The 2014 “State of the Journal” report

SoSyM continues to experience a high number of submissions. In 2014, 295 manuscripts were submitted, of which 69% were reviewed for regular issues, while the other 31% were submitted for special or theme sections or the industry voice column. The average number of days from submission to a final decision (that is, a final accept or reject) was 221days. It should be noted that this time includes the time authors spend on making major and subsequent minor revisions (typically 4–5months). The number of weeks to online publication of an accepted paper is between 3 and 4weeks. To better manage the screening of this high number of submissions, we have introduced three associate Editors-inChief, namely Marsha Chechik, Martin Gogolla, and JeanMarc Jezequel. They are primarily responsible for screening new submissions and assigning regular papers to members of the editorial board. In summary, the submission process is in a good shape and with the help of the associate EICs we hope to improve upon its effectiveness. The overall acceptance rate is 21% for regular papers and 47% for special or theme section papers. The latter number, however, does not reflect the early rejections in the process that lead to the special or theme section at all and thus can be considered adequate. Due to the growing submissions in the last years, the publication pipeline increased above one year.