...
- Is space weather a discipline that can be sustained over the long term?
- Will it bring in new contributors, readers, and members?
- Can the community expand to accommodate the new journal?
- Will it detract from JGRA?
- It may do better as electronic only.
- Could solar physics be added to the list of stakeholders?
- Could it be co-marketed with AIAA and IEEE?
- Gather statistics on weather journals in meteorology.
- The journal would have to function under AGU's AGU’s Publications Committee, as other AGU journals.
...
By February 2002, the Publications Committee was looking favorably on the launch of the new journal, but was still deliberating on whether it should be an all-electronic publication. With Steve Cole's Cole’s help at AGU, the concept of creating a "hybrid" “hybrid” publication was proposed. He developed a revised proposal for the journal concept, and also conducted a survey at the Spring 2002 AGU meeting. The response to that survey was overwhelmingly positive. Paul Song presented the plan in one of the sessions and asked for a show of hands. More than 70 percent of attendees said they liked the idea. Of 25 AGU members who submitted formal responses, 90 percent said the journal would be helpful to them.
...
In December 2002, AGU asked the Space Weather Advisory Group to nominate people to be on the Editorial Advisory Board for the new journal. Invitation letters went out in January 2003. Board members were assigned to initial two-year terms. The role of the Advisory Board was "to “to encourage submissions to the publication, foster communications with the diverse audiences that are the intended readers and authors of the publication, and advise the editor on editorial content."”
AGU issued a press release in February 2003 announcing the launch of the new journal. The first edition was published in March.
...
At the outset and for several years a significant effort was expended in recruiting the types of technical articles that fit the scope of the journal. It was hard (and still can be) to get articles that do not parrot the JGR style and content. Significant editorial suggestions are required for perhaps 20%-25% of the technical papers received before they go to peer review and the editor edits closely all of the non-technical articles. These interactions were critical to ensure the final product is readily accessible by the intended audience while also being absolutely technically sound.
Wiki Markup
At the start and for some six or seven years there was a small budget for freelance writers for non-technical news and Features as needed. This was utilized on start up, but decreased as the editors have largely been able to solicit enough non-technical material from Space Weather practitioners that the use of freelancers ceased in 2009 or 2010.
...