Separate Publication of Special Issues of Journals and Combined Publication of Two Regular Issues (2023/10/02)

In July, our journal editorial committee published a notice titled ‘Review of production and submission procedures to expedite publication in ISIJ journals Tetsu-to-Hagané and ISIJ International.’ We reported that the production processes and submission procedures would be improved, and the production period would be shortened in order to publish papers as fast as possible.

Presently, we are in the process of changing the publication flow, as explained in the notice. The publication issue will be flexibly determined at the end of proofreading by the authors, according to the production status of each paper. Although the full-scale operation will begin in 2024, changes to the submission procedure have been in place since September.

The current status of the item— “Separate publication of special issues and merged publication of the printed versions of the two issues,”—which was under examination at the time of the issue of the notice, is summarized below. It will be implemented by January 2024. We appreciate the understanding of our members and authors.

1.Separate publication of special issues

In the past, it was stipulated that only 12 issues would be published per year for each journal, which includes both regular and special issues. However, papers in a regular issue that follow a special issue sometimes face a delay of one month before publication. As the speed of publication must be the same for all authors, it was decided that regular issues would be published each month, whereas special issues would be published separately from regular issues.

2.Combined publication of regular issues

To reduce the increase in the cost by separately publishing special issues, we have considered combining two regular print issues. As the number of articles is fewer, “Tetsu-to-Hagané” will print two regular issues as one, as a trial. If the results are satisfactory, the same will be attempted for “ISIJ Int.” As “Tetsu-to-Hagané” is mailed along with the institution bulletin “Ferrum” on the first of each month to save the shipping cost, printed issues will continue to be mailed along with Ferrum.

The online version (J-STAGE publication) will continue to be published monthly as before.
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/tetsutohagane/list/-char/ja

(e.g.,) January regular issue and February regular issue of “Tetsu-to-Hagané” ⇒ combined publication on February 1^st, same-day shipping.
March special issue of “Tetsu-to-Hagané” ⇒ print issue will be published on its own on March 15^th, shipping on April 1^st.