How to referee an article’, How to
do your research read’, and ‘How to optimize citations to your article’; Author
Services, pen and notepad.
Among the participants, the ones to be noted are
Cdr. Rikeesh Sharma and Cdr. Abhijeet Singh, both from the Editorial Board of
Maritime Affairs, since the National Maritime Foundation staff usually does not
attend ‘external’ events and Prof. Nasir Tyabji whose journal is currently being
published by Sage. Also attending were our new co-publishers, Taru Publications
(new co-publishers), and Mr. Arvinder Bhalla of Har Kishan Bhalla & Sons
with whom we are signing the contract soon.
The event commenced with a welcome address and
presentation on ‘Sustainable journal publishing and global industry
developments’ by Dr. David Green followed closely by a presentation by Gerald
Dorey on ‘Trends in Indian research and authors’ attitudes. At the end of GD’s
presentation, a brief coffee break was announced that allowed everyone sometime
to interact. After the coffee break, our Guest Speaker, Dr. Manjit Kang,
presented his talk, ‘An Editor’s perspective on Indian Scholarship’. After, Dr.
Kang’s presentation, the participants were divided into 3 groups: Editors,
Authors and Referees. Each group was moderated by a T&F Editorial Member,
Gerald Dorey, Shrikrishna Singh and Anindita Pandey, respectively, and the
discussions in each group were being noted by Sangeeta Menon, Jane Buffham and
Sushmita Das, respectively. The topic that each group was given to discuss was
‘The future of peer reviewing’ in which participants provided their
perspectives based on the group they were placed in, for 40 minutes. The
outcome of these discussions was then presented to the audience. The event was
thus concluded with a note of thanks from Dr. Green and Gerald Dorey. All
participants were then requested to proceed for lunch at the hotel’s restaurant
and to collect their certificate of participation from Sangeeta Menon at the
restaurant itself before leaving.
Many participants came back with very positive
feedbacks about the forum. Most of them found that the presentations included
information that they had never come across earlier and hence very useful. Many
felt that the workshop gave them the opportunity to interact with various
editors, authors and referees and hear other perspectives and look forward to
more similar events from T&F. Overall, the event was a success and a lot of
credit for the same goes to the India Marketing Team that ensured that the
entire promotion and logistics of the event was handled with precision.
As a follow-up to this event, thank you notes would
be sent to all participants by the India Marketing Team and presentations are
being shared with those who had requested for it by Sangeeta Menon.
