On to 2020

According to the Gregorian calendar, January 1, 2020 is the beginning of a new decade. In 2021, Archives will celebrate its 50th birthday.

As the Journal enters a new decade, its growth continues: When I became Editor in 2002, we had 80 new submissions. In 2017, we hit a milestone of sorts: surpassing 500 new submissions for the first time (at 511) (Zucker, 2018). In 2018, we had 547 new submissions and in 2019 we had 577 (Fig. 1). Closing in on 600. The increase in submissions has necessitated that we continue to grow our Editorial Board. Accordingly, I am pleased to announce that, in 2020, four new Associate Editors have been appointed: Cecilia Benoit, Joshua Grubbs, Kathryn Macapagal, and David Puts. They join Sophie Bergeron, Lori Brotto, Brian Dodge, Shari Dworkin, Christina Dyar, Brian Feinstein, Lisa Dawn Hamilton, Roland Imhoff, Tuuli Kukkonen, Kevin Nunes, Natalie Rosen, Alexander Schmidt, Lori Scott-Sheldon, and Paul Vasey, giving us a total of 18. After 5 years of service, Meredith Chivers and Brian Mustanski have stepped down and returned to the Editorial Board at large. Jeffrey Parsons has also stepped down, after serving 9 years. In addition to our new Associate Editors, I am delighted to have appointed 18 new members to the Editorial Board itself: Heather Armstrong, Rachel Calogero, Serena Corsini–Munt, Emily Harris, Kevin Hsu, Kristen Jozkowski, Nathan Leonhardt, Jessica Maxwell, Justin Mogilski, Brad Sagarin, Shayna Skakoon–Sparling, Tim van de Grift, Anna van der Miesen, Johanna van Oosten, Laura Vandenbosch, Lisa Welling, Malachi Willis, and Jessica Wood. Although the Journal also relies heavily on non-Board members to provide reviews, the Editorial Board is indispensable for the Journal’s well-being.

Fig. 1
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Number of submissions (2012–2019)

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In 2020, the Archives as a three-dimensional entity will move to an endangered species status. For members of the International Academy of Sex Research, print copies of the Journal will be available only to those who want to pay extra for it ($80/year); everyone else in the IASR and on the Editorial Board will have free electronic access. I guess this will result in the saving of a few trees. The Editor apparently will still receive print issues gratis.

Target Articles

Under Paul Vasey’s leadership, we inaugurated by invitation the Target Article series (Vasey & Zucker, 2016). In 2019, we published six Target Articles (Benoit, Smith, Jansson, Healey, & Magnuson, 2019; Cherkasskaya & Rosario, 2019; Frank, 2019; Grubbs, Perry, Wilt, & Reid, 2019; Leonhardt, Spencer, Butler, & Theobald, 2019; Luoto, Krams, & Rantala, 2019).

Six new Target Articles are currently online first and will be published in 2020 print issues, along with commentaries and author response (Brady, Connor, Chaisson, Sharif Mohamed, & Robinson, 2019; Connor, Brady, Chaisson, Sharif Mohamed, & Robinson, 2019; Feinstein, 2019; Lalumière, Sawatsky, Dawson, & Suschinsky, 2019; Pfau, Jordan, & Breedlove, 2019; Ziogas, Habermeyer, Santtila, Poeppl, & Mokros, 2019). Researchers interested in proposing a Target Article should contact Dr. Vasey at paul.vasey@uleth.ca

Special Sections

In 2019, we published two special sections: Bisexual Health (Guest Edited by Brian M. Dodge and Wendy Bostwick) and Clinical Approaches to Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria (Guest Edited by Heino F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg). The current issue has a special section: Social and Behavioral Science with Gay and Bisexual Men in the Era of Biomedical Prevention (Guest Edited by Michael Newcomb and H. Jonathon Rendina). Three special sections are currently in the works.

