What's New at JGR-Oceans? Confronting Bias, Burn Out, and Big Data

JGR-Oceans receives many more submissions from a broader demographic of authors than in the past and burnout among reviewers as well as potential bias among editors is threatening excellence and equity at the journal. To confront these issues, we have implemented some new editorial strategies that are anticipated to provide a fairer and more rewarding peer-review experience for authors, as well as alleviate pressure on reviewers and deliver high quality science for readers. First, we have recruited a dozen new editors from across the world who better reflect our author demographic and who can make wiser and more inclusive decisions about the running of the journal. Second, we now require that each manuscript clearly communicate new understanding about the ocean before we send it out for review. This simple rubric deflects potentially biased editorial decisions based on author attributes and brings us closer to the original scope of JGR-Oceans. Third, we are facilitating a culture of collaboration among reviewers and among ourselves, the editors, that brings more balanced decision-making to reviews and manuscripts and provides authors more feedback. Our aim is to better help authors communicate their science with confidence and clarity. Finally, JGR-Oceans has always been a multi-disciplinary journal and we are encouraging more submissions that convey new understanding of biogeochemical processes and human interact ocean variability and change. Key Points JGR-Oceans has diversified the editorial board and implemented new editorial strategies