Editorial: Filling Our Niche in 2008

Robert D. Mather
Editor

What is this journal? Is it any good? Should I submit my manuscript to it? Aren't many of the names on the Editorial Board familiar? The answers to these questions are: your, yes, yes, and yes. It's YOUR JOURNAL. Yes, it's good because it is YOUR JOURNAL. Yes, you should submit to it because it's YOUR JOURNAL. Yes, many of the names on the Editorial Board are familiar because they signed on to be part of YOUR JOURNAL. That means that a lot of very important people think very highly of you! The Journal of Scientific Psychology is emerging, and I expect 2008 to be important to our development. That is, important to the development of the journal that is YOURS and MINE.

What is the Journal?
The Journal of Scientific Psychology developed out of Mike Knight's Psyence Society at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Oklahoma, USA. This network of undergraduate researchers, graduate researchers, and faculty were all united by two things: having been mentored in some way by Mike Knight and the commitment to psychology as a scientific study. Despite the name similarities, Psyence Society (and eventually its laboratory affiliate "Psyencelab") is not affiliated with the Association for Psychological Science (APS). However, an important historical link to this philosophy is found in the origins of both entities. Logan Wright, former President of the American Psychological Association (1986), was one of the founders of APS. He housed the records for the fledgling organization in the spare bathtub of his home and he conducted the originating businesses of the organization from his faculty office at the University of Central Oklahoma. In doing so, Mike Knight, a Charter Member of APS, became committed to "giving away psychological science." Thus, Psyence Society and APS were birthed from a common ancestor.

In 2005, Kelli Vaughn-Blount helped make the transition from "Psyence Society" to "Psyencelab.com." The power of the internet would allow for more exposure for students and a more efficient exchange of ideas. However, Vaughn-Blount and Knight also saw the need for a venue of scholarly exchange that would house ideas and projects that contributed to the advancement of psychology as a science, but not the large contributions found in the top journals. More importantly, they saw the need for an open-access journal that would reach across the globe without the costs of printing. The idea of filling a niche and reaching a wider audience with less financial investment proved too good of an opportunity to pass up. Inspired by Wikipedia, the two founded the Journal Scientific Psychology. Some initial papers were posted for viewing, but were later removed. Scientific Psychology was set up in Wikipedia form, where people could change content and create a living document. However, the practical nature of scholarly discourse led them away from that idea and to the idea of an open-access, peer-reviewed on-line Journal of Scientific Psychology with archived articles. The idea was to initiate students and young faculty to the publication process, while supporting the creative works of more experienced faculty. Eventually the name was changed to "Journal of Scientific Psychology" The first peer-reviewed article was published in September of 2006, titled "Using Evolutionary Psychology to Account for Sex Differences and Similarities in Psychological Tendencies" by Robert D. Mather of Texas Tech University. Ten peer-reviewed articles were posted before this editorial. Mike Knight served as Editor through December of 2007. I became Co-Editor in June of 2007 and took over as Editor on January 1, 2008. Much of my work as Co-Editor was behind the scenes work in developing the journal process, quality assurance, and restructuring the Editorial Board. Manuscripts accepted under my oversight started on January 1, 2008.

Is it Any Good?
The Journal of Scientific Psychology (JSP) now functions with an Editor, two Associate Editors, a Managing Editor, a Copy Editor, eighteen Editorial Consultants, fourteen Consulting Editors, two Founding Editors, and an army of Reviewers. We believe that we have assembled an esteemed, experienced staff that can provide high quality reviews to our authors. We are now indexed on Google Scholar and we have seen very thorough and consistent internet traffic throughout the past year. Additionally, we are in the process of receiving our ISSN number.

Should I Submit My Manuscript to It?
That depends. If you want to get high quality feedback in your reviews from established professionals and have the potential to publish to a very broad and diverse audience of psychological scientists, we believe we are a good publication outlet for you. If you believe that citation index ratings are more important to you than reaching a diverse, educated audience and contributing to the collective development of many students and faculty researchers, then this may not be your outlet. Our goal is to provide each manuscript with high quality feedback from two established professionals in the topic area as well as from one interested student reviewer. The student and professional reviews will always be blind, but they will always be identified as being a student or professional. This allows the inclusion of the student reviewer so that he or she may gain valuable reviewing experience. We invite you to submit original empirical articles, original theoretical articles, original book or movie reviews, and original comments on published work. The copyright to the article remains in the author's name and APA style is required for submission. This is a fantastic outlet for your creative ideas that advance scientific psychology!

Aren't Many of the Names on the Editorial Board Familiar?
Many of the professionals on our Editorial Board have had very distinguished research careers, including such honors as membership to the National Academy of Sciences. Our esteemed Editorial Board was assembled because the Board members believed that JSP would fulfill its niche. The pressure is on our staff and our authors to make good on the Board members' belief. Since this is YOUR journal, the pressure is on both of us!

The Other Positions: Reader and Marketer
This is YOUR journal. YOU can be an Author. YOU can be a Reviewer. But even if you don't want to write and review, there are two other equally important positions in which you can participate to work towards the development of YOUR journal. First and foremost, the position of Reader is important. We aim to have interesting, challenging, thought-provoking articles. You, as the Reader, should benefit the most from this scholarly exchange of ideas. You get to watch the scholarly exchange play out before your very eyes. And if you like it, tell a friend or colleague (in the event that those are different people!). That makes you Marketer. Both are incredible important to our efforts to make good on the confidence that the Board had in our ideas. Together, YOU can help US to make JSP benefit everyone.

The Future
We've examined the historical origins of JSP and we have looked at how we can all participate in the operations of JSP and benefit accordingly. Where do we go from here? Hopefully, I have laid out my vision for how we will progress JSP. Throughout 2008, I intend to write several editorials to help shape the progress of our journal. My goal is not to take over the academic world and oust the established journals. My goal is to help JSP succeed and to fulfill its niche-providing high quality reviews and publishing creative works that incrementally contribute to the progression of scientific psychology.

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