Manuscript Disposition (2017–2018)

Table 1 shows Editorial decision data for initial submissions for 2017 and 2018 as a function of who handled them (2019 data are not yet available) (see also Fig. 2). Table 1 does not include Target Article submissions handled by Vasey. From Table 1, it can be seen that the percentage of “rejected” manuscripts was 54.0% in 2017 and 53.3% in 2018. It can also be seen that there was variability, as a function of the “handler,” in the percentage of declined submissions. Of course, this could reflect variation in the standards of the Editor/Associate Editors and the reviewers assigned to the manuscripts; however, it is my view that most of the variance is accounted for by the quality of submissions, which varies across specialty areas. For contributing authors, it is important to note that when manuscripts are given the designation of a Major Revision, the vast majority (of those that are resubmitted) are accepted for publication (it is quite uncommon for a Major Revision to be declined after resubmission: to quote a colleague, “It happens,” but not very often). This means that the initial decision indicates that the author has a “foot in the door” and that if she, he or they can successfully respond to the first round of reviews, it means that the manuscript is very likely to be accepted for publication.

Table 1 Editorial decisions for initial submissions (2017 and 2018)
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Fig. 2
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Manuscript disposition after initial submission (2002–2018)

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Impact Factor (2017–2018)

Tables 2, 3, 4, and 5 show the impact factor (IF) data for the years 2017 and 2018 for 89–90 sex/gender journals in the annual Web of Science/Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics). Tables 2 and 4 rank the journals as a function of their 2-year IF, and Tables 3 and 5 rank the journals as a function of their 5-year IF. Two sex/gender journals made their appearance for the first time in IF rankings: Psychology & Sexuality in 2017 and International Journal of Transgenderism in 2018.Footnote 1

Table 2 Impact factor for the year 2017: Sex- and gender-related journals ranked by 2-year impact factor (N = 89)
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Table 3 Impact factor for the year 2017: Sex- and gender-related journals ranked by 5-year impact factor (N = 89)
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For the uninitiated to this treasure trove of numbers, a journal’s 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’ 2017 2-year IF is the number of times that its 2015 and 2016 articles were cited in 2017, divided by the number of articles the Archives published in 2015 and 2016, and the 5-year IF is the number of times that its 2012–2016 articles were cited in 2017, divided by the number of articles the Archives published between 2012 and 2016. 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.

In 2017, 3304 journals in the Social Sciences received IF ratings. The median 2-year IF was 1.27 and the median 5-year IF was 1.60. From Table 2, it can be seen that Journal of Homosexuality was at the 1.27 median for the 2-year IF, and in Table 3, it can be seen that Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare was at the 1.60 median for the 5-year IF. In 2018, 3377 journals in the Social Sciences received IF ratings. The median 2-year IF was 1.39 and the median 5-year IF was 1.71. From Table 4, it can be seen that Sexual Health was just above the median for the 2-year IF, and from Table 5, it can be seen that Evolutionary Psychology was just above the median for the 5-year IF. For 2017, Archives was ranked at the 92.6th percentile for the 2-year IF and at the 87.9th percentile for the 5-year IF. For 2018, Archives was ranked at the 87.8th percentile for the 2-year IF and at the 84.8th percentile for the 5-year IF.

Table 4 Impact factor for the year 2018: Sex- and gender-related journals ranked by 2-year impact factor (N = 90)
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Table 5 Impact factor for the year 2018: Sex- and gender-related journals ranked by 5-year impact factor (N = 87)
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It can also be seen in Tables 2 and 4 that the Archives is publishing a lot of articles/year: 183 in 2017 and 190 in 2018. These numbers are notably higher than many of the other sex/gender social science periodicals (e.g., Evolution and Human Behavior: 89 and 75, respectively; Journal of Sex Research: 56 and 93, respectively; Psychology of Women Quarterly, 33 and 30, respectively; and Sexual Abuse: 32 and 45, respectively). We even published more articles than Journal of Sexual Medicine (169 and 179, respectively). Of course, quantity does not equal quality. Moreover, one should recognize that to “maintain” an IF the numerator must keep pace with the denominator. On this point, we seem to be doing just fine and our initial disposition decisions have remained fairly constant over the years (see Fig. 2). I hope the readers of Archives will enjoy perusing these tables as much as I enjoy preparing them each year.