Electronic Liquid Crystal Communications
Rationale:
The purpose of e-LC is to provide the liquid crystal
community with rapid access to the most recent research results in advance of
their publication in journals.
e-LC proposes to employ a
new procedure of acceptance and review which allows posting of the document
within one week of submission.
Format:
All documents will be published in PDF format. In addition to
their direct content, PDF documents can contain links to movies and other
resources on the authors' server.
Timelines:
All documents will be either accepted and posted or rejected within
one week of submission.
Submission:
Documents for posting in e-LC will be submitted only
electronically in PDF format. Guidelines for the preparation and submission of
documents will be provided online.
Criteria:
The submitted work should present new results of interest to
the community. All aspects of the work (scientific results, language, presentation) should be of high quality to merit posting.
Gatekeeping:
The gatekeeping process will have
one of two outcomes: a document submitted to e-LC will either be
accepted for posting without change, or it will be rejected. There will be no
detailed response; the authors will be informed either that their submission
has been accepted for posting, or that it is not suitable for posting.
Reviewers:
Submitted documents will first go to one of the two Editors,
who will forward the document to the appropriate Associate Editor. Associate
Editors of e-LC will decide if a submitted document is to be accepted or
rejected.
Peer Assessment:
e-LC allows comments to be posted following each
accepted document, and allows readers to assign a rating. Comments can be made
on the document or other comments, forming threads.
The rating, as well as the number of reviewers, will be
displayed, together with the abstract. The corresponding author will receive
notice via e-mail when a new comment on the document is added.
Copyright:
e-LC will not hold copyright on the posted documents.
It will require that submitting authors:
This allows the authors to retain copyright, and to publish in print elsewhere.
Contributors to e-LC are encouraged to publish work posted
on e-LC in Journals. Authors
need to be aware that Copyright Agreements of certain Journals,
such as Physical Review Journals, require that authors ensure the establishment
of a link to their paper on the server of that journal. e-LC is pleased to
provide such a link for each posted document, together with a notice of publication
in the Journal. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to inform
the Editors of e-LC of the publication, and to provide the information required
to set up the link.
Organization:
e-LC will be managed by the Senior Editor and Editor,
acting on the advice of the Editorial Board, and working with the Associate
Editors in processing submitted documents.
Affiliation:
e-LC has requested recognition as an official organ of
the International Liquid Crystal Society at ILCC 2002. This request is
currently under consideration.
Facilites:
The server for e-LC is located at the Liquid Crystal
Institute,
Systems analyst: L. Holmberg (holmberg@lci.kent.edu)
Access:
e-LC will be free with
unrestricted access. It will be fully searchable (by words in abstract, author
and title fields, and by volume and issue numbers.)