Editorial Board

With the continued increase in the number of new submissions (see below), the Journal now has 12 Associate Editors (Sophie Bergeron, Lori Brotto, Meredith Chivers, Brian Dodge, Shari Dworkin, Martin Lalumière, Brian Mustanski, Jesse Owen, Jeffrey Parsons, Natalie Rosen, Lori Scott-Sheldon, and Paul Vasey). Michael Carey served as an Associate Editor in 2011–2013 and then resumed his role on the Editorial Board at large. Michael first joined the Editorial Board in 1993 during the Green era. A few months ago, Michael and I agreed that it was time for him to have some extra time to add to his PubMed list of 200+ publications, so he retired voluntarily this year. Michael Seto served as an Associate Editor in 2013–2014 and then stepped down to assume the role of Editor of Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment. Andrea Bradford served as an Associate Editor in 2013–2015. All three served in their Associate Editor’s role in exemplary fashion. With Paul Vasey’s appointment as an Associate Editor in 2016, the Journal has launched a new “target article” initiative (for details, see Vasey & Zucker, 2016).

The Archives has a large Editorial Board of 127, in addition to the 12 Associate Editors (80 men and 59 women). The Journal does not have a gender quota policy, but the 42 % is better than the target of 40 % women “(wo)mandated” to serve on every provincial board and agency in Ontario by 2019, as recommended by premiere Kathleen Wynne (Taber & Grant, 2016). In terms of nationality, 59 % of the Editorial Board is from the U.S.—the remainder are from “other” places.

Submissions and Disposition

Figure 1 shows the number of new submissions per year between 2002 (when I became Editor) and 2015. There were 80 submissions in 2002 and 469 in 2015, a 5.9 increase. This is why the Journal needs its army of Associate Editors! It also explains, in part, why the Archives went from publishing 6 issues/year to 8 issues/year in 2013. In 2002, the print volume had 556 published pages; in 2015, it had 2332 published pages (Vol. 1 in 1971 had 374 published pages).

Fig. 1
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Number of submissions (2002–2015)

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Obviously, we are publishing more articles: 48 in 2002, 182 in 2015. Springer, the Journal’s publisher, keeps track of the number of annual downloads for all of its periodicals (the actual numbers are confidential, which is understandable: publishing is, after all, a business). The Archives certainly seems to be read. In 2015, the number of downloads increased by 14 % over 2014 and had its second highest level since 2007 (C. Bischoff, personal communication, June 9, 2016).

It is my impression that the Archives is not the only sex/gender journal that has experienced this linear increase in submissions. Currently in the able hands of its Editor, Cynthia Graham, the Journal of Sex Research, for example, had 101 submissions in 2002 and 450 in 2015, a 4.5 increase (this marked increase in submissions is what Graham gets for abandoning me and the Archives to take on this important role). In my opinion, sex/gender research is, in general, flourishing (cf. Zucker, 2002) and we can perhaps mark this with the observation that new journals are starting up at a not infrequent pace. For example, since 2010, I am aware of at least 17 new periodicals that have joined the pack: Biology of Sex Differences (Vol. 1 = 2010); Journal of AIDS and Clinical Research (Vol. 1 = 2012); Journal of Language & Sexuality (Vol. 1 = 2012); Journal of Therapy & Management of HIV Infection (Vol. 1 = 2013); LGBT Health (Vol. 1 = 2013); Partner Abuse (Vol. 1 = 2010); Porn Studies (Vol. 1 = 2014); Psychology of Sexual Orientation & Gender Diversity (Vol. 1 = 2014); Psychology & Sexuality (Vol. 1 = 2010); Psychology of Sexualities Reviews (Vol. 1 = 2010); Sexual Medicine (Vol. 1 = 2013); Sexual Medicine Reviews (Vol. 1 = 2013); Sexualization, Media, & Society (Vol. 1 = 2016); The Empirical Journal of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior (Vol. 1 = 2015); Transgender Health (Vol. 1 = 2016); Transgender Studies Quarterly (Vol. 1 = 2014); Violence and Gender (Vol. 1 = 2014).

Figure 2 shows the Editorial decision data for the original submissions as a function of year (2002–2015). The percentage of manuscripts that were accepted or provisionally accepted ranged from 8.3 to 21.2 %; the percentage of manuscripts that were subject to major revision ranged from 28.4 to 47.5 %; and the percentage of manuscripts that were rejected ranged from 31.2 to 57.7 %. The fate of manuscripts that received an initial recommendation of a major revision is of interest. Around 90 % of manuscripts that are resubmitted to the Journal wind up being accepted for publication. My guestimate is that around 35 % of manuscripts with an initial decision of major revision do not come back to the Journal but I do not know what percentage wind up in the file drawer or are published elsewhere (I could check, but I am not that obsessive).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Manuscript disposition after initial submission (2002–2015)

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Impact Factor

Calculated each year by the Web of Science® (Thomson Reuters), a journal’s impact factor (IF) for a given year is a measure of the frequency with which its recent articles are cited on average during that year. “Recent” refers to the two prior calendar years or the five prior calendar years. Thus, Archives’ 2014 2-year IF is the number of times that its 2012 and 2013 articles were cited in 2014, divided by the number of articles the Archives published in 2012 and 2013 and the 5-year IF is the number of times that its 2009–2013 articles were cited in 2014, divided by the number of articles the Archives published between 2009 and 2013. The 5-year IF was introduced several years ago and one can find data on it going back to 2007.

