Abstract
My thanks to AAVLD Executive Director Jim Kistler for organizing the SurveyMonkey communications survey of AAVLD members in August 2017. We were eager to get feedback on the level of satisfaction of AAVLD members with JVDI, and more broadly, all of the communication tools used by AAVLD, including the annual meeting, the newsletter, and social media. Results of the survey were encouraging.
Of the 930 surveys sent to AAVLD members with email addresses on file, we received 175 responses. Here’s an overall summary of responses:
✓ The 19% response rate was excellent for an on-line survey.
✓ The majority of responses were from long-time members.
✓ The majority of those responding regularly attend the annual meeting.
✓ No major communication gaps were identified with members.
An interesting sidelight of the survey was that a number of members failed to receive the AAVLD on-line Newsletter because of removal of the email by their organization’s spam filter.
Several of the communications survey questions pertained specifically to JVDI:
✓ Regarding overall satisfaction with JVDI, 78% were satisfied (43% very, 34% somewhat), 22% were neutral, and <1% were somewhat or very dissatisfied.
✓ The most important attributes of JVDI were ranked as relevance of material to current events, relevance of material to job, and relevance of material to continuing education.
✓ The relevance of types of articles published in JVDI was ranked from most to least relevant: emerging diseases, zoonotic diseases, next generation technology, test validation, case reports, disease prevalence, well-known diseases in a new species, and quality assurance.
✓ Satisfaction with quality of writing was 80% very or somewhat satisfied (50% very, 30% somewhat), 18% neutral, <2% somewhat or very dissatisfied.
✓ Over the last few years, the quality of JVDI has stayed the same (42%), improved (31%), declined (5%), or no opinion (22%).
✓ A slight majority of respondents would like to see Association news published in JVDI (54% yes, 46% no); however, a vocal minority commented that JVDI should remain a peer-reviewed scientific journal and that the Newsletter served the purpose of news communication. Aside from the Pope Memorial Award and other annual AAVLD award winners, JVDI has not published association news. We will expand the news on awardees, as in this issue.
✓ The response to questions about the AAVLD on-line Newsletter was very supportive (67% very or somewhat satisfied) of the Newsletter.
✓ Of authors who had submitted manuscripts through the MSCentral submission platform, 96% did not encounter any problems.
A sampling of the numerous comments received:
✓ More review articles would be appreciated.
✓ The July 2017 Special issue on Racehorse Pathology was well received.
✓ More disease prevalence reports would be welcome.
✓ There was continued strong support for publication of case reports.
✓ Some prefer electronic copies only (note that all articles appear electronically on OnlineFirst well before paper publication http://journals.sagepub.com/toc/vdia/0/0, and notification is emailed to members)—this is an available preference.
✓ Some are not aware of the change made in 2017 in color page charges. The AAVLD contract with SAGE was renegotiated in order to allow authors 2 free pages of color figures in each article; subsequent color pages are charged to authors at $250 per page. The page charge of $75 for each printed page remains.
✓ Speed up the review process. (We do everything possible to facilitate the review process, but editors and reviewers are volunteers, have competing priorities, and can only do their best. We also do our best to enforce deadlines.)
In support of our continuing quest to explain and bring all involved up to speed on the process of scientific writing, peer review, and publication, we have posted to the JVDI website the PowerPoint presentation from the 2016 AAVLD in Greensboro, NC, Best practices for submitting, reviewing, and publishing manuscripts in JVDI, Grant Maxie, Editor-in-Chief; Holly Farrell, Managing Editor; Francisco Uzal, Images Editor. We’ve had good feedback on this session, and we look forward to improved submissions as a result.
Also in support of authors, editors, and reviewers, we periodically update our Instructions to Authors (located at http://journals.sagepub.com/home/vdi) to facilitate trouble-free production and submission of manuscripts.
I believe that the results of the 2017 survey support the accomplishment of the mission of JVDI as stated in our Statement of purpose, which was approved by the AAVLD Executive Board, 2016.02.05: “The Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation is the official journal of the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians. The mission of the Journal is to educate by informing readers of progress in veterinary laboratory medicine and related fields of endeavor. The key objectives of the JVDI are to promote the science of veterinary laboratory medicine and the betterment of animal and public health.”