Editor's Page

JOE by the Numbers

As usual this time of year, I report on the previous year's acceptance rate, submission rate, and readership rate. I also announce a new kind of JOE number--the article number.

Acceptance Rate

In 2004, the acceptance rate for JOE articles was 48%. In 2003, it was 52.5%.

Submission Rate

In 2004, JOE received 279 submissions. This is 23 submissions more than our previous all-time high, reached in 2003.

Readership Rate

JOE readership rate continues to rise. In 2004, there were 1,055,639 "visitors" to the JOE site who viewed 2,610,120 pages. This compares to 776,333 visitors who viewed 1,691,722 pages in 2003.

These numbers all say something about the growing popularity of the Web and even more about the success of JOE as the refereed journal for Extension professionals.

Article Numbers & Citing Them

Starting with this issue, articles published in JOE will be assigned article numbers that are unique across a volume (or year) of the journal. Thus, the first Commentary in the February 2005 JOE is article number 1COM1, the first Feature is 1FEA1, the first Research in Brief is 1RIB1, the first Ideas at Work is 1IAW1, and the first Tools of the Trade is 1TOT1. The April issue's first Commentary will be 2COM1 and so on.

Most documentation systems have conventions governing the citation of electronic documents, including the use of article numbers, and I encourage you to consult them for guidance.

As for how to cite JOE articles from February 2005 onward in JOE, itself, the correct format is:

Fehlis, C. P. (2005). A call for visionary leadership. Journal of Extension [On-line], 43(1) Article 1COM1. Available at: http://www.joe/org/joe/2005february/comm1.shtml

February JOE

Two themes seem to run through a number of the articles in this issue: the need for leadership and tradition as a possible constraint.

In "A Call for Visionary Leadership," Fehlis declares that, "the future for Extension is what we create through leaders who have a vision for what Extension might look like, how we will function, and how we will serve the needs of our customers."

In "A Snapshot of the Change Agent States for Diversity Project," Ingram maintains that "leadership from the top is key in the organizational change process."

In "County Level Extension Programming: Continuity and Change in the Alabama Cooperative Extension System," Robinson, Dubois, and Bailey conclude that "initiatives to change program priorities are unlikely to begin at the county level."

It's the first part of their conclusion that brings us to the second theme, what Robinson et al. describe as "the continued dominance of traditional programs," namely, those targeted at production agriculture.

Fehlis sounds a similar note when he says that "we cannot have leaders who constrain Extension to serving only production agriculture and to working only in rural areas" and that "our future depends upon the leaders of these land-grant universities learning from Extension's past achievements, but not allowing our future success to be hampered or held hostage by the past."

In "Extension Staff Response to Increased Programming for At-Risk Audiences," a study to identify and examine individual and organizational assumptions that contribute to or inhibit Extension staff in Iowa, Klemme, Hausafus, and Shirer talk about the "basic assumption that agriculture is the primary focus of the organization."

Finally, in "Extension as a Delivery System for Prevention Programming: Capacity, Barriers, and Opportunities," Hill and Parker have a different slant on tradition when they suggest that "capacity will be enhanced by reducing the perceived dichotomy between 'prevention' programming and 'traditional' Extension programming."

We have a proud tradition and history in Extension, and these articles raise the issue of how to relate to it. They suggest that leadership is key.

Laura Hoelscher, Editor
joe-ed@joe.org