Although the IF is the best-known metric for citation analysis, there are other measures, including the Immediacy Index (II) and the Cited Half-Life (CHL). The II is a measure of how frequently the journal’s “average article” is cited the same year in which it is published. Thus, the II for a year is calculated as the number of times articles from that journal are cited during that year, divided by the number of articles that journal published that year. The CHL is a measure of the longevity of the frequency of citations to articles in the journal, that is, for how long the average article maintains its currency. The CHL for a year is determined by the time required to account for a cumulative total of 50 % of that year’s citations to the journal.

Tables 1, 2, and 3 show the IF of the sex/gender periodicals, broadly defined, for the years 2012–2014. The order of the journals (except for the Archives) are ranked in descending order as a function of the 5-year IF, not the 2-year IF. For journals that do not yet have a 5-year IF, they are shown near the bottom of each table as a function of their 2-year IF.

Table 1 Impact factor for the year 2012: Sex/gender journals (N = 73) ranked by 5-year impact factor
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Table 2 Impact factor for the year 2013: Sex/gender journals (N = 74) ranked by 5-year impact factor
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Table 3 Impact factor for the year 2014: Sex/gender journals (N = 77) ranked by 5-year impact factor
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During this 3-year period, the 2-year IF of Archives had a decline from 3.28 to 2.58; however, its 5-year IF was more stable, with a range of 3.48–3.55. In 2012, for its 2-year IF, of 3016 Social Science journals, Archives had a rank of 144, at the 95th percentile; in 2013, of 3045 Social Science journals, Archives had a rank of 229, at the 92nd percentile; in 2014, of 3143 Social Science journals, Archives had a rank of 291, at the 91st percentile. The corresponding percentiles for the 5-year IF were virtually identical. In additional comparative perspective, keep in mind that in 2014, the median 2-year IF of all Social Science journals was 0.91 and the median 5-year IF was 1.11.

I cannot say that I have a good explanation for why the 2-year IF has dropped somewhat, whereas the 5-year IF has remained more stable. Presumably, a 5-year IF has better psychometric properties. I have also wondered if the 2014 2-year IF metric was affected by the fact that we are publishing more articles because of the increase from 6 issues to 8 issues (143 articles published in 2013). For an IF to at least remain stable, the numerator must keep up with the denominator. In any case, I started to become more interested in how best to interpret the 2- vs. 5-year IFs. I was intrigued by the fact that Journal of Sexual Medicine has a superior 2-year IF than the Archives (3.28 vs. 3.51; 2.78 vs. 3.15; 2.58 vs. 3.15), but the Archives has a superior 5-year IF (3.50 vs. 3.07; 3.55 vs. 3.22; 3.48 vs. 2.95). Archives’ opposite-sex twin, the Journal of Sex Research, has shown solid increases in both its 2-year (1.94, 2.73, 2.69) and 5-year IFs (2.18, 2.85, 3.10). Indeed, in 2014, its 2-year IF inched out Archives by a margin of 0.11. Occasionally, the less dominant twin wins.

If one peruses Tables 1, 2, and 3, it can be seen that, in general, the biological/biomedical sex/gender journals (e.g., Biology of Sex Differences, Hormones, and Behavior) and many of the HIV/AIDS periodicals do quite well. There is much more of a range for the social science journals, with many well below the median.

Intersectionality

A new feature (at least to me) in the annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) concerns Journal Relationships (“citing” and “cited”). Citing means which journals are cited most frequently by the parent journal and cited means which journals most frequently cite the parent journal. This is somewhat analogous to sexual networks (who sleeps with whom and how much overlap is there). The JCR displays this information in the form of a colored arc and colored chords (I highly recommend taking a look at your favorite parent journals).

As an example, Tables 4 and 5 show, for 2014, the citing and cited data for Archives and the Journal of Sex Research for the top 20 periodicals in their respective networks (these data do not include self-citations). One can see both similarities and differences. For example, Archives cited Journal of Sex Research the most and Journal of Sex Research cited Archives the most.

Table 4 Top 20 journals most cited by Archives of Sexual Behavior and Journal of Sex Research in 2014
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Table 5 Top 20 journals that cited Archives of Sexual Behavior and Journal of Sex Research in 2014
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Similarly, in terms of journals that cited the two parent journals, Archives was cited the most by Journal of Sexual Medicine and Journal of Sex Research and Journal of Sex Research was cited the most by Archives and Journal of Sexual Medicine. Regarding differences, there were 22 unique journals (out of 40) that did not rank in the top 20 for citing articles and 12 unique journals (out of 40) that did not rank in the top 20 for cited articles. Opposite-sex twins indeed.