[Whi] WHI Special Issue Journal Publication.

[Whole Heliosphere Interval]

Dear WHI Participants.

We're happy to say that the second Whole Heliosphere Interval (WHI) Workshop produced more exciting results, and we'd like to produce a special journal issue on WHI science.  Papers on science relevant to WHI are also very welcome.

During the last solar minimum, the Whole Sun Month (WSM) campaign (generally considered a precursor to WHI) had a special issue on the results of the campaign.  The papers in the WSM special issues have a high citation count; for several of the authors their WSM paper is one of their most cited.

At the second WHI workshop, the participants voted that Springer Press’s journal "Solar Physics" would be the optimal for these publications.  We realize that Solar Physics may not be the best journal for geospace publications, and this was a major concern for us.  However, Solar Physics will publish the papers without any publication fees (open access costs $3k though), and they are very flexible when it comes to the editorial process.  For those who are concerned about the choice of this journal, we've listed below several other factors that hopefully will convince you that it's worthwhile to publish geospace results to Solar Physics.

The approximate timeline is as follows:
- Initial interest and intent to submit: 09 December 2009 (this isn't required, but if you are interested please E-Mail us ASAP, if possible);
- Author list, abstracts, and three suggested referees: 29 January 2010;
- Full paper submission: 28 June 2010;
- Issue publication (estimate): November/December 2010.

However, we'd really appreciate if you could tell us now if you're considering submitting a paper so we can start getting a picture of what to expect.  Additionally, we would appreciate if you could extend this invitation to any researchers with results that are related or relevant to WHI, including the present solar minimum.

Please consider publishing your WHI results in this special issue - it's a wonderful opportunity!

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you soon,

Mario Bisi and Barbara Thompson - Topical Issue Guest Editors
(mmbisi at ucsd.edu and barbara.j.thompson at nasa.gov)


Addendum: Positive aspects of publishing the WHI special issue in Solar Physics...
- No publication costs (free pages and free color);
- Solar Physics explicitly lists "solar-terrestrial physics" as part of its science focus;
- The name of the journal in which a paper is published is getting increasingly transparent;
- An increasing number of papers are accessed online through abstract searches, and citations in these papers are linked directly to the cited papers;
- Flexible editorial process.  Other journals generally have "hard" rules, and don't make exceptions for a special issue, such as when one or more of the papers is/are delayed.  Anyone who has edited a special issue will know how tough it can be;
- Geospace researchers have the opportunity to gain exposure in another community (many may find this a minor consideration);
- Solar Physics has the same "impact factor" to JGR (i.e. citations in 2007 of papers published in 2005 and 2006/number of papers), indicating that the papers get the same amount of exposure (though, of course, the communities that read these journals are not necessarily the